Chapter 4

POV: Clara

The library was supposed to be safe.

She told herself that as she pushed the returns cart down the aisle, the smell of dust and old paper settling around her like a second skin. Here, she was in control. Here, she had order: call numbers, and spines aligned in perfect rows, and silence save the crackle of turning pages.

But the silence was too sharp today. The buzz of fluorescent overheads was deafening. The scratch of a patron’s pen at the circulation desk sounded in her ears like gunfire.

She rubbed at her temple and kept on shelving. It’s okay. It’s just your imagination. Just tiredness.

Except her body wasn’t listening to her. Her stomach rolled again, that same roiling nausea as this morning. There was a pulse beating low in her belly, a throb of ache and warning. Without thinking, her free hand wandered down, palm coming to rest lightly on her stomach.

It was an automatic gesture, and she yanked her hand back like she’d been caught. “God,” she hissed, shaking her head. “You’re insane.”

The cart squeaked down the aisle, too fast.

“Excuse me?”

Clara jumped. A man leaned casually at the end of the row, a slip of paper in his hand. He was harmless—late thirties, clean-cut, newcomer to town—and yet his sudden proximity made her stomach lurch.

“I’m looking for this book?” he asked, leaning over the top of the shelves, slip in hand.

Her nerves were raw. She jerked away, words sharper than she intended. “I said wait a second.”

The man stopped, head tilting, eyes going wide. The slip of paper quivered in his fingers. “I—umm sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Her breath caught. Heat flooded her cheeks. “I—no, it’s okay, I just—”

She broke off. Because suddenly, there was a shift in the air.

That smell, the pine and musk and wildness of it. It sifted through the dusty silence around her. She could not possibly have imagined it. She was not that irrational. But there was no denying the hair on her arms springing up on high alert.

Her pulse quickened, stuttered. She shoved the cart away and mumbled an excuse to the startled patron before bolting down the aisle.

In the breakroom, she flung the door closed, slamming both hands on the counter with a crash. Her heart was racing, slamming against her ribs. She didn’t even have to look to know he was there.

Her body was betraying her, before her mind could fight it: the prickling of her skin, her thighs throbbing, belly cinched tight like a predator had reached inside her and claimed her as his own. Her nipples hardened against her blouse, the material suddenly an affront. She wrenched her eyes shut, shaking her head. “No,” she told herself, harsh, “this is madness.”

But the harder she refused it, the more vivid the memory became. Daniel’s mouth on her breast, his low growl sending tremors through her bones, the way he’d swelled inside her so completely she could not think—not even if she wanted to. Heat flushed over her, hot and shameful. Her hand slid down again, palms coming to rest against her stomach as if she could root herself to the ground before the storm.

“Stop it,” she muttered, angry at her weakness.

And then Rob’s face came to mind, ugly and sharp like a shadow cast across her eyelids. His hand coming down on her wrist, bruises she kept covered under sweaters. His words: You’re lucky I even want you. Her body shuddered as though he’d struck her then. But worse—worse was how that memory tangled with Daniel’s touch, her flesh unable to separate past and present, shame and need. She gasped, nails biting into the counter as she tried to anchor herself. “Stop it!” she said louder this time, and the noise bounced off the small breakroom walls too harshly.

Her chest rose and fell. Sweat slid down her temple.

The knock startled her upright. The man from before peeked around the door, warily. “Miss? You’re all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said too quickly, too sharp. “Headache.”

His gaze flicked to her flushed skin, the way she was gripping the counter. He looked like he wanted to say more, but he just nodded and left her to it.

Clara exhaled shakily, forehead coming to rest on the cool metal of the sink.

But she was not alone. She could feel him. The scent hung in the air, faint but unmistakable. He was near. Watching. Waiting. Her entire body knew, even when her brain screamed the opposite. Her thighs clamped together with instinct, shame coloring her cheeks. “You’re not here,” she whispered into the quiet, words trembling. “You’re not.”

She wobbled back into the main room, cart shelving left unfinished. The quiet closed in around her like a weight, and every creak of the old building had her flinching.

Every time a shadow shifted at the corner of her vision, her heart leapt. When the air-conditioning kicked on, she jumped like it was a gunshot. She could barely focus on the book spines before her, eyes dragging repeatedly to the front-facing windows as if she’d spotted his golden eyes in the glass.

She managed another hour before closing time, everything a blur. Nerves so raw she could barely move, barely breathe.

When she stepped outside, the sun had set. The parking lot stretched wide and empty, lamps flickering with a buzz. Her car sat at the far end, in the shadow of a dying oak tree.

She wrapped her arms around herself and started across the asphalt.

Halfway there, she stopped.

There was a low growl. A growl not of a human but of an animal. Violent. It pulsed up through her shoes into her bones. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck, her instincts screaming RUN, even as her body refused to budge. For a heartbeat, she was in Rob’s kitchen again, that low growl in his throat before the tempest of his rage. She swallowed, knees weak. But this sound was deeper. Wilder. Predatory.

It faded as quickly as it’d come, replaced by a silence so oppressive it crowded into her lungs. She stumbled the rest of the way to her car, keys rattling in the lock with shaky hands.

Inside, she slammed the door shut, heart thundering.

She stared into the rearview mirror, breathing harshly. The parking lot was empty. Trees swayed gently in the breeze, shadows spilling across cracked pavement.

But she knew.

Daniel Blackwood was out there. Watching. Marking his territory in the only way he knew how.

And worse—she couldn’t even be sure if the growl she’d heard had been his… or if something else had smelled her and come for her.