Page 3 of Prisoner of the Lycan Prince

Rain streaked down the Uber’s window as I stared at the passing houses. A year away hadn’t dulled my memories of the neighborhood I’d grown up in. Large, stately homes with manicured lawns lined the street. The Seattle skyline rose in the distance, the buildings far enough away to allow the neighborhood’s residents to claim the city without enduring its noise or traffic.

Exhaustion tugged at me, resentment following swiftly on its heels. The cheapest flight out of Chicago had required me to travel to Denver. More flights meant more anxiety, but a direct route had been out of my price range. So I’d endured a two-hour layover and frayed nerves before flying into Sea-Tac. I’d been up since 4 a.m., and I was running on caffeine, Klonopin, and the bagel I’d shoved in my face somewhere over the Midwest. Now, it was pushing dinnertime, and I still didn’t know why my father insisted on me returning home.

His text three days ago had been frustratingly vague, saying only that he’d “stumbled across something remarkable” and needed my help. When I pushed back, he reminded me that my tuition came out of my mother’s meager trust—which he administered. The threat was clear: fly to Seattle or expect to spend my last semester at Northwestern scrambling to afford books, classes, and a dozen other expenses. I was seven months away from a degree that would let me earn my own livelihood. And now my father dangled my freedom before me like a carrot on a stick.

The Uber driver slowed, squinting at the faded numbers on a mailbox.

“It’s this one,” I said.

The man grunted, then pulled into the driveway that led to my childhood home. “Nice place,” he said as we passed through the open, wrought iron gate flanked by brick pillars.

“Thanks.” As soon as I said it, I bit my lip. The house wasn’t mine. Undoubtedly, the driver knew it simply by looking at me—and the battered backpack I’d taken on the plane. But the house wasn’t nice, either. It was pleasing enough from the road, but a closer look revealed neglect. And the driver had no way of knowing the gate was open because it rusted in place years ago.

The house’s true condition became more apparent as we progressed up the drive. Hedges that were once bright green and trimmed into geometrical shapes were now brown and lopsided. Cracks had formed in the driveway, and grass burst through the crevices. The paint on the two-tiered fountain was flaking, revealing the fiberglass underneath. When I was eight, my parents filled it with champagne the night my father won his first Pulitzer. Now, the fountain was dry, its lower bowl littered with dead leaves.

The driver stopped in the half-circle drive in front of the house’s previously glossy black double doors.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said, grabbing my backpack.

“No problem.” He hesitated, his gaze on the house. “You, uh, sure you want to go in there alone?”

“Yes, it’s fine. It’s my parents’ house.” I slipped from the car and made my way to the steps. One of the brass door knockers was missing. The other looked ready to abandon its post and join its companion.

The doors weren’t locked, and I stepped into the darkened foyer.

“Dad?” The foyer was empty, the glass chandelier suspended above black-and-white tiles covered in shadow. On a distant wall, a brighter square of wallpaper marked where my mother’s curio cabinet had once stood. Memories swept me, transporting me back to a time when the cabinet had gleamed with fresh polish and the interior shelves had boasted dozens of the miniature glass vases my mother loved to collect. She’d been thrilled to find a local glassblower who repaired some of the damaged pieces she’d bought because she liked them too much to pass them over. On one occasion, she showed me a delicate Tiffany vase with a restored handle.

“Look, Harper, you can’t even tell it was broken. The whole piece is stronger now. And the glassblower found an additional crack when he was working. So, in a way, maybe it was a good thing the handle was broken.”

The vase—and the cabinet—were long gone now, nothing but the square on the wallpaper to prove they ever existed. The pattern repeated around the room, the more vivid spaces in the paper like tombstones in a furniture graveyard. In the beginning, I thought my father sold my mother’s things because he couldn’t bear to be reminded of what he’d lost.

Then I discovered the truth.

Drawing a deep breath, I moved deeper into the house. “Dad? It’s me.”

No response. But my father was expecting me. And it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to be. Not anymore. Not for the last three years.

Tightening my grip on my backpack strap, I left the foyer and followed the long hallway that led to the kitchen. After a few more steps, the smell of garbage and sour milk hit my nose. When I entered the kitchen, the stench of rot made my stomach do a sickening flip. Dirty dishes filled the sink under the window. Bags of chips, half-filled cereal bowls, and boxes of snack cakes littered the counter. A fly trap dangled from a push pin thrust into the drywall, its long, yellow ribbon covered in dead flies.

My heart sped up, and dread settled around my shoulders. My father had always tended toward absentmindedness, especially when he was working. But this was different. The kitchen was filthy. And the house was so quiet. It was almost as if…

I sucked in a breath. What if Dad was?—?

A clicking sound interrupted my spiraling thoughts. Heart racing, I followed the sound to the empty dining room, where I paused to exhale in relief as the noise turned into the telltale clatter of a computer keyboard. The keystrokes didn’t slow as I made my way to my father’s office in the back of the house. His door was cracked, revealing Dad seated at his desk and bent over his laptop.

His silvery hair stood up in a dozen different directions, giving him the look of a man who’d wandered into a cloud. A pair of glasses balanced just above the tip of his nose. He held his tongue between his teeth as he typed, his fingers flying. Weak daylight streamed through the windows and fell over him in watery shafts.

I hesitated, my hand raised to knock, when he looked up.

“Harper!” His face split in a grin, showing the gap between his front teeth. “Come in, come in! I’m on a deadline, but I can break for a bit.”

Confusion gripped me as I stepped into the office. I’m on a deadline. I’d heard it often enough over the years.

“Sorry I can’t come to your soccer game, honey. I’m on a deadline.”

“I’ll be a few hours late. I’m on a deadline.”

“I’m on a deadline, so I’ll have to miss your choir concert. Next time, okay?”

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