Bain
“She looks tired,” Gage says, as we watch her eyes close without responding to Chase’s question.
“Her head just got heavier. I think she’s asleep,” Chase says in confusion as he holds her against him.
Fuck, I wish that were me.
After the pain I felt from her death, there is no more denying how strongly I feel for her. I don’t know how this will all play out, with all of us seeming to feel the same way. We will just have to wait for her to shift before we know anything for certain.
“Let’s get her back to camp. That bear could come back any minute,” Maddox says as he stands up, then bends down to lift the sleeping beauty off Chase and into his own arms.
I should have done that. She’s my mate. Probably. Definitely.
Heading back to our temporary camp on the outskirts of our land, I take up the rear, keeping my eyes open for any more threats. I had gotten a good slash across that grizzly’s snout. I doubt he’ll be back anytime soon. I think he realized he was outmatched. But it had been close for a minute there.
If it wasn’t for her stepping in to save Chase, we might have lost him today. I try to swallow past the knot of guilt growing in my chest. It’s my job to protect him, to protect her, and I failed.
Never again.
As we step into the clearing, Maddox gently lays her by the firepit. Gage is already moving to start the fire, to keep her warm and comfortable, no doubt.
Taking a seat on the ground right beside her, I lean back against one of the large boulders I’d moved around the fire. I stretch out my legs, letting my right one rest against her back, craving her contact.
Suddenly, I feel utterly exhausted. So much happened today, and I seem to be crashing now from the adrenaline rush.
First, she went missing when she ran from us, from me. Then I find her face-to-face with a massive bear, seconds away from it killing her. Then she does the last thing I expect and jumps in front of it to protect my pack mate… and she died.
Then we watched as she came back from the dead. I don’t even know how to wrap my head around all of that, but I don’t need to. All that matters is that she’s here. And I’m thankful, more thankful than I’ve ever been. Whatever power brought her back, I owe it everything.
“Did she seem confused to you guys?” Gage asks as he and the others join me around the campfire, the moon hanging brightly overhead in the night sky.
“When?” Chase asks as he stares down at her. We’re all watching her now. I think we’re afraid she’ll stop breathing or disappear again if we don’t.
“When she woke up,” Gage says, his brows pulling together.
“She didn’t exactly show any disorientation.
No confusion about the complete absence of wounds on her side, which, biologically speaking, should have been impossible.
Most people would at least check, touch the area, or react with shock.
She didn’t. It was as if she already expected it. ”
“Would we notice if she were confused, though? In her wolf form?” Hunter asks.
“I’m not sure,” Gage says, still frowning. “Neurological responses can manifest differently between forms. What looks like calm acceptance might actually be shock, but without human facial cues, it’s harder to interpret.”
“If she wasn’t confused or surprised, wouldn’t that mean…” Chase asks, trailing off, not wanting to say what we’re probably all thinking. That something like this has happened before.
We all stare at her silently for a minute before Maddox speaks. “She’s tired.”
“I bet regenerating like that is exhausting,” Gage mutters. “Cellular reconstruction on that scale would burn through energy reserves faster than a body can replace them. No wonder she crashed the second she felt safe enough.”
My wolf perks up at the thought of her feeling safe with us.
Protect mate.
I glance around the clearing and the forest beyond, realizing how utterly unsafe it is here.
“We need to go home,” I tell them with a curt nod.
“What—now?” Hunter asks in confusion.
I stare at her for a moment in consideration. It’s probably best to let her recover a little first.
“We’ll go in the morning,” Maddox tells us, and when I look up at him, he gives me a small nod of agreement.
“What about the pack?” Chase asks. “And your Uncle?”
“We’ll have to figure that out when we get there.”
“Are you sure that’s the best idea?” Hunter asks, looking nervous. “You know what he’s like.”
Yeah, we all know Maddox’s Uncle, Marcus, or Alpha Kane as he preferred to be called, isn’t going to like us keeping an unbonded female wolf shifter in our home, especially a rogue. But we’d never really played well by his pack rules.
When Maddox’s parents were killed, Maddox was only eight, so his mother’s brother, Marcus, took over as pack alpha.
Since he never took a mate or had any children, it’s always been expected that Maddox would take over from him one day.
The fact that he is thirty and hasn’t done so yet is confusing everyone, including me.
Marcus is a terrible alpha. It’s part of the reason that Maddox formed his own family pack with the four of us. Even though we are all alphas, letting Maddox be our leader gave us extra protection and freedom within the greater pack.
I have a strong feeling that the reason Maddox doesn’t want to take over is because he doesn't want the job. It isn’t the worst pack I’ve seen, but there are a lot of members that we want nothing to do with. Only a few of them are decent people.
It makes me wonder if Maddox is serious about us moving to Starfall Haven.
I thought it was a joke at the time, since the super-friendly town is said to be only a myth, but maybe he wants a change.
I can’t blame him. The thought of living somewhere safe, away from hunters and humans, where we can safely shift without fear of being seen, sounds too good to be true, and probably is.
“We can’t tell anyone about her coming back to life,” Maddox finally responds. “Nobody will understand, they’ll perceive her as a threat or want to exploit her.”
My chest rumbles, my wolf growling at the thought of anyone trying to hurt her. “Agreed,” I grit out.
The others nod their agreement, and my wolf settles, knowing at least our pack is on the same page when it comes to her safety.
“She’ll probably be hungry when she wakes,” Gage says. “Regenerating like that probably wiped out her reserves.”
Chase and Hunter give each other a quick look, then jump up in sync. “We’ll go get food, so it’s ready when she wakes up,” Chase says before they both shift and take off into the woods.
The three of us stay where we’re seated and watch her sleep. I can’t seem to take my eyes off the rise and fall of her chest, terrified it might stop. I place my hand on her side for further reassurance.
“I’ve been thinking,” Gage says after a while. “After we found her, she was unconscious for days. Maybe the same thing had just happened to her.” He frowns then shakes his head. “No, the rebirth seems to cleanse her completely.”
“And when we found her, she was injured and filthy,” Maddox finishes for him as he nods in agreement.
“But it’s most likely tied to the reason why she was hiding in the first place.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, giving Gage my full attention. If there was a threat out there, I wanted to know about it before it came anywhere near her.
“That’s such an unheard-of gift, there would definitely be people out there wanting to take advantage of her for it. Then again…” he trails off and I try not to growl in frustration.
“Then again what?”
He takes a second to glance at each of us, pushing back his black hair and letting out a sigh. “Maybe whoever she’s running from gave her that power.”
“Why would someone do that?” Hunter asks as he and Chase return with several fresh kills each. They start to prepare them for cooking as Gage answers his question.
“They could be experimenting with immortality,” Gage says, his tone measured but quickening as his thoughts take shape.
“Think about it. Shifters already heal much faster than humans. What if someone wanted to find a way to replicate that? If someone wanted to understand or even manufacture healing, a wolf would make the perfect foundation. You start with what already works, then push it beyond its natural limits. They might think the only way to test those limits is to injure her, record how long it takes to recover, and then repeat the process until they’ve mapped every threshold. ”
My hands clench tightly, my claws extending out to puncture my palms. “Are you saying someone experimented on her?” I growl out.
“It’s possible,” Gage says worriedly, his gaze fixed and unblinking as he watches her.
“She could be a prototype. If you can engineer a single subject to recover without fail, then you’ve proven the concept.
From there, it’s only a matter of replication.
Soldiers who don’t stay down. Weapons who heal between battles.
An army that doesn’t die. Or—” He pauses, his jaw tightening slightly.
“It might not have been about an army at all. It could have been personal. An obsession with creating something unique, something powerful, something that would never leave because it literally couldn’t.
But without her being able to tell us anything, these are all just guesses at this point, theories. ”
The fire pops sharply, filling the silence that follows his words.
“When we get home, I’m hoping I can find records of something similar. Just because I haven’t heard of a wolf regenerating doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened before. It just means I haven’t read about it yet.”
We all knew the truth, though. Gage has already read every book we own, and he has a photographic memory; he shouldn’t need to reread any of them.
As if hearing my thoughts, he adds, “I’ll search the pack archives for anything similar. There must be something I can find.”
Maddox nods. “Good idea. Her safety is our priority now. I just wish we knew what we’re saving her from.”
Eventually, we cook dinner, and when she doesn’t wake, I shift back into my wolf form so I can lie beside her. Everyone sleeps close, and she sleeps through the entire night without even moving.
I find myself waking up often to check she’s still breathing. The memory of her motionless body will haunt me for a very long time.