She was one of the mothers of change, after all.

Three women, each bearing a lineage that brought hope to our future, who should have been the strongest of the strong, but were the most browbeaten of them all.

Tears wet my eyes, and with it, the rain fell. Merinda didn’t flinch, but her mate did.

“Your lineage is secure,” I murmured, telling her the truth just as I had Sabina.

What I couldn’t tell her was that fate could be changed.

Free will…I had no say in that.

And that was my burden to bear, not hers.

“Go with peace, Merinda. Enjoy your second chance as Paul cannot now, and do not cross the circle again. Your world is not mine anymore. Your world is Eli, Sabina, Ethan, and Austin’s. Your purpose is to safeguard them. Do you understand me?”

She wept at my words, but she nodded, and in seconds, she was back as a she-wolf outside the circle, her mate at her side, nipping and nuzzling her, comforting her…

The sight brought peace to me, and the rain clouds dispersed and the wind ceased to roil.

Love could win, and I prayed that would be enough in the coming days.

Lara

“Lara?”

My brow puckered as I registered that voice.

Kali Sara, it had been so long since I heard it. So long since…

I blew out a breath.

No, I had to be wrong.

Unless a ghost could pick up a phone and contact me, I was just imagining the likeness in her voice to my sister’s.

My dead sister’s.

Things had definitely turned crazy, so maybe this was just another step toward the asylum. I’d always been headed that way anyway…

I reached up and rubbed my forehead where an ache was gathering.

The ache had nothing to do with memories of Sabina that flooded me, along with the grief and misery over her passing, but with my current situation.

I was tired of being scared.

So fucking tired.

I rubbed my temples a little harder as I squinted out of the window.

I knew he was out there.

I knew it.

He was waiting on me to come out, but I wouldn’t. Not yet. I still had a few ramen packets left. I could last a week on them. I wasn’t going to let him get me.

I wasn’t.

“Lara?”

Fuck.

The woman sounded so like Sabina, it was unnerving.

I cleared my throat in an effort not to sound petrified. If the ghost asked why I sounded terrified, I couldn’t tell her the truth. Then I really would be locked up for good. “Yes. It’s Lara Krasowski. How can I help you?”

A relieved sigh sounded down the line. “Lara. I know it’s you. God, it’s taken me so long to find you! Look, I know this is weird, but I need your help. It’s me…Sabina.”

Even as my brow furrowed, I snorted. “Yeah, right. My dead sister has access to a cellphone.” I huffed. Then, my eyes narrowed. Was this a ploy?

I had no idea how I’d been plunged into a world where men could turn into different animals, but here I was, terrified to leave my house because I knew, I knew point fucking blank, that there was a goddamn hyena out there waiting on me.

Waiting to pounce.

My mouth turned to cotton at that, and I started to sweat. My arms ached where the bastard had gotten me before, scraping me up and infecting some of the wounds so my body still ached from the depth of the tears.

I’d never even seen a fucking hyena besides on TV! When one had veered in front of my car the other day? I’d thought I was taking another step toward insanity.

Maybe I was.

Maybe this was all a hallucination.

But as painful as the wounds on my body were? They were proof too.

I’d been targeted.

By a creature.

A creature who could turn into a person. And back again.

A creature who was pissed at me.

My mouth quivered at the memory of running over what, I’d thought at the time, was a cat.

Only, when I’d gotten out, sobbing all the while as I went to see if I could help the creature who’d been injured, a second beast had come at me after I’d heard a very real, human shriek of fury.

I’d screamed, managing to scramble back as it attacked me, and only good fortune had helped me get into my car before it could hurt me further. With no other choice, I’d swerved out of the way, put the pedal to the metal, and driven home.

I’d been here ever since, and—

The howl. Fuck.

It was there again.

My entire being prickled to life, the hairs on my body standing right at attention as I processed just how that sound was viscerally plaguing me.

It kept on doing it.

Kept on reminding me it was there.

Like I could forget.

Every now and then, it would ram into my door, and I’d never been so angry with myself for deciding that a life in the woods was a better option for someone like me, someone with my abilities.

I shuddered as the howl morphed into that hideous cackle, and I clenched my eyes closed as I tried to evade it.

But there was no evading it.

None at all.

I shivered as the voice on the other end of the line sharply asked, “What was that noise?”

My mouth trembled. What was I supposed to say?

I’m being haunted by some kind of weird monster that could turn from a beast into a human?

And yeah, I’d seen that.

The hyena had been in human form when I’d driven over the other one, seconds before it had switched and started to attack me.

I wasn’t sure if I was losing my mind, but I was pretty certain that my eyes didn’t deceive me. That my feelings didn’t either.

I’d felt the rage, the hurt, the terror.

I’d known why too.

The creature I’d killed?

The other’s mate.

A shaky sob escaped me.

How was I supposed to evade a beast that was intent on reaping revenge on me for losing someone as important to it as a mate?

“Never mind,” I whispered. “Who is this? What do you want?”

“I told you. I’m Sabina! I’m your sister.”

Okay, I was definitely going insane. “You’re dead.”

“No. I’m not.”

I swallowed. “You are. I went to your funeral.”

“You didn’t.” She sighed, and I felt her urgency down the line.

“I did!”

“Mom’s name was Catharina Klisowski before she became a Krasowski. She wore her hair in pigtails that she knotted together at the back of her head, and on her birthday, father would give her a gold coin that she stored in a pouch that she put above the kitchen sink in our trailer.”

My heart stopped at that.

It literally stopped.

Until the hyena howled again, and when it rammed its weight into the door, I screamed as fright hit me.

The cell in my hand fell to the floor as I turned to the door, watching as the wood began to buckle, the hinges caving in with the brute force of the hyena.

As I screamed, I heard, “Lara! Lara!” bleating down the end of the line, but it was too late for me.

Too fucking late.