Chapter 4
Carter
The moment the unfamiliar engines rumbled through the east gate, every nerve in my body went on high alert.
My wolf surged forward hard enough that my vision sharpened, colors cutting sharp against the dull gray of the compound walls.
Fur bristled under my skin, itching to break through, to shift, to defend. Danger. Threat. Attack.
The old chain-link gate clanged as it swung shut behind the vehicles, and the sound ricocheted like a warning bell in my head.
I wasn’t the only one reacting. From the corner of my eye, I caught my enforcers stiffening, the change rippling through them almost visible.
Shoulders squared, fists clenched, lips peeled back just enough to flash fangs. My wolf could taste their unease, their need to fight.
Beneath it, the flicker of fear bleeding out from the gathered pack members hovering at the edge of the yard. The first door swung open and Cooper stepped out.
The lead alpha of the Pecan Pines pack carried his authority the way some carried weapons. Open, blunt, impossible to ignore. He wasn’t smiling.
His expression was carved in stone, jaw tight, dark eyes sharp as blades. The anger radiating off him was thick enough I could feel it pressing into my skin.
I knew instantly that this wasn’t the kind of anger you talked down easily.
Cooper had been angry at us before. At Adrian, especially, when he stirred up trouble during the annual pack summit which was held at Pecan Pines this year.
But this was worse. This was personal.
Another truck door opened, then another. Wolves piled out, six in total including Cooper himself. Some of them enforcers. All of them seasoned, and not one of them a pushover.
My wolves responded instantly. Growls rose around me, a dangerous chorus that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Eli’s hands were already half-shifted, claws glinting in the fading light. Jeremy bared his teeth, the beginnings of a snarl twisting his face. Their wolves were right at the surface, hungry for blood.
“Stand down,” I barked. My voice carried sharp and hard, cutting through the growls.
Most of them obeyed, stepping back, forcing their wolves down beneath skin with visible effort. Shoulders loosened, jaws unclenched.
But not Eli and Jeremy. Both of them had their fangs out now, claws extended, eyes glinting gold. Their aggression rolled off them in waves, fueling the fire already simmering between our packs.
My wolf snapped inside me, demanding obedience. This was the problem with wolves raised under Adrian’s shadow. They equated strength with violence, dominance with blood.
Eli and Jeremy weren’t the worst of the old guard, but they had soaked in too much of Adrian’s poison. They wanted war when what we needed was survival.
I planted my feet, let my wolf surge forward, and growled low in my chest. “I said stand down.”
This time, I didn’t just speak. I pushed my alpha voice into the words. Power laced every syllable, wrapping the command around them like a chokehold.
Eli snarled, resisting for a beat too long. Jeremy’s lip curled, defiance flashing across his face. But neither of them could fight it, not fully.
My wolf was pissed, his hackles high, his authority absolute.
Slowly, reluctantly, they dropped their hands back to human, their claws shrinking away. Their jaws tightened, but the fangs receded.
Good, but not good enough. I was about to snap at them again when a hand touched my shoulder.
Heat spread through me, but not the heat of rage. The fury that had been climbing higher, tightening my chest, threatening to spill over, it broke apart like smoke against a steady breeze.
Calm seeped into me, soothing the restless edge of my wolf, steadying my heartbeat. My head jerked slightly to the side, shock jolting through me.
Devon.
He stood close, his dark eyes fixed calmly on the standoff ahead. His hand was light, steady, firm against my shoulder. Energy pulsed from his touch. Not dominance, not control, but balance.
A healer’s energy, soft but relentless, weaving through me like water carving stone. Just like that, the storm inside me subsided.
My wolf, who had been raging for a fight, settled. Not fully, never fully, not with threats in front of us, but enough that my vision cleared, my focus sharpened.
Enough that I could breathe without every inhale tasting like blood. I swallowed hard, caught between disbelief and something else. Something I didn’t want to name.
Because even now, in the middle of this stand-off, part of me couldn’t stop noticing the warmth of his hand.
The steadiness of his presence. The way his calm seemed to thread into my bones as if it had always belonged there. No wolf had ever done this to me before.
I forced my gaze back to Cooper.
The man hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken. He didn’t need to. His wolves stood like a wall at his back, ready for his signal.
And me? I stood with my pack half-ready to lunge, half-ready to scatter, and all of them looking to me to decide whether we burned or bled.
I straightened, rolling my shoulders back beneath Devon’s touch, grounding myself in the calm he gave me.
My voice, when I spoke again, was steady. “Cooper.”
Cooper narrowed his eyes. “Carter.”
The tension stretched tight as a wire between us. My wolves bristled behind me. His shifted forward, like blades unsheathed.
And I knew this could go very, very wrong.
Cooper didn’t waste time with pleasantries.
His voice cut through the charged air like a blade. “You’ve got something that belongs to me.”
The words landed heavy, and I heard the ripple it caused behind me. Snarls bubbled up from throats, and there were sharp intakes of breath. The phrasing was deliberate, pointed.
Devon wasn’t a possession, not a thing to be claimed, but that was how alphas spoke when the stakes were high. And healers…healers were the stakes.
I squared my shoulders, fighting the urge to bare my teeth. My wolf prowled inside me, restless, bristling at the insult. But I couldn’t let this devolve into blood.
Not with my pack already half-healed, not with six armed and trained Pecan Pines wolves in our yard.
“Cooper,” I said carefully, “no one here has taken anything from you.”
Cooper’s gaze snapped to Devon, still standing close enough that I could feel the steady warmth of him at my shoulder. That anger in Cooper’s eyes darkened, sharpened.
“Then what’s my healer doing here?” Cooper demanded.
A murmur rose among my wolves. Rose stood a few feet off, pale and trembling, watching the storm she and her brother had unwittingly set in motion.
My chest tightened, but I pushed it all down, keeping my focus locked on Cooper.
Before I could answer, Devon took a step forward. His hand dropped from my shoulder, and I felt the absence of his calming energy like the sudden loss of air.
Still, his presence filled the space, commanding attention without an ounce of aggression.
“I volunteered,” Devon said, his voice calm and steady. “No one forced me.”
A stir ran through both packs. Cooper’s jaw tightened, but before he could speak, another voice cut in.
“Bullshit.” The growl came from one of the Pecan Pines wolves. It was a man I didn’t recognize.
His energy was different from the others, sharp and jagged, not the smooth discipline Cooper’s enforcers carried.
His eyes burned with distrust, and his glare wasn’t aimed at me. It was leveled squarely at Devon.
My wolf bristled instantly, hackles rising. I stepped forward a fraction, my voice hard. “And you are?”
The man bared his teeth in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Mark. Devon’s older brother.”
I blinked. That explained the difference in his presence, the way his hostility wasn’t just pack loyalty but something deeper, personal.
Mark’s gaze swung between me, my wolves, and Devon, his expression darkening further.
“I don’t trust them. Not one bit. Thornebane’s reputation precedes it, and nothing you say will change that,” Mark said.
The words landed heavy, and I felt the ripple of shame move through some of my wolves. They didn’t look at me, but I knew what they were thinking. Mark wasn’t wrong. Not entirely.
Adrian had carved our pack’s name into the dirt with blood and violence. Undoing that would take more than words. More than me.
My wolf snapped inside me, but I held him down. Lashing out wouldn’t fix this.
“How did you know?” Devon asked suddenly.
Cooper’s brows drew together. “Know what?”
“That I was here,” Devon said evenly. “You showed up fast. Almost too fast.”
The silence that followed was heavy. My wolf pricked up, ears sharp inside me. Devon was right. The reaction time was suspicious.
Cooper hadn’t wasted hours gathering wolves and searching. He’d driven straight here with a team of enforcers like he already knew where to go.
I scanned the Pecan Pines wolves, and one of them shifted uneasily. Mark.
Devon’s gaze cut toward him, sharp and accusing. “You.”
Mark’s jaw tightened. His nostrils flared. Then he said, blunt and unapologetic, “I put a tracker on your phone.”
Devon froze, shock flashing across his face before anger burned there instead, hot and sharp. His calm cracked for the first time since I’d seen him. “You did what?”
Mark didn’t flinch. He folded his arms across his chest. “It was for your own good. Someone had to keep an eye on you.”
Devon’s voice dropped, quiet but deadly. “That’s not your decision to make.”
Mark stepped forward, his expression twisting. “You’re too trusting, Devon. You have a tendency walk into danger like it’s nothing. You’d heal a snake if it bit you, and you don’t see how others can use that against you. You needed someone to make sure…”
“Enough.” Devon’s tone cracked like a whip, sharper than I’d heard it yet. His dark eyes blazed. “You violated my privacy. You violated my trust.”
The air thrummed with the intensity of it. My wolf bristled at the sheer audacity. Devon was an adult who could make his own choices.
I stepped forward before I even thought about it, my voice rumbling low. “You put a tracker on your own brother’s phone?”
Mark’s glare snapped to me. “Stay out of this. This is family business.”
Every instinct in me snarled against backing down. My wolf wanted to lunge, to tear, to punish the disrespect. But I forced myself to hold steady.
Not now. Not with the Pecan Pines wolves staring us down.
Devon, though, didn’t let it go. His hands curled into fists at his sides.
“You had no right,” Devon said, each word laced with fury. “You don’t get to cage me just because you’re afraid.”
Mark’s mouth twisted, but he didn’t respond. Cooper’s hand lifted slightly, and the weight of his authority settled over the moment.
“That’s enough,” Cooper said firmly. His gaze shifted to Devon. “Whatever you think of Mark’s choices, it’s done. He was acting out of loyalty.”
“Fine. We’ll discuss this another time, Mark.” Devon took a deep breath and looked at Cooper. “I came here because they needed me.”
Devon turned, gesturing toward the crowd of my pack gathered nearby. I followed his hand and saw my wolves lingering at the edge of the standoff. Some limped, some bore fresh bandages.
One woman cradled her arm, the skin mottled with bruising. Another young man’s face was pale, his movements stiff.
Injuries we’d been managing poorly for weeks, hidden wounds we didn’t have the means to treat.
“They need a healer,” Devon said firmly. “And I’ve been helping them. Of my own free will.”
Silence fell. His words carried weight, undeniable truth. Even my wolves, suspicious and defensive, couldn’t argue with it.
I felt the air shift, tension bleeding just slightly under the honesty in his tone.
Cooper’s gaze flicked between Devon, me, and the gathered injured. His jaw worked, muscles tight. Finally, he exhaled, the sound sharp.
“You’ve made your point,”Cooper said to Devon. Then his eyes landed on me, dark and unyielding. “But this isn’t finished. I’ll speak to Devon alone.”
My wolf roared in protest. Instinct screamed against handing Devon over, even temporarily, to Cooper’s authority. Devon wasn’t mine, wasn’t Thornebane’s, but my wolf didn’t care.
Every cell in me rebelled against the idea of letting him step away from my side.
But what choice did I have? If I refused, if I stood my ground here, things would explode. My wolves weren’t ready for war. Not against Pecan Pines, not against Cooper.
I ground my teeth, forcing the words past them. “Fine.”
Cooper’s expression didn’t soften. He gave a curt nod, then looked at Devon. “With me.”
Devon glanced at me once. His gaze held mine steady, unreadable, but something passed there. Something that felt like reassurance, or maybe defiance, or maybe both.
Then he stepped forward, leaving my side, and walked toward Cooper. The loss of his presence hit me harder than I wanted to admit.
I stood rigid, watching as Devon moved, his shoulders squared, his calm radiating even as Cooper’s wolves closed ranks around him.
My own enforcers shifted uneasily behind me, growls low in their throats, but they obeyed my earlier order and didn’t move.
For now, that was all I could do. Hold the line. Keep the peace. Pretend my wolf wasn’t clawing at my insides, furious at letting him go. And pray this didn’t end in blood.