Chapter 134: The Trap Springs
The old apothecary stank of ash and old blood by the time Magnolia stepped through its crooked doorway. The air was heavy with the hush of unsaid prayers, thick enough that her wolf bristled under her ribs, restless against the thin ward stitched into her bones. She pressed one palm flat to her stomach, feeling the echo of Beckett’s heartbeat brushing against her own through the blood sigil.
Outside, the estate groaned in the dark , beams creaking under the weight of too many secrets stacked on top of rotten foundations. Snow rattled at the cracked windows, a whisper of something pure pressing against the rot that waited inside.
Sterling stood in the center of the circle Celeste had carved all those years ago. He looked almost human in the hush , boots scuffed, shoulders loose, hair damp where melting snow dripped down from the collar of his coat. But his eyes glowed faintly in the candlelight. Wrong. Too deep. Too hungry.
"You’re late," he said, voice curling around her like smoke from a dying fire.
Magnolia shrugged out of her cloak, letting it drop at the threshold. "You’re early."
Sterling’s smile was all teeth, too white against the bruises still blooming at his jawline. "Couldn’t sleep."
She stepped forward, boots scuffing over the lines of the old runes etched into the stone. The wards hummed at the edge of her senses, flickering against her skin like a lover’s hand hovering just shy of touch.
"Did you come alone?" Sterling asked.
Magnolia tilted her head, the strands of her braid brushing her shoulder. "You’d know if I didn’t."
His grin twitched wider. "I would."
Beckett’s promise pulsed at the back of her mind , a heartbeat that didn’t belong to her, coiled tight as wire. She felt him behind the walls, tucked into the hush like a blade hidden in a boot. If Sterling so much as sniffed out the lie, Beckett would break his spine before the Elder’s poison could finish the job.