Candace

I snatched the note from the floor, the paper rough against my chlorine-damp fingers.

It was folded in half. With my lips pressed together, I flipped it open. Words scrawled in black ink stared back at me.

"Where the echoes don’t belong, they meet. Hold your head high, princess."

My face creased in a frown. It was definitely from my anonymous helper. They had called me a princess in the last note too.

But this one was strange. I read it again, slowly.

What was it supposed to mean? With a sigh, I stepped fully into the room and pushed the door shut behind me, eyes still moving over the words. Was this some kind of riddle like the note River had slipped to me that night?

My gaze drifted to the bags I had left open on the floor before heading to the pool. I had gone for a swim to quiet my nerves, only to return more tangled up than before, my thoughts pulling in ten directions at once.

I wasn’t even sure which had rattled me more. Reign kissing me, or running straight into Dylan of all the wretched people in this pack. I had to find a way to make him pay for what he had done to me. Not that anyone had ever believed me.

Just as they hadn’t believed me back then.

With a sigh, I crossed to the bags on the floor and rummaged through them for the earlier note.

When I had woken that night with the knife in my hands and River’s lifeless body beside me, everyone had assumed the worst immediately.

And who could blame them — I had looked like the culprit. But they had all conveniently chosen to forget that I had loved River. There was no motive. None at all.

I remembered clearly, pleading with Ragnor, Reign, and Ryker that River had sent me a note that morning. I would never have hurt him.

Maybe he had been trying to point me toward whoever actually killed him — but they had already decided I was a liar, and nothing I said could cut through that thick wall of hatred.

River had been trying to tell me something. I was certain of it. Which meant I needed to pull my focus together, because I had barely four months and three weeks left to uncover the truth behind my father’s accusations. I had tried to resolve the riddle on most nights I couldn’t sleep in the pig sty but it was abortive.

I held up the note from my secret helper, frowning at the words again. What was it with both of them leaving me in riddles?

Where the echoes don’t belong, they meet.

River’s note had mentioned something about X marks the spot. What spot? I closed my eyes and tried to trace back through every place we had gone together. The garden, maybe. Or the bridge beyond the packhouse. What exactly was I supposed to be looking for?

With a sigh, I smoothed both notes flat and tucked them inside a notebook, then pushed it deep into my old school bag. I shoved the bags back into the closet. I would sit down and make a proper list of everywhere River and I used to go, then start working through each one.

But first — a long, scalding shower to strip the chlorine from my skin and Reign’s scent along with it.

I was halfway out of my robe when my phone lit up on the bed with a message.

Jayden: Hi Daisy, just checking in. How are you doing? It was good seeing you today, beautiful.

Now that’s what a decent man looks like, Star huffed. We got saddled with the wrong ones entirely.

You were just purring over one of those wrong ones about three minutes ago, I reminded her, already typing back with a small smile on my lips.

Candace: It was really good to see you too, Jayden. Thank you so much. We will catch up soon.

I set the phone down on the bed, the smile lingering longer than I expected. The shower water ran scalding hot. I stepped under it still half-dressed, then peeled the damp bikini off with stiff, impatient movements.

The moment the spray hit my skin, I exhaled sharply. My body was still wound tight, still humming from what had happened at the pool — from him.

Without thinking, my hands moved upward.

A soft sound escaped me.

Just like when he kissed us, Star murmured, and the memory bled through the bond — his hunger, the heat of it, the way it had crashed into me when his tongue met mine.

I had felt exactly how much he wanted me. Every rigid, undeniable inch of it pressed against me.

I grabbed the soap instead and scrubbed my body. My skin flushed red under the heat and friction as I worked to erase every trace of his scent, the ghost of his touch, the way my body had given in so easily to his kiss.

I was deep in it, lost in the rhythm of scrubbing, when the hairs on my skin stood sharp with attention and the temperature shifted.

Goosebumps spread slowly from my wrist to my shoulder. I stilled. There was only one person whose presence my body registered before I even heard him, before I saw him. And that person hated me more than anyone on earth.

So he couldn’t actually be in my bedroom. Could he?

He’s here, Star giggled, her excitement bleeding warmly through the bond.

The bathroom door swung open. I froze for one suspended second, then turned slowly, my heart slamming against my ribs.

I sucked in a breath, my eyes trailing from his dark, snug sweat pants, to the black shirt wound tight around his biceps. Ragnor filled the doorway, broad-shouldered, his steel-grey eyes roaming down the full length of my naked body without apology.

However unlike when Dylan had touched me, this was different. His heated gaze shot through my core, and I hated how alive it made me feel.

I swept my tongue slowly across my lower lip as I sucked in a sharp breath.

"What are you doing here?"