Prologue

“ D id you count the register?”

Pulling off my apron, I nod. “Yep. Fifty short. Maybe we need to keep an eye on the new girl.”

Clarissa sighs then goes to the cash register to count, just in case I’ve made a mistake. Not that I have. I counted that thing three times before I came to the conclusion that our new waitress has been dipping her hand.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she calls to me.

“Can’t wait for twelve more hours of hell.”

The bell of the diner rings as I pull open the door, finally at the end of my day. My feet hurt, my hair’s a mess and hanging out of its clip, and to make things even better, rain is pouring from the sky and I don’t have a jacket.

My car beeps as I unlock it—it’s old, rusty, but gets me from my apartment to work five days a week. As I drive the fifteen minutes down the interstate, I yawn and refuse to check my phone. No doubt Grayson will be filling my DMs demanding to know when we’re meeting up tonight.

Clarissa thinks he’s my boyfriend, and no matter how many times I correct her, she never understands the friends-with-benefits set-up.

But even though we planned to do something, I’d rather go home, walk my dog Toodles, and curl up on the sofa and watch movies until I fall asleep.

It’s night by the time I reach my apartment, climbing four floors until I get to my door. Toodles is barking, jumping up on me when I get in. He’s chewed up my mail but otherwise doing well with his housetraining.

The Labrador sits nicely while I grab his leash and harness, but I pause when I hear a light knock on the door.

Frowning, I peek out the eyehole, my shoulders slouching when I see Grayson. His shaggy blonde hair hangs over his forehead, his hood’s up, and he stands back as I abruptly swing open the door.

“What are you doing here?”

He shrugs. “You never replied to my messages, and we had plans.”

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with Grayson. He’s sweet, funny, and he knows how to keep my bed warm, but there’s never been a spark that pushed us to go further. We’ve never even discussed dating. We’ve been friends for years, since we were both placed in the same orphanage and somehow ended up with families in the same town. When we both turned eighteen and found ourselves homeless yet again, we helped each other get back on our feet. It just so happens that one of the times he ended up staying over, we slept together. It’s just been a thing since.

Toodles jumps up on him, and Grayson grins down and starts to babble to him like a baby. “Are you just home? Do you want me to come for a walk with you both?”

“Sure.” I hand him the leash. “Hold, please. Give me two seconds to find my raincoat.”

He crouches down to Toodles, giving him an ear scratch while I hunt for my coat, but when I step into my bedroom, a hand presses over my mouth.

A large, cloaked, masked person keeps their hand on my mouth as they use the tip of their finger to trace something on my wall. My eyes widen as the wallpaper burns, a symbol appearing, and I try to kick my legs out when the middle of the symbol starts to swirl. Terror takes over me as my wall starts to twist, my heart rapidly beating out of my chest in fear when it grows into a dark hole.

Grayson is standing two seconds away with Toodles, yet he can’t hear my muffled screams or when I kick over my bookcase trying to get away from another of the masked beings, who shackles my wrists together with metal cuffs.

The room grows so cold I can see their breaths through the holes of their masks, and when the wall opens to a whirl of darkness, I’m sucked into it with my kidnappers, and everything spins, my insides knotting and coiling as my vision vanishes, and the shriek I let out is silent as I feel myself falling.

Falling and falling and falling.

Until my knees clash with something hard, my hands now free of the cuffs, and I gasp air into my lungs as my fingers dig into sand.

Water laps at my feet, and I shiver in the coldness, choking as a pair of black boots appears in my line of vision.

Taller than anything I’ve ever seen, someone who wasn’t there in my bedroom crouches down, his face covered by the same mask as my captors. Large, warm hands grab at my face, forcing my head back so my eyes clash with green ones. It feels like they’re searching my soul before the person pulls away like the touch alone burns them.

“She’s human?”

“It seems so.”

The voice, a man’s voice, is muffled beneath the mask as he curses under his breath. “How is this possible?” When no one replies, he shakes his head and turns around. “Take the human to her room.”

I’m yanked to my feet, my eyes lifting to the canopy of trees hiding the sky until my breath is knocked out of me by the sight.

A castle. A fortress. The kind I’ve only seen in history class or in ruins. Towers take each corner, so high my neck hurts to look at them as I’m dragged up the stone steps to the entrance.

“You have no idea how long we’ve been looking for you,” the muffled voice says as they pull me through the doors and down a corridor lit only by candles lining the stone walls.

The place is empty, cold, dark, and when I reach what they call the dorm rooms, I’m thrown inside.

My lungs squeeze as I hit the ground, my body shaking, and when I look up at the fireplace, the dresser, and the four-poster bed, my eyes land on a school uniform neatly placed on top of the mattress.