Keith

The pounding on my door drags me out of sleep so fast it feels like I’ve been dropped from a height.

“Keith! Wake up!”

I jerk upright, heart racing, the room still wrapped in thick darkness. For a split second I don’t know what’s happening. Then I smell it.

Smoke.

Not faint. Not imagined.

Real.

The screams and yells of anger hit me next.

My Lycan stirs immediately, restless and alert.

Fire. Danger to den. Intruder.

“I’m up,” I call, already throwing the covers off.

The wood floor is cold under my bare feet, but the air isn’t. There’s heat in it—dry and creeping. I yank on jeans and...