Chapter 1

The rain in Seattle didn’t wash things clean; it just made the rot softer.

Nyx knelt in the mud of Lake View Cemetery, the water soaking through the knees of her velvet leggings. Around her, a circle of black beeswax candles sputtered against the relentless Pacific Northwest deluge, their flames hissing like angry snakes. The air smelled of wet wool, the lingering spice of the clove cigarette she’d smoked to calm her nerves, and the overwhelming, metallic scent of ozone.

She checked the translation on her soaking wet parchment one last time. *Varick the Iron-Bound. The Wolf of the North.*

In her mind, he was a brooding masterpiece—a tragically cursed prince with stormy eyes and a jawline that could cut glass. He would emerge from the darkness, grateful for his resurrection, and see her: his savior, his dark queen, his mate.

"I call to the blood that sleeps," Nyx chanted, her voice trembling slightly over the wind. "I call to the bone that waits. Varick, arise."

She raised the obsidian dagger she had bought online and sliced it across her palm. It stung, sharp and hot against the freezing rain. She made a fist, letting the blood drip onto the rusted iron seal of the nameless mausoleum door.

*Drip. Drip. Drip.*

For a long moment, nothing happened. Just the sound of distant traffic from the I-5 bridge and the drumbeat of rain on stone. Nyx felt a pang of disappointment. Maybe the seller on the forum had scammed her. Maybe magic was just an aesthetic, like her corset or her platform boots.

Then, the ground lurched.

It wasn't an earthquake. It was a vibration that started deep in the earth, vibrating up through the soles of her boots and into her teeth. The heavy iron chains draped across the mausoleum door rattled, the rust flaking off in orange clouds.

With a sound like grinding molars, the stone slab began to slide inward.

Nyx scrambled back, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. "It worked," she whispered, a smile touching her black-painted lips. "It actually worked."

A scent rolled out of the open tomb—a thick, physical wall of stench. It wasn't the musk of a wild animal. It was the smell of wet earth, stagnant water, and meat that had been left out in the sun for a thousand years.

Nyx gagged, covering her nose with her sleeve. "Varick?"

A claw gripped the edge of the stone frame.

It was not a hand. It was a massive, skeletal paw, the skin pulled tight and gray over the knuckles. Patches of coarse, matted fur clung to the rotting flesh.

The creature pulled itself into the dim light of the candles.

Nyx’s romantic fantasy died instantly, strangled by the reality standing before her.

Varick was huge, easily eight feet tall, hunched over with the weight of centuries. He was halfway between a man and a wolf, a mockery of biology. His chest cavity was exposed, ribs glistening like wet ivory where the skin had sloughed away. One side of his face was a snarl of exposed muscle; the other held a single, milky-white eye that roved wildly in its socket.

He didn't look like a prince. He looked like a nightmare dredged up from the bottom of a bog.

"Oh god," Nyx breathed, scrambling backward until her back hit a gravestone.

The creature exhaled, a rattle of fluid in lungs that shouldn't be working. He turned his head, the single eye locking onto her. He spoke, but it wasn't English. It was a guttural, wet sound, a language of cracking ice and breaking bones that vibrated in Nyx’s marrow.

Nyx fumbled for her binding spell, her hands shaking so hard she dropped the parchment into the mud. She scrambled to remember the words.

"I... I command you!" she shrieked, her voice cracking. "I command you, Wolf of the North! Submit to my will!"

Varick paused. He tilted his head, the vertebrae in his neck popping audibly. He looked at the salt circle she had painted on the grass—the barrier that was supposed to keep her safe.

He stepped over it.

The salt didn't flare. It didn't burn him. He crushed the white line into the mud with a foot that was more claw than flesh.

He sniffed the air. He wasn't smelling her perfume. He was smelling the blood still dripping from her palm.

Nyx tried to stand, her heavy platform boots slipping on the slick, mossy grass. "Stay back! I summoned you! You have to listen to me!"

Varick opened his jaw. His teeth were yellow, long, and broken. He spoke one word, a clumsy, butchered attempt at the modern tongue he had heard whispered by mourners for a century.

*"Meat."*

Terror, cold and absolute, finally pierced Nyx’s hubris. She spun around, abandoning the ritual, abandoning the fantasy. She ran.

She made it three steps before her boot caught on a tree root. She sprawled face-first into the mud, the wind knocked out of her.

Before she could draw a breath to scream, a hand closed around her ankle.

It was freezing. It burned with the absolute zero of the grave.

Nyx clawed at the grass, her fingernails breaking against the earth. "No! No, please! I—"

Varick didn't growl. He didn't gloat. He simply pulled.

He dragged her backward with terrifying ease, her body sliding through the mud like a ragdoll. She kicked, her other boot connecting with his rotting chest, but it was like kicking a stone wall.

He hauled her back to the threshold of the mausoleum. The darkness inside seemed to breathe, hungry and patient.

Varick lifted her effortlessly, holding her suspended in the air. The stench of him filled her lungs, choking her. He looked at her one last time, his single eye devoid of anything resembling humanity or love. There was only the void.

He stepped backward into the tomb, taking her with him.

Nyx screamed, a high, desperate sound that was instantly swallowed by the sound of the rain.

The heavy stone door ground shut with a final, resonant thud.

Outside, the black candles sputtered and died, plunging the cemetery back into silence. The rain continued to fall, washing away the salt, the blood, and the last traces of the girl who thought she could romance the dead.