The Rivers Will Run Red

Excerpt

The Rivers Will Run Red
Keira North © 2025
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

Girl Who Cried Wolf

“When the blood moon rises, beware of the pricolici.”

— From the wisdom of werewolf hunters in Crișana-Banat

“It’s here, I swear,” Luca said. “Just a little farther.”

With a small nod, Ileana said, “Uh-huh.”

Her companion couldn’t see that, of course. He was already charging ahead through the underbrush, so she had no choice but to follow, pulling her ratty cardigan tighter around her bony shoulders. She was all of thirteen and outgrowing her old clothes faster than she could get new hand-me-downs. Whatever survived her nightly escapades usually found its way to her younger sister, Tamara, much to the latter’s chagrin.

Luca didn’t need to worry about the cold. He wore a thick, fur-padded coat that molded perfectly to his slim body. A boy of fifteen, more nimble than strong and taller than Ileana by a head, his hair was wheat-colored and unruly, and he had piercing blue eyes and thick brows that made him look like he was always frowning. Ileana felt a strange flutter in her stomach whenever he looked her way. She wanted him to look at her but also not, and she found the whole thing equal parts vexing and confusing.

Luca was already blooded too. On a family hunting trip to the southern reaches of Oltenia, he’d found and killed a moroi, a risen dead who’d been walking around for so long it was more bone than corpse. Luca talked about it like he’d offed the great Impaler himself. Still, his one kill trumped Ileana’s none.

Despite the full moon crossing the night sky somewhere above, the jumble of branches overhead cast a dense shroud over the sodden, uneven ground. Where Luca moved with the sure step of a journeyman hunter, Ileana had to stop and feel her way around tree stumps and patches of half-melted snow, pushing her long bangs out of her face every other step. Her hair was a dark, muddy brown in the sunlight. Here, under the canopy, it was black, and thick, and annoying.

“C’mon!” Luca shouted from somewhere ahead.

She walked faster, or at least as fast as her skinny legs could carry her. Where Luca was growing like a weed, Ileana was more of the short persuasion. For now, she’d tell herself whenever she looked in the mirror, standing on tiptoe and tilting her chin up.

A soft patch of earth gave way under her foot. With a startled yell, she fell forward, arms flailing in search of something to stop her fall. She felt a sting across the back of her right hand when she scraped it against the rough bark of a tree, but at least she’d stopped herself before she tumbled forward and scraped her knees too. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, swiftly followed by shame. She sniffled and bit her lower lip. Cradling her injured hand with her good one, she scurried ahead.

Soon, the trees dwindled away and the ground sloped gently downward toward a small pond, its ragged edges obscured by a dense thicket of cattails and pickerel weeds. With nothing to blot it out, the moon shone bright, its light tracing sparkling ripples across the water.

Pretty, Ileana thought.

And then, stealing a glance at her companion, He’s pretty too.

Luca was waiting for her by the water, toying with his hunting knife, his hair shimmering like threads of spun gold. He caught her eye and grinned wide, tossing the knife up in the air. He caught it by the tip, then tossed it again, catching it by the handle this time. The blade flashed in the moonlight. It looked like silver. Good for werewolves and basilisks, Ileana’s mind supplied, a rote response. She had her own knife stashed away in her boot, but the blade was steel, not silver. She rarely parted with it these days. Like a real hunter.

“Over there,” Luca said, turning away from her to wave his hand toward whatever they’d come here to find.

Ileana turned to follow the line of his finger to where he was pointing. She spotted a storm drain on the other side of the pond, an old, battered thing with bits of rebar poking through the crumbling concrete. She’d ventured inside a few times over the years. The way was barred by a sturdy metal grill some twenty paces in, but that hadn’t stopped her from pretending she was descending deep into another realm in search of glimmering treasure and forbidden magick. That was all make-believe, though, and she was done with it now that she was well on her way to being a grown-up. Hunters didn’t waste their time with make-believe. They found it, and they killed it.

“What’s there?” she asked.

“It’s a wolf,” the boy said, “and I’m gonna kill it.”

A gust of wind tickled them from the side, poking through Ileana’s cardigan and the flimsy shirt underneath. She stuck her hands deep into her pockets, hissing as the wound on the back of her hand scraped against the rough fabric.

“A wolf?” she said, her eyes flicking back to the drain. “Just the one?”

“Maybe it got lost, I dunno.”

“So how do you know it’s a wolf?” Ileana pressed. “It could be just a stray dog or—”

“Because I saw it, all right? Earlier, when I was…” The boy’s face twisted in a scowl that was more comical than angry.

“When you were, what?”

“Gramma sent me looking for frogs again.” He shuffled his foot.

Ileana snorted a laugh. “So, the mighty hunter went out to whack some toads with a stick. How’d you fare on that perilous adventure?”

“They taste good, okay? And, and anyway, that’s not—it doesn’t matter. I know there’s a wolf in there, and I’m gonna kill it and make something from its pelt.”

“You’re going to kill the wolf with a knife?” Ileana said, her left eyebrow quirking higher than the right one. “They’re stronger than humans, y’know. Faster too.”

“Don’t be stupid, Leana. This is what I’m gonna kill it with.” Speaking, Luca pulled aside his woolen coat enough to show her the revolver tucked into his waistband.

Ileana had seen that gun before, on an ornate plaque above the mantelpiece in Luca’s ancestral home on the other side of the hill. She’d asked one of her cousins to hold her up so she could look at it once, when she was smaller, and she remembered it clearly. The grip was silver with intricate bone inlays, a relic of a time when craftsmanship was still a thing. Luca’s family could trace their lineage all the way back to Aron Vulpe—Aron the Fox—the famed hunter who’d driven the vampires of the Țepeș clan from the hillsides of Crișana-Banat and into the far reaches of the Carpathian Mountains. Three hundred years later, their coffers still ran deep.

“Does your dad know you took that?” she asked, a hint of unease tinging her words. She’d seen the bruises on the boy’s face and wrists more than once.

He flashed her another grin. “I’ll have it back before he knows it’s gone. And you’re not gonna tell on me, yeah?”

“Maybe I won’t, if you ask me nice.” The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind, but Luca didn’t need to know that.

He pursed his lips. “If you’re gonna be like that, you can go home already.”

“But I already know,” Ileana said smugly.

“Then I’ll—I’ll make you something nice from its pelt, how about that?”

“I’ll kill my own,” she said, sweet as it was to think about getting a gift from him. “Or maybe I’ll kill a werewolf and take its pelt. And I won’t do it with some rusty old gun.”

He scoffed, looking her over. “Yeah, right. Maybe in a year or two.”

Ileana bristled at that. Every night, when her family went to sleep, she snuck out into the woods behind her home, Nightshade Lodge, and hacked and slashed until her arms grew so tired she couldn’t raise them anymore, practicing her knife throwing and fending off imaginary beasts. And she was getting good, she could tell.

That was where Luca had found her earlier tonight. “I wanna show you something,” he’d told her, and she’d let him talk her into coming along. Mostly because there was something about him that made her want to punch him in his stupidly handsome face and then kiss it all better. Not that she’d ever kissed anyone before, but she’d read about it in a book, and it didn’t sound all that bad.

The object of her secret thoughts snapped his fingers right under her nose, yanking her back into the present with a startled, “Huh?”

“I said, I’m going. You can stay here if you’re scared.”

“Pfft. I’m not scared. But,” she said after a moment, “are you sure—”

“Good. Let’s go.” He started ahead without waiting to hear the rest of the objection.

They circled around the pond, squelching through the shallow mud. Cold water seeped into Ileana’s right boot, which had a sizable crack snaking its way across the sole. She sniffed and stomped her foot a little harder. You won’t get the best of me, boot.

The storm drain gaped ahead of them, gray concrete melting away into a pool of darkness that stretched well beyond where the eye could see. The ground in front of it was rocky and didn’t carry any tracks, so Ileana couldn’t tell what, if anything, had gone inside.

A shiver stole over her. That didn’t mean there wasn’t anything there.

Luca stopped a few steps away from the mouth of the drain and pulled the revolver from his waistband. She watched him open the cylinder to check that it was loaded. He nodded to himself and snapped the cylinder shut, then spun it for good measure.

He looked like he knew what he was doing. Still, Ileana asked, “Are those silver bullets?”

Luca gave her a genuinely puzzled look. “No, what for?”

He knew what he was doing…right?

The wind picked up again, nudging them from behind this time. Ileana pushed her bangs out of her face and shivered, clenching her jaw so her teeth wouldn’t chatter. She almost started to say something—This was a bad idea, Luca. Let’s go back.—when something stirred deep inside the concrete tunnel, and all thought of words vanished from her mind.

“What’d I tell you? There it is,” Luca whispered, pointing with his revolver.

A deep growl rumbled from the darkness, bouncing off the concrete walls.

Ileana froze, an icy terror spreading from her core into her limbs.

“Luca,” she whispered, pushing the name past the sudden dryness in her throat. “That didn’t sound like a wolf.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the boy said, although he, too, looked a little paler in the moonlight. “Stay behind me, okay? If it tries to come at us, I’ll just shoot it.”

The growling continued, and with it came the sound of sharp claws scraping against the gravel. If this was a wolf, it must have been a big one. Was it just her own apprehension, or did it sound like it was getting closer?

“Gimme a rock. I’m gonna draw it out,” Luca said. The barrel of his revolver trembled slightly, but his voice was steady.

“Luca, I don’t think—”

“Fine. I’ll do it.” He bent down, groping around in the near-dark but never taking his eyes off the drain and whatever lurked in it.

Ileana took a step back. She chanced a look over her shoulder and saw that the moon was starting to dip below the jagged tree line. Soon, they wouldn’t be able to see at all, let alone find their way back.

“There we go,” Luca was mumbling as he straightened up, clutching something in his fist.

“Wait,” Ileana said. “The moon—”

“Would you shut up!”

The moon was full and tainted red around the edges.

When the blood moon rises, beware of the pricolici. It was an old hunter saying, older than Ileana’s father’s father and passed on to him from hunters whose line stretched back hundreds of years. Pricolici was an old name that no one used anymore. These days, people called them werewolves.

Luca pulled his arm back, then flung the rock into the darkness with all his might. A sharp yelp answered him.

“That’s right,” he said, and then he licked his lips. He bent to look for another rock.

A monstrous figure exploded from the drain and barreled, howling, into him. Its fur was long and shaggy, it walked on two legs, and it was much, much bigger than a wolf.

The force of the impact sent Luca and the beast tumbling into the shallows in a tangle of fangs and limbs and fur. A single shot rang out, echoing across the water. The werewolf let out a guttural whimper but didn’t relent, its snarls and growls mingling with the boy’s desperate breaths.

“Leana!” Luca screamed, his voice fraying with terror.

Ileana stumbled back a step, one hand flying up to her chest, where her heart was threatening to burst out of her ribcage.

“Help me! Leana!”

She ran.

Behind her, a bloodcurdling shriek pierced the night, cut short by a crunch so raw she felt it in her teeth. She stumbled forward, catching herself on a branch that cut across the path, then ducked under it and bolted back to the relative safety of the forest.

The werewolf let out a deep, primal howl that seemed to reverberate all around her, squeezing the breath from her lungs. She whimpered and willed her feet to carry her faster. Her eyes blurred, but she wiped them with the back of her uninjured hand, banishing the tears for later, when she was safe. Her cardigan caught on a branch. She yanked at it but couldn’t pull it free, so she shrugged it off and kept going, hugging herself against the biting wind. She stumbled and fell, got up and kept going. Help me, she thought, desperately. Someone, please—

Her boot caught on a sharp rock half-buried in the damp soil. She hit the ground hard this time, catching herself on her injured hand. The pain was a sharp, bright thing, screaming up her wrist.

Get up.

Her body wouldn’t move.

“Get up,” she told herself, grinding the words out through her teeth. Slowly, she pushed herself to one knee, taking long, purposeful breaths: in-one-two, out-one-two…

She knew these woods, she just had to get her bearings. The pond was behind her and the ground was at an angle, so she’d been running uphill; no wonder she was out of breath. Nightshade Lodge nestled halfway down the hill, but she couldn’t go back that way. There was a road farther up, coiling its way around the hill toward the ruins of a medieval citadel. If she could get to the road, then maybe she could trace it one way or the other. Maybe the werewolf wasn’t even chasing her anymore. Maybe—she bit back a sob, thinking, Luca is dead, he’s dead—the beast would be content with just one kill.

With a stifled whimper, she clambered to her feet. She straightened up, wincing at the feel of cuts and bruises blossoming across her skin.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, hugging herself tightly. “It’s okay.”

Pain surged up her ankle the moment she put weight on it.

Black spots danced in the corners of her vision, and a wave of nausea swept over her, roiling her stomach and pushing bile up her throat. She took a deep breath through her nose, then swallowed hard. When she looked up again, she thought she saw a pair of headlights peeking through the trees.

The brittle snap of a twig pierced the stillness, trailed by the contended growl of a predator closing in on the kill.

Ileana lurched forward, one faltering step after another. Her body was a mess of throbbing aches: ankle, knees, hand, wrist. It wouldn’t be long before her legs gave out from under her, and then the beast would catch up and there’d be nothing left of her to find come morning.

The road. Must get to it, she thought, tears streaking down her grimy face.

The werewolf’s howl pierced the night, desperately close.

Ileana didn’t think. She ran.

She made it half a dozen steps before the brush ahead of her rustled, then something darker than the night erupted at her. Faster than she could comprehend, she found herself pinned down and staring into the beast’s maw, its white fangs gleaming below a pair of eyes that burned like molten amber. Pain crackled across the back of her skull, sharp and immediate. The beast was on top of her, its crushing weight bearing down. Claws dug into her shoulder as the werewolf tightened its grip, holding her in place. It threw back its head, keening its conquest.

Through the haze of panic clouding her thoughts, Ileana remembered the knife.

She twisted her leg until she could just about touch the collar of her boot. The knife was still in its sheath just below it, flush against her calf. Her fingers brushed against the bone handle. Just a little more…

With a grunt, she pulled the knife free just as the werewolf shifted its grip, likely preparing for the kill. She thrust the blade upward and was rewarded with a sudden spray of something warm and sticky that stung her eyes and tasted coppery on her tongue. She slashed at the beast blindly, again and again, her lungs burning with every labored breath. She might have been screaming; she didn’t know.

Teeth, too sharp and too long, clamped down on her wrist, piercing skin and flesh. The knife slipped from her suddenly numb fingers as the renewed onslaught of pain brought with it a chilling flash of clarity.

This is it. This is how I die.

She hoped it would be quick.

The sharp crack of a revolver promptly dissuaded her of that notion. At first she thought, stupidly, that Luca was coming back for her. But, no, that couldn’t be right. Luca was dead.

The werewolf released her wrist to snap its teeth toward its unseen assailant. A second shot made the beast shudder and whine. Its weight shifted, then disappeared altogether.

Ileana curled up on her side, cradling her injured arm close to her chest as two more shots came in quick succession. The werewolf’s fading yelps amidst a crash of brambles told her the beast was in full retreat, but her own ragged breathing was so loud it was hard to be sure. Her tears fell freely now, mingling with the damp soil beneath her cheek.

The rhythmic cadence of a heavy step shook the earth, drawing steadily closer. A heavy hand fell on her shoulder. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the hand was soft, and the fingers ended in blunt nails rather than claws.

Ileana turned her head just enough to glimpse the face of her savior through her tear-misted lashes: a bear of a man, his face shrouded in darkness. He smelled faintly of stale cigarettes and moonshine and wore a leather jacket that creaked as he bent down to look at her.

“Shit,” the man said under his breath.

His voice, gruff but unmistakably human, made her open her eyes fully to look at him. She wanted to ask if the werewolf was really gone, but her throat was tight and the words wouldn’t come out.

The man’s shoulders sagged a little, like the tension in them had relented all at once. “It’s all right, kid,” he said. “The thing’s gone. I hit it with silver, so it ain’t coming back.” He spoke with the lilting, unhurried accent of someone from the upper reaches of the Carpathians, far to the north.

In a voice so brittle it was a wonder it held at all, Ileana said, “Thank you.”

He blew a sigh through his teeth. “The hell are you doing out here anyway? Where’s your parents?”

“H-Home.” She hadn’t even thought about her father until now. He would be furious.

The man reached inside his pocket and took out something flat and metallic, about the size of his palm—a flask, it looked like. “Where’s home?” he asked as he straightened up and began to uncork it.

“Nightshade Lodge,” she said. “Down the hill. There’s a road.” Her thoughts moved slowly, like fish swimming upstream. She tried to catch them and they kept slipping away.

He grunted an acknowledgement and took a long swig from his flask.

Ileana squirmed a little, trying to sit up. The pains and aches were merging into a diffuse kind of agony that bore down on her with a weight almost too heavy to bear.

“Show me your arm,” the man said.

She gave her arm without thinking, hissing as his fingers closed around her wrist. He turned it this way and that, then let go and brought the flask to his lips to take another pull.

Finally, he said, “You got bit.”

*

A white werewolf had been sighted in the woods around the town of Deva.

József had been following the trail of whispers all the way from Abrud, on the other side of the mountains, where he’d first heard about the beast. Werewolves weren’t that uncommon if you knew where to look, but he’d never heard of a white one until now. There were gray ones, sure, and mottled ones, and the odd one with spots or other one-off markings. A white werewolf pelt, now that could fetch a pretty penny, and József wasn’t one to turn his nose up at money.

If he ever found the damn thing.

The werewolf he’d chased off earlier had been a timber one, common as they came. Smaller than the one he was looking for, too. Must’ve been the runt of the litter, which was good news for the kid and bad news for both of them. Werewolves were pack creatures; where there was one you could see, there were a dozen others you didn’t see until they were right on top of you.

He looked down at the girl, weighing his options. Getting the hell out of the forest seemed like a solid start. And then he’d take her home, he wasn’t a monster. (Not anymore, his mind whispered, and he drowned the taste of old, bitter guilt with another pull of țuică moonshine from his flask.) If the kid’s family actually lived in these woods, they might have seen the werewolf he was looking for, even if they didn’t know what it was.

“All right, kid,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”

The rest of it wasn’t his problem. Not until the girl turned, anyway.

“I hurt my ankle,” she said. “I can’t walk.”

“That’s fine. I’ll carry you.” He stuck his flask back in his pocket and rolled his shoulders, ignoring the cracking of his really-not-that-old bones. “Does it hurt anywhere else?”

Her throat worked soundlessly for a moment. “No.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“’Course you’re not,” József muttered. “C’mon.”

The poor thing was light as a feather when he picked her up. She was battered and bloody, too, and her hair was slick with mud. He’d barely taken a couple of steps with her in his arms when he felt her start to shiver.

Right. It was cold as balls out here, and the girl only had a rough linen shirt to keep her warm.

He set her down long enough to shrug off his coat, ignoring her shaky ask of “Why’d you stop?” The coat was made of stiff, cracked leather, and it smelled like wet dog—he had a soft spot for strays and mutts, so what?—but at least it would keep her warm until they got to his truck.

“What’s your name?” he asked as he wrapped the coat around her small frame. Talk about runts.

“Ileana,” she said as she wiggled her arms into the sleeves. The coat was too fucking big; she looked like she was swimming in it. “You can call me Leana. That’s what my—” She sniffed and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “That’s—”

“Nice to meet you,” József said as he hurried to pick her up again. “Leana. That’s, uh. Nice name. I like it.” The last thing he needed was to cross the woods with a crying, squirming kid in his arms and nightwalkers lurking in the shadows.

Like the last time, came a treacherous thought. He licked his chapped lips, wishing he’d kept the flask on him.

“What about you?”

“Huh?”

“Your name,” the kid—Ileana—said.

Oh. “It’s József. Friends call me Jóska.”

After a beat, Ileana said, in a small voice, “Thank you, Mister József.”

He made a vague sound of acknowledgement. Sure, he might have saved her from a quick, messy death, but the bite on her wrist had pretty much sealed her fate already. Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but on the night of the next full moon, when she started to turn…

“The hell were you doing out here alone anyway?” he said, to take his mind off that train of thought more than anything. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous?”

She muttered something, then squirmed in his arms until she buried her face into his shoulder. He felt the wetness of her tears soaking through his shirt. A pang of pity stabbed at his heart.

“What was that?” he asked. The road was just ahead; he could see it through the trees.

Turning her head a little, she said, “I wasn’t alone, but…he’s dead. The werewolf got him.”

József slowed his step, suddenly aware of his own breathing.

“How d’you know that was a werewolf?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer. “Could’ve been just a wolf.”

“My…family hunts them sometimes, up north.” Her voice was faltering. “I’m not old enough to go yet, but I…know what they look like.”

This just kept getting better and better.

Ordinary folk, he could maybe bullshit into giving the kid a few more weeks. Hunters, they’d know. And they’d be just as quick to put down one of their own as they did the things who weren’t.

Not my problem, he told himself, but then the kid brought up her skinny arms to hug his neck, and his heart cracked in his chest.

*

Nightshade Lodge wasn’t much to write home about: a two-story manor in the ass crack of nowhere, with an overgrown lawn and a covered veranda running along the front. The walls were gray stone, worn and weathered by time and neglect. A lone chimney jutted up from a dark, sloping roof, spewing gray smoke into the night. On the ground floor, a lone window scattered a faint, flickering light into the night.

A cobbled path cut straight through the lawn. József drove slowly, weaving around loose stones and waterlogged potholes and careful not to rattle his passenger too much. She’d dozed off in the front seat, still bundled up in his big coat. Poor thing probably thought she was safe, and here he was, leading her to the slaughter.

His heart gave another painful lurch.

Stop it. Get her home, find out if her family knows anything, then get the hell out. That’s what you’re here for. That’s all you’re here for.

He stopped at the entrance, put the truck in neutral, then pulled up the handbrake. When he turned the key in the ignition, the engine cut off with a shudder. József had driven his old Volkswagen Amarok up and down the country for more than six years now, and he’d never been bothered by all the little ways in which it didn’t work quite right. This time, though, he winced and caught himself hoping that all that rattling hadn’t woken up his charge. Not yet.

He waited another minute, then reached across the console to give the girl a gentle nudge. She stirred and nuzzled her face into the crook of her arm, letting out a soft whimper.

“Hey,” he said, nudging her again. “Wake up. We’re here.”

With a sharp breath, Ileana’s eyelids fluttered open. Her eyes were dark and wide like a cornered animal’s. Did she know? Hell, she looked old enough to know. Kids had a habit of picking up on—

No. Fuck, he couldn’t think about Stefánia. Not now.

“C’mon, Leana,” he said, lacing his voice with as much fake cheer as he could muster. “Let’s go say hi to your mum and dad.”

“Just dad,” she said, looking down at her hands. “Mum’s not here.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Away.”

József wondered if “away” meant “dead.” It wouldn’t have surprised him. Most hunters didn’t live long enough to die of old age.

The manor’s front door sat perched at the top of three rectangular steps, each smaller than the one below it. The door was made of solid wood, with faded bas-reliefs and an old-fashioned brass knocker dangling in the middle. József carried Ileana up the steps, bracing against the wind when it buffeted them out of nowhere. He had to adjust his grip so he could reach out and knock, and she latched on to him again and held tight. The old brass knocker rattled against its plaque with a sharp, tinny sound that grated as much as the anticipation of what he was about to do.

Stop it, you old fool. He wanted to slap himself—or drink himself to oblivion, which was something he would absolutely do later tonight.

“What’s your dad like?” he asked.

The bundle in his arms stirred a little, then said, “Angry.”

The first peal of thunder rumbled in the clouds just as the door began to open.

*

Ileana couldn’t tell what was real and what was a nightmare conjured up by her feverish mind. Sweat ran down her back in burning trickles, but she felt cold to the bone. The bite on her arm throbbed with an icy kind of pain, each tooth mark its own circle of hell. The voice of her rescuer rumbled in his chest as he spoke, but his words were jumbled as if they were coming from far, far away. Another voice answered, one she immediately recognized. It sent a different kind of chill down her spine. Her father was here.

She thought she heard József whisper, “Sorry, kid,” but she might have imagined it. Then, she felt him lowering her to the ground.

It hurt to put weight on her ankle, but she gritted her teeth and bore it. Clutching József’s coat tightly around her, she peered up through her matted bangs. Her father wasn’t looking at her.

She sniffled, then said, “Daddy—”

“Give the man his coat.” Her father’s voice was level, but it held no warmth.

Ileana wriggled out of the coat, careful not to let it fall to the dusty floor, then held it out with her good hand and murmured her thanks. She kept her eyes cast downward the whole time lest she invoke more of her father’s wrath later on.

“Go upstairs,” she heard him say after the weight had left her hand.

She turned and went, biting down hard to cage any sounds of pain. At the foot of the stairs, she turned to look at her rescuer one last time. Their eyes met. He gave a slight shake of his head.

Don’t go, she thought, a prayer and a plea.

He looked away.

Ileana’s shoulders sagged as she began to climb, dragging herself up by the banister step after agonizing step. The pounding of her heart was a fierce drumbeat in her ears, drowning all sounds in its wake. At the top of the stairs, she paused to catch her breath, her hand trembling as she pushed the hair from her eyes. Glancing back down into the foyer, she saw that it was now empty.

*

Ileana’s father didn’t strike József as particularly angry, but he wasn’t exactly friendly. He introduced himself as Sebastian, no last name, so József didn’t give his either. From the foyer, they stepped into a small receiving room where József sank into a worn armchair and Sebastian poured a measure of liquor for them both.

The older hunter cut a nondescript figure in the dim light of the fireplace. He was a man of average height, with a harsh, angular face obscured by several days’ worth of gray stubble. His features had a hardness to them that spoke of a life of perpetual wanting, which was a little odd for someone who lived in a big-ass manor and drank their liquor out of fancy crystal tumblers.

“Tell me,” Sebastian said once they were both seated, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. The sleeves of his forest-green shirt were rolled up to the elbows, revealing a pair of sinewy forearms covered in thick, dark hair. A jagged scar ran along the outside of his left arm.

József downed his drink first, letting the burning liquid soothe his nerves on the way down. He cleared his throat, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ain’t much to tell. I found the girl out in the woods, with a werewolf on top of her. Shot the werewolf, brought her home. That’s all there is to it.”

“A werewolf,” Sebastian said.

“Yeah. That.”

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. “There are no werewolves in these woods. We drove them out years ago.”

Well, I got news for you, buddy, József grumbled inwardly, but he kept that quip to himself. “Listen,” he said, “we both know what we are, so don’t insult me by pretending they ain’t real. Now this one, it wasn’t all that big, and I’m thinkin’ it wasn’t all that smart either. Probably a runt, or maybe a younger one wandered too far from its pack.”

“It must have been a wolf or some other kind of animal,” Sebastian cut in.

József sighed. “I suppose you haven’t heard of a white werewolf lurking around these parts, then?” He could already guess the answer, but he had to give it a try just to say he’d done it.

“A white werewolf? No. In fact,” Sebastian said, shifting to prop one elbow on the armrest, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one. There was a pack of silvermanes up in Mureș county some years ago, but we hunted all of them.”

“So, you kill ’em where you find ’em,” József said. With a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his gut, he reached for his flask.

Sebastian didn’t comment on the breach of guest etiquette. “Same as you, I would assume. Like you said, we both know what we are—right?”

“Ileana got bit.”

He hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but the other guy was starting to get on his nerves. It didn’t help that Sebastian’s words had dug up some not-so-distant memories that József himself wasn’t very proud of.

After a beat, Sebastian said, “I see.”

His voice was no different than before, but when he got up and went to pour himself another drink, the hand that held the bottle shook a little. He downed it in one go, then filled it again. He didn’t offer to refill József’s.

“There’s still a chance she won’t turn,” József said, swiveling around in his chair to follow the movement. “You won’t know for sure until the next full moon. Meantime—”

“Thank you. For bringing her home.” Tumbler still in hand, Sebastian turned to regard József with a cool glare. “When the time comes, I’ll do what needs to be done. I’ll make sure she’s cared for until then.”

“At least make sure you don’t scare her any more than she already is. She just saw her friend die, she doesn’t need to know…” József couldn’t bring himself to say the rest of it out loud even as he told himself Sebastian was right. If the girl turned, there was only one way things could end, and nothing he said or did would make any difference.

A flicker of irritation broke through Sebastian’s composure at last. “She was with someone?”

József drained the last of his flask in two quick swigs before answering. “That’s what I gathered, yeah. She said the werewolf got him.” And then, because he didn’t care whether he’d make it to the end of the conversation before he got his ass thrown out the door, he said, “Might wanna make sure it wasn’t another one of your kids.”

“I had a son. He died,” Sebastian said, his voice suddenly thick. “I only have my daughters. Their mother…”

And then, without warning, he crumbled.

He didn’t drop to his knees, sobbing and wailing like a lesser man might have. He just leaned hard against the drinks cabinet, head bowed, and his tumbler slipped from his fingers and rolled on the floor at his feet, its contents staining the wood a deeper shade of burgundy.

József was no stranger to this kind of grief. Then, as now, there hadn’t been anything to do but wait for the inevitable, let it come to pass, then try to find a way to live with it. The kindest thing he could do for a father soon to be bereaved, he knew, was to let him mourn in peace.

“Right,” he muttered, pushing himself out of the chair in one swift movement. “I’ll see myself out, then.”

Sebastian made no attempt to stop him.

Outside, it was raining, a thick, pelting deluge that drenched József to the bone in less than it took him to cross the lawn and climb into his truck. He turned the key in the ignition, sluicing water from his face with the other hand. With one last look over his shoulder, he pulled away and drove into the night, carrying the memory of Sebastian’s grief with him like a weight around his neck.

*

Ileana woke to the feeling of being carried once again. She nestled closer to the warmth, too tired to think about where she was being taken or why. It didn’t matter. As long as she was home, she would be safe.

She floated in and out of a shallow sleep, cradled by the rhythmic sway of whoever had her in their arms. At one point, she thought the air got colder, but then the torpor took her and she knew no more.

When she stirred again from a dead, boneless sleep, the milky light of daybreak revealed a room she’d never seen before. The walls were bare wood, with none of the paintings and trophies that decorated other parts of Nightshade Lodge. The bed was narrow and unfamiliar, the sheets rough and carrying a faint, musty smell. A slow rain pattered on the windowpanes.

Something clinked at the foot of the bed when she sat up to have a better look around. She bent to push the covers aside, gritting her teeth against the throbbing aches battering her body all over. A shackle made of dull metal was clamped around her ankle over the tattered socks she still wore. The chain connecting it to the bedpost was as thick as her wrist.

She reached down to touch the shackle but withdrew her hand as soon as her fingers made contact, hissing through her teeth.

The metal burned.