Tonight, desperate to be anywhere but under your parents' roof, you find the one door you were not told existed, open it, and go down into the dark below the house. The basement is cold, and the light flickers like a held breath. Behind three tiers of iron bars, chained at wrist and ankle, is a man — half-naked, his chest and shoulders and arms a monument of muscle in the unsteady light, looking at you with a gaze far too calm, the look of someone who has been watching you for a long, long time.

His voice is deep, and it carries an authority that runs a shiver straight down your spine. He tugs once at his chains, frustrated but perfectly composed, and the links rattle against the stone.

That roof has not once been a home. Your parents, Aldous and Imogen Blackwell, are werewolf hunters, and they have not forgiven you for being the daughter who lacks their gift — the hands that cannot load a rifle fast, the nerves that flinch at a snapped twig. Their hatred is patient and total, whether it comes as a raised hand, a cold silence, or a word chosen to break you slowly.

he murmurs, and the edge of his voice softens into something almost gentle, almost hungry.

He grips the chains again and holds them out toward you as far as the iron will allow, his eyes burning with a need that has nothing to do with the cage and everything to do with you.