THE FIRE had dwindled to a soft, pulsing orange when the first sign of trouble arrived. It wasn't the Council. It wasn't an assassin.
It was a goat.
Specifically, a very large, very persistent goat that had decided the cottage's porch was its new administrative headquarters.
A sharp clack-clack-clack of hooves on wood shattered the silence of the night, followed by a rhythmic, demanding thump against the door.
Grayson was on his feet before his eyes were even fully open. He didn't reach for a blade—he'd left that behind on the hearth days ago—but he did move with that dangerous, coiled fluidity that usually preceded a neck-snapping event.
"Grayson?" Mailah murmured, blinking awake as he loomed over the threshold, his chest heaving with phantom adrenaline.
"The perimeter," he hissed, his hand hovering over the door bolt. "Someone is testing the structural integrity of the entrance."
"It's three in the morning," she groaned, pulling the quilt up to her chin. "Who would be—"
