Chapter 20 · Moonclaim - Chapter 20: Daughter of the Cleanser

The hunter's blood was pooling under Ivy's boots. His last word hung in the warehouse air like a curse.

Cleanser.

She didn't move. Couldn't. Every wolf in the room had gone still, and she could feel their eyes tracking the line from her face down to the collar of her shirt, where the birthmark sat like a brand she'd spent four years trying to forget.

Leon was ten feet away. His hand was still on the gun at his hip. The silver rounds in that clip could drop her before she made it to the loading dock door.

"Say it's not true." His voice came out flat. No anger yet. That was worse.

Ivy met his eyes. "I didn't pick my father."

"Victor Gray." Leon said the name like he was testing a blade. "The man who walked into my mother's den and put a silver bullet through her skull while she was holding my sister. That Victor Gray."

"The man who was set up." Ivy's throat was dry. "The man who left me a recording saying he didn't do it. The man who died trying to prove it."

"Convenient."

"True.