5. Sam
Chapter five
Sam
Iwas about to ask my brothers to commit high treason for a woman who’d tried to wipe my memories. Just another Tuesday in the Shaw family.
The Three Rivers border came into view, and my wolf surged against my ribs like he was trying to claw his way out of my chest. Home. Or what used to be home, back when I was the fun Shaw brother instead of the guy who’d spent months avoiding everyone he loved.
I pulled over at the old logging road and killed the engine.
Forest scents filtered through the cracked window—damp earth and cedar, the musky trail of deer, decaying leaves from last autumn.
And underneath it all, pine and moss. Derek’s scent.
My twin had always smelled like home, even when we weren’t speaking.
Which we hadn’t been. Not since I’d tried to kill him during his bloodlust episode.
Fun times.
Two days. That’s how long it had been since a teenage witch and my terrorist not-quite-girlfriend had performed magical brain surgery on me.
Two days since I’d woken up with my memories stitched back together and learned Annabella had been hauled off to Adarcan Prison.
Two days since I’d finally realized the fierce, furious half-witch I’d betrayed was my mate.
Mate.
The word kept hitting me wrong, like a coat that didn’t fit. Mates were something that happened to other wolves. To Derek, who’d found Sofia and turned into a lovesick idiot. To Ryan, who’d burn the world down for Mai without hesitation.
Not to me. Not to the guy who’d been playing pretend for so long he’d forgotten what his real face looked like.
But my wolf knew. The fucker had probably known the whole time I was undercover as Felix, getting close to her, falling for her.
Every time she’d looked at me—at Felix—at whoever the fuck I was supposed to be—my wolf had been screaming mine mine mine while I’d been too busy following orders to listen.
Now she was locked in a supernatural supermax because I’d told Gid where to find her and handed her over gift-wrapped, and my wolf wanted blood.
He wanted to turn the car around right now.
Storm the Kennel. Tear apart anyone standing between her and us.
Simple. Direct. The kind of plan that would get us both killed and accomplish exactly nothing.
I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles went white.
Think, Shaw. What’s your play?
I needed my brothers to help me break into the most secure prison in North America.
Ryan, Alpha of Three Rivers, who would do anything to protect Mai and his kids and this Pack.
Which meant he had to weigh every risk against their safety.
Mason, Alpha of Bridgetown, who was raising Shya’s little brothers and working his ass off proving he belonged in that role.
And Derek. My twin. Who I hadn’t properly spoken to since I’d tried to kill him.
Yeah. This was going to be a hard sell.
I’d have to be strategic. Clever. Show them this wasn’t some emotional breakdown or mate-bond psychosis—even though it was absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent both of those things. I needed a plan. Or at least the skeleton of one. Something better than “storm the prison and pray.”
Headlights sliced through the darkness. Three sets, coming fast.
So much for strategy.
They’d known I was coming. All three of them climbed out of their vehicles at once, and I caught Ryan’s expression in the headlights—that particular blend of exhaustion and resignation he got whenever one of us was about to make his life significantly harder.
“How?” I asked by way of greeting.
Ryan leaned back against his SUV, arms crossed.
“Esme. She insisted the three of us needed to be at this exact spot at this exact time. Said you’d be here and would need us.
” His jaw tightened. “Wouldn’t tell us why.
Just kept saying your ‘sparkly thoughts’ were all lined up now, but you were about to do something ‘very Sam.’”
Coming from Esme, that could mean anything from “mildly reckless” to “apocalyptically stupid.” Given the circumstances, I was betting on the latter.
Derek stepped out of the shadows, and the twin bond hit me like a truck.
We hadn’t stood this close in a long time.
I remembered how it felt to feel his rage pouring through our connection.
How it felt when I realized I would have to put him down before he hurt someone.
Since he’d looked at me with murder in his eyes, and I’d known I was going to have to kill my own brother.
I hadn’t. Sofia had gotten through to him. But sometimes, late at night, I still wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t. Would I have really killed him? Or would I have let him tear me apart?
“You look like shit,” Derek said flatly.
“Thanks. Really feeling the brotherly love here.”
“Cut the crap, Sam.” That edge in his voice—I remembered it from childhood. It meant he could see straight through whatever mask I was wearing. “What are we doing here? What happened?”
Before I could answer, another engine roared through the night. A motorcycle, which could only mean—
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
Gideon Calloway skidded to a stop in a spray of gravel, swinging off his bike like he was dismounting a dragon at the end of an epic quest rather than crashing a family meeting he hadn’t been invited to.
“Sammy-boy!” His dark hair stuck up at wild angles, and that sharp grin spread across his face—the one that made smart people nervous.
“Fancy running into you here. Oh wait—” He made a show of checking his watch.
“—I’ve been tailing you for six hours. Thought you’d notice somewhere around hour three, but apparently, Council training isn’t what it used to be. Tragic, really.”
“Go back to the Council, Calloway. You don’t need to be here for this.”
“And yet.” He spread his arms wide. “Here I am. The universe works in mysterious ways. I called Talia, covered for your stubborn ass, said you needed a few days off after the mission. I’ll take thank yous in the form of bottles of expensive whiskey or gin.
” His hazel eyes slid to my brothers, sizing them up with the kind of lazy assessment that meant he was cataloging threat levels.
“Gentlemen. Lovely evening for a clandestine family gathering, wouldn’t you say? Very cloak and dagger. I approve.”
Derek’s entire body had gone rigid. “Who the fuck is this?”
“Gideon Calloway.” Gid extended a hand that Derek didn’t take. His grin didn’t falter. “Wolf Council Enforcer, professional disaster, and currently the only thing standing between your brother and a spectacularly stupid death. You must be the twin. I can tell by the matching scowls.”
“Gid—” I started.
“No, no, let me guess.” He pointed at Ryan. “You’re the Alpha. Got that whole ‘I carry the weight of my people’ thing going on. Very brooding. Exhausting, I’m sure.” His finger swung to Mason. “And you’re the scary one who doesn’t talk much. Classic second brother energy.”
Mason’s expression didn’t change, which was somehow more threatening than if he’d growled.
“Fantastic. Now that we’re all acquainted,” Gideon clapped his hands together, “would someone like to tell me why we’re standing in the middle of nowhere at ass o’clock at night? Because I have theories, and none of them end well.”
“Sam.” Ryan’s voice had a hard tone to it. “What’s going on?”
I took a breath. Now or never.
“I need your help breaking someone out of the Kennel.”
The silence stretched.
“You know,” I added. “The Council’s maximum security prison. Just in case that wasn’t clear.”
“We know what the Kennel is,” Mason said quietly.
Right.
Ryan studied me with those steady Alpha eyes—the ones that had watched me grow up, watched me make every stupid decision of my life, and somehow still saw something worth protecting. “Who?”
“A prisoner. Alpha-level security. I can use my Council credentials to get in, but I can’t walk her out. Not without signed authorization from the Head of the Council, and there’s zero chance of that happening.”
“Her?” Derek’s voice sharpened.
Gideon let out a theatrical groan. “Oh, here we go. I was hoping I’d be wrong about this part.” He looked at my brothers with the expression of a man watching a train wreck in slow motion. “Brace yourselves. It gets worse.”
“The prisoner,” Derek pressed. “Who is she?”
“A half-breed,” Gideon supplied, entirely too helpful. “Half-witch, half-wolf. Been running a guerrilla operation targeting Council members for months. Very dangerous. Very wanted. Your brother was undercover in her organization, and—”
“She’s my mate.”
Ryan straightened. Mason went absolutely still, that predator stillness that meant every instinct was firing. And Derek—
Derek’s eyes locked onto mine. The twin bond hummed between us, carrying everything we hadn’t said. All the months of silence. The guilt and anger.
“Your mate,” Ryan repeated carefully.
“Yeah.”
“The terrorist,” Gideon cut in. “Let’s not forget that part. The very dangerous, very imprisoned terrorist who literally tried to wipe his memories—”
“She had good reasons.”
“She tried to wipe your memories!”
“I lied to her for months. I betrayed her trust. I handed her to the Council. Honestly, memory wipe was generous.”
Gideon stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “Do you hear yourself right now? This is exactly the kind of mate-bond-addled insanity that gets people killed. I am fucking glad we have your brothers here to help talk you off this ledge—”
“Do you love her?”
Derek’s question cut through Gideon’s rant like a blade. He knew me. Better than anyone. Better than I knew myself, sometimes. And right now, he wasn’t asking about biology. About mate bonds and destiny and supernatural connections that overrode free will.
He was asking about choice.
I thought about Annabella. The way she’d fought for her crew with everything she had. The fire in her eyes when she talked about Ellie, about protecting the people no one else would protect. The way she’d looked at Felix—at me—like I completed something in her.