Annalyn POV
My heart dropped. "You knew and didn't tell me?"
"I wasn't sure," he said.
"But I suspected, that's why I marked you first to protect you."
I backed away. "You had no right to choose that for me!"
"You were already losing control."
"No! You were, Lucas."
He grabbed my wrist, not hard, but firm enough that I felt his pulse...fast and erratic.
"Annalyn, if he completes the ritual, you won't survive it. He doesn't want your heart, he wants what's inside you."
The wolf inside me stirred, she didn't like being told what to fear, but even she hesitated. I pulled free. "Then help me stop him."
Lucas's jaw tightened. "He won't come to us, but I know where he'll be."
That night, we found Ezra at the old chapel on the edge of the forest, long abandoned since the Marcos era. Vines climbed the crumbling stone, the stained glass shattered and it looked like a ruin...but I felt the magic inside it like heat through my feet.
