173 Shadows Of Goldenpeak
Lucian
We boarded the helicopter that morning, bound for Goldenpeak. I glanced out over the landscape as it shrank beneath us, feeling a strange weight in my chest. Part of me wished I’d made time to visit baby Richard at the hospital, but I wasn’t in the right state of mind. That visit needed peace, not the storm I was carrying. I’d return with Mara. That felt right.
I was relieved to leave everything behind. But where we were headed didn’t sit right with me either. Goldenpeak was known for its women-women like the ones who had swarmed us at the hotel in Neev. Desperate. Artificial. Predatory. It made my skin crawl.
Darian suggested we spend the night at the duplex my father had bought for his grandparents. I shut that down immediately.
“I’ll pass. We’ll stay at a hotel,” I said flatly. Denis nodded in agreement.
“If you want to stay with them, go ahead,” Denis added. “But we’re keeping our distance.”
It wasn’t personal. At least not against them. It was about Martha. Everything she touched felt corrupted. Everyone tied to her felt like a risk. I didn’t trust any of it.
We checked into the best hotel Goldenpeak had to offer-which wasn’t saying much. It was worse than Neev’s by far. The moment we walked in, I felt it. That same hollow, predatory energy. The women here were everywhere, watching, calculating. Like smaller, younger versions of Martha, each one hunting for a way in. I kept my guard up.
Once we settled, we started planning.
We agreed to begin the investigation at the roots-where Martha’s parents used to live, before they were moved to their Villa. The idea was to gather neighbourhood testimonies and get a background story before we faced her parents directly. Darian was on board. Thankfully, he remembered the name of the street they lived on.
We headed there first.
The neighborhood was worn-down and quiet, the kind of place time forgets. Most of the old residents were long gone- moved away in search of a better life. Goldenpeak had no regional Alpha, no real structure, and no promise. Only the desperate stayed. Only the protected survived.
Martha’s parents had the luxury of someone else footing the bills, so they stayed.
It took time, but we finally found someone who had been around long enough to know something-an elderly woman named Bella Miles. She said she’d lived there for thirty-five years. Mid-seventies, by the look of her. She was fit and alert, and though her skin was smooth-thanks to werewolf genes-her thin grey hair gave away her age.
Best of all, she didn’t recognize us. She had no clue who we were.
That meant no pretense. No rehearsed stories. No reason to lie.
And that was exactly what we needed.
“Bella,” I said as I handed her a folded wad of cash.
Her eyes lit up the moment she felt the weight of it. “I haven’t held this much money in years,” she said with a crooked smile, motioning us into her small living room without hesitation.
She wasn’t afraid of us-not even a little. Either she had nothing to lose or just didn’t care. We told her we were working on a documentary about Martha Nighthorn. The cash, we explained, was payment for her time and honesty. Clearly, she
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didn’t like Martha. That made things easier. And lucky for us, she didn’t seem to follow the news. If she had, we might’ve already been shown the door.
“Gentlemen,” she said, settling into her worn-out armchair. “What do you want to know?”
I leaned in. “Tell us about Alaric Moongrove.”
Her reaction was immediate. She hissed like the name alone left a bad taste in her mouth.
“He was a good-for-nothing Alpha who abandoned his people and croaked,” she spat. “His son should’ve stepped up, but
he ran like a coward.”
The venom in her voice was hard to ignore. It was obvious: the Moongrove name still carried weight in Goldenpeak-just not the good kind. Maybe they blamed Alaric for the rot that festered in their town.
“That bastard ran off with his tramp, chasing some pipe dream,” she sneered. “Then word got out that she dumped him,
he spiraled into depression, and disappeared. Serves him right.”
“Why such hate?” Denis asked gently.
Bella chuckled darkly. “He was violent. Used to beat Martha. We were relieved when we heard she found herself a
Nighthorn and dumped his sorry arse. But don’t get it twisted-she’s no angel either. That girl was as vulgar as they come
I always wondered how Alpha Vander put up with that mouth of hers.”
She let out a dry laugh, shaking her head.
“Do you know if they had a child?” I asked.
Her brow furrowed. “They were secretive. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. They left town fast. Her folks always acted
like they had something to hide, so it’s hard to say.”
“Anything else specific about their relationship?” Denis pressed.
“Other than the fact that he was a miserable prick and she was a greedy, foul-mouthed piece of work?” She shrugged.”
Not much.”
The bitterness in her tone said it all. She despised them both. We probably weren’t going to get anything more from her.
Still, what she shared lined up with most of what Martha had told us-except for the part about the dead baby. That detai
still hung in the air like a ghost.
We’d have to ask her parents. That truth, if it existed, lived with them.
