Chapter 20
Wreck
The forest felt wrong.
Not wounded.
Not burning.
Wrong.
The storm had passed, leaving the clearing drenched and heavy with the scent of wet pine and charred earth.
Smoke still curled faintly from blackened trunks on the ridge behind us from the latest blaze. It drifted lazily through shafts of gray morning light.
The air tasted like tension.
Like old grudges waking up.
Across the clearing, beyond the scorched earth and dripping pine branches, stood the timberline that led back toward Forest Ridge—my old Clan.
My past.
It lay over a hundred miles from here by road.
By memory?
It might as well have been breathing down my neck.
Close enough that I could still taste the bitterness of it.
Close enough that the males standing before me now had once shared dens with me, hunted beside me, wrestled in tall summer grass when I’d been nothing more than a gangly cub with paws too big for my body.
I remembered them laughing.
Shoving me into riverbanks.
Teaching me how to track.
And I remembered something else, too.
The day they chained me.
The way they wouldn’t meet my eyes.
The way they pretended obedience to my father excused cowardice.
These were the same Bears.
The very ones who’d watched as fifteen grown males forced me to my knees.
The very ones who’d stood silent while I was banished.
In my eyes?
They were without honor.
And now they stood on my mountain.
On territory I’d bled for.
Protected.
Built a life on.
They are enemies now, my Bear snarled inside me.
Displeasure rolled off me in thick waves, the growl vibrating deep in my chest low and constant—an avalanche rumbling before it breaks.
The air felt charged.
Damp earth.
Lingering smoke.
Storm-washed pine.
Six full-blooded Grizzlies shifted uneasily behind their Alpha.
Boots ground into damp soil. Breath steamed in the cool mountain air.
Fur twitched beneath skin as instincts warred with pride.
They smelled it.
They felt it.
The difference between us.
Hybrid.
True Alpha.
Oh, I was stronger.
More dominant than any of them.
And there, at the center of it all stood Edward Junior.
My half-brother.
My father’s chosen heir.
The male who inherited the Forest Ridge Clan not because he was worthy—but because I had been exiled.
Not that I wanted it—I didn’t.
Everything I wanted was right here.
Mate.
Crew.
Mountain.
And fuck Edward six ways to Sunday for trying to take it from me.
My gaze locked on his—my brother.
He looked older than when I’d last seen him.
Meaner.
There were lines around his mouth now, carved by bitterness instead of strength.
His eyes were too bright.
Too sharp.
Too desperate.
He couldn’t hold my stare for long. And I knew it pissed him off.
Good.
Weak.
Destroy.
Oh, the Bear was really fucking angry now.
The trees around us leaned inward slightly, their branches dripping rainwater like witnesses gathering for a trial.
“I don’t want your fucking Clan,” I growled, my voice carrying through the clearing like distant thunder. “Why are you here?”
Edward spat into the mud.
Fucking disgusting.
“To end you, you half-breed hybrid bastard!”
The insult rolled off me like rain off bark.
Didn’t sting anymore.
Didn’t matter.
“You could’ve just sent a postcard,” I replied evenly. “You walked across a mountain to get my attention. Now you have it, Junior.”
His lips twisted.
“I didn’t think you’d come otherwise.”
The air shifted.
Behind me, I felt Gia’s magic flare faintly in response to the tension.
Alive.
Rooted.
Bright.
Good.
Edward’s grin widened.
“You know something, I remember you always loved playing hero when you were an annoying kid,” he continued mockingly. “Figured a worthless cur like you’d end up fighting fires, saving trees, and shitting in the woods.”
His gaze hardened.
“You should be thanking me, little brother. I gave you something to save.”
He chuckled low, and menacingly.
The meaning of his words hit me right in the chest.
“You set the fires,” I said.
Not a question.
He shrugged casually.
“Most of them. It was easy enough to find some careless human’s trash left in the woods and just light it up.”
Rage poured into my veins like gasoline.
“You think that’s power?” I asked, stepping forward slowly. “Burning land? Setting fires you can’t possibly control?”
Edward’s nostrils flared.
“I am the power in Forest Ridge! And setting fires proves something, alright.”
“Proves what?”
“Proves that I can outsmart a hybrid freak like you! That I’m stronger than you. The real Alpha of the Clan!”
His voice cracked slightly.
There it was.
The truth beneath it all.
He wasn’t here because he wanted land.
He was here because whispers had found him.
Whispers that the hybrid son of his father had been stronger.
More Alpha.
More worthy.
He stepped closer, boots sinking into the wet soil, rainwater dripping from low branches around us.
The scent that rolled off him was wrong. Sharp—blood, fear, pride, dark magic—and all of it was stretched too tight.
“They talk about you,” Edward said, voice dropping to a hiss meant only for me. “They say if you hadn’t been banished—”
“I was sixteen,” I cut him off, my voice flat and controlled by sheer force of will. “Second in line. I never wanted your fucking title.”
His jaw flexed.
“You were dangerous.”
“I was a kid.”
“You were already bigger than Father!” Edward snapped, losing that polished Alpha tone he liked to pretend he had. “Bigger than both of us!”
The wind moved through the trees in a long, creaking sigh, branches bending like they were leaning in to listen.
I smelled it on him now.
Not confidence.
Fear.
Jealousy.
Weakness.
It clung to him like rot beneath bark.
His insecurity hung in the air thicker than the smoke from the earlier fires.
“So what?” I asked quietly, taking one deliberate step forward. “You burned forests to prove you’re stronger than me?”
Edward’s mouth curved, but there was nothing stable in the expression.
“No,” he said softly. “I burned forests to keep my end of the bargain.”
Something in my chest tightened.
“What bargain?”
He leaned in slightly.
“To take your fucking land, freak. And whatever else of yours I want.”
His eyes flicked over my shoulder.
To Gia.
Then, toward the tree line beside him.
The Bear erupted.
Not a full shift.
Not yet.
But the growl that tore from my chest shook leaves loose from branches above us. My fingers shifted into claws, and I could feel my fangs elongate.
Protect.
Kill.
Mine.
“This isn’t my land,” I said through clenched teeth, clinging to control like it was the last solid thing I had. “I work for the man who owns it.”
Edward laughed harshly.
“Your territory then. Don’t split hairs. You think I don’t see what you’ve been doing? You think I don’t hear things?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“You’ve been building a Clan,” he spat. “A Pack. A territory. You think you can challenge me.”
“I don’t want anything to do with you or Forest Ridge,” I growled, letting dominance roll off me deliberately now.
The True Alpha inside me pressed forward, demanding resolution. Demanding blood.
“You came here. Not the other way around,” I stated.
He smiled again.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t come alone.”
The word settled heavy.
Movement shifted at the edge of the clearing.
Footsteps on wet leaves.
A tall figure stepped from between the dripping branches.
Dark hair slicked back.
Tailored charcoal suit.
Polished shoes sinking slightly into the mud like the forest itself rejected him.
Cologne sliced through the scent of pine and ash like a blade.
This strange male was a Witch.
The second I scented him fully, something cold and venomous uncoiled in my gut.
Gia’s breath caught behind me.
“Jeremy?”
She knew him?
The beast in me snarled.
And the bond between us flared violently—shock, confusion, anger, betrayal all slamming into me at once through that invisible tether.
My vision sharpened.
Every sound sharpened.
Jeremy stepped from the tree line like he was arriving at a shareholders’ meeting instead of a battlefield.
Suit immaculate.
Shoes ruined in the mud, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Cologne cutting through pine smoke and wet earth like a lie wrapped in silk.
“Gia,” he said smoothly, as if this were casual. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Something inside me snapped tight.
I didn’t remember moving.
One second I was watching Edward.
The next I stood fully between Jeremy and my mate, shoulders squared, body coiled.
“Say her name again,” I said quietly.
Jeremy looked at me like I was a scheduling inconvenience.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“So who the fuck are you?” I asked.
The Bear pushed forward beneath my skin, but I held him back. Not yet. Not until I understood the shape of the threat.
“Jeremy Steeler. Assistant Vice President of Greener Earth Industries.” His gaze flicked briefly toward Edward. “I’ve been working with your half-brother. And with Gia.”
That word.
Working.
The bond between Gia and me flared instantly — anger, betrayal, clarity.
I felt her outrage like lightning under my ribs.
I didn’t doubt her.
Not for a second.
The Bear might have been feral, but he wasn’t stupid.
This Witch smelled wrong.
Blood magic.
Greed.
Rot disguised as civility.
“Gia, you did excellent work,” Jeremy continued, turning his smile on her like she was still one of his assets. “Your reports confirmed the forest is healthy. Very viable.”
Viable.
For exploitation.
“You lied! You sent me here to see if the forest was ripe for sucking dry, not to save it,” Gia replied.
Her voice trembled—but not with fear, with fury.
“You used me. The whole Coven used me! This was never about protection.”
“Don’t be so na?ve,” Jeremy snapped.
“Don’t fucking talk to her again,” I snarled and pointed my finger at him.
Havoc and Justin growled from their positions on either side of her, and it shocked me how much I trusted them with my mate.
But it allowed me to focus on the immediate threats.