Chapter 18 #2
Her heartbeat spiked, the sensation echoing in my own chest. The fear she had been holding down rising to the surface now that the moment was here. Her hands trembled slightly in her lap.
But when she turned to face me, her eyes were steady.
I caught her face in my hands, forcing her to meet my eyes.
“The moment something feels wrong, you run.” The wolf bled through my voice, turning it into something barely human. “You do not try to save Clara. You do not try to reason with him. You run, and I will be there before you take three steps. Do you understand?”
“Raphael—”
“Promise me.” My hands shook with the effort of restraint.
Every muscle in my body was rigid, coiled, fighting the instinct to throw the SUV into reverse and drive her somewhere Michael would never find her.
A bunker. An island. Another continent. Anywhere but here.
“Promise me you will run if he threatens you. I will handle Clara. I will handle Michael. But I cannot do any of it if I am worried about you being a hero.”
She held my gaze for a long moment. I felt her resistance through the bond, her stubborn refusal to abandon her cousin, her hatred of being told what to do. But my desperation reached her too. The raw, animal terror of a wolf who was about to watch his mate walk into danger.
“I promise,” she said finally. “First sign of trouble, I run to you.”
“And I will be there.” I pressed my forehead to hers, breathing in her scent, letting it anchor me. “I will always be there. Before he can blink. Before he can touch you. I will tear through anyone who stands between us.”
She reached up and pressed her fingers to my lips. “I know. That’s why I can do this.”
I caught her wrist, turned my head to press a kiss against her palm. Her scent filled my lungs, and my wolf surged with the need to mark her again, to bite down on the scar at her throat and remind the universe who she belonged to.
Instead, I pulled her close and kissed her.
It was not gentle. My mouth claimed hers with all the desperation I could not voice, the fear and the rage and the love that consumed me from the inside out. She kissed me back with the same ferocity, her hands fisting in my shirt, her breath mingling with mine.
When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. I tasted salt on my lips and did not know if it was hers or mine.
Her love pressed against my chest like a physical weight through our connection, filling the hollow spaces where fear had carved its home. She was terrified. She was determined. She was the bravest person I had ever known, and I was about to watch her walk into a nightmare.
I memorized her face in the dim light. The curve of her jaw. The stubborn set of her chin. The way her hair fell against her cheek, golden even in the darkness. My wolf committed every detail to memory, hoarding them like precious stones.
No. Not the last time. I would not allow it to be the last time.
She opened the passenger door. Cold air rushed in, carrying the scent of pine and frost and distant snow. She paused with one foot on the running board, turning back to look at me.
“I love you.” Her voice was steady now. Certain. Not a goodbye, but a promise.
“I love you.” The words had never come easier. Three words that meant everything, that contained every promise I had ever made her and every one I would make in whatever future we had left.
She smiled, small and fierce, and then she was gone, stepping out into the darkness, her footsteps crunching softly on frozen ground as she walked toward the trees. Toward Michael. Toward a trap we both knew was waiting.
The cold rushed in through the open door before it closed behind her. Her silhouette grew smaller against the darkness, moving with purpose and determination even when she must have been terrified.
My mate. Walking into the lion’s den.
The pines swallowed her whole. Then I started counting.
Five minutes. I would give her five minutes to reach the cabin, to find Clara, to signal if she needed me. Five minutes of sitting in this metal cage while every instinct screamed to hunt.
My phone buzzed. Viktor.
“Five minutes out. Dmitri is circling east. I’ll take the west approach. Hold position.”
“Understood.” The word tasted like ash.
I ended the call and tracked her through the bond. Found her there, a warm presence moving steadily away from me. Her fear was a cold undercurrent beneath the determination, but she was not letting it stop her.
That is our mate, my wolf said, pride bleeding through the agony. Strong. Brave.
And walking toward a monster while we sat here doing nothing.
One minute passed. My claws punctured the leather of the steering wheel. I did not care.
Two minutes. The bond stretched thinner with each yard of distance, not breaking but straining. Every step she took pulled taut in my chest like a string.
Three minutes. Her fear spiked when she saw the first light through the branches. A cabin. Michael’s territory. Her heart rate accelerated through the bond, the cold wash of dread that she forced herself to push through.
Four minutes. I could not do this. Could not sit here while she walked into that monster’s hands. The SUV felt like a cage, the seconds stretching into eternities, every instinct howling that I was failing her by staying put.
I had promised to let her try first. I had not promised to wait in this metal box while she faced Michael alone.
I was out of the car before I made the conscious decision to move.
The cold mountain air hit my face as I stripped off my jacket, my shirt, already feeling the shift building beneath my skin.
I would follow at a distance. I would stay hidden in the trees.
But I would not sit in that car for one more second while my mate faced Michael alone.
The place where I had claimed her burned in my own flesh as I moved toward the treeline. A phantom ache. A reminder that if she died, part of me would die too.
I would not let that happen.
I tracked her as I ran, the bond my compass. She had stopped. Uncertainty crossed our connection. She was close now, close enough to see the cabin, close enough for Michael to see her.
Then the bond muffled.
Like a hand pressed over a telephone receiver. Her emotions went fuzzy, distant, harder to read. Where moments ago I had felt every beat of her heart, now there was only static.
I stumbled, nearly fell, the shift rippling through my bones without my permission. No. Something was wrong.
Her consciousness was fading. The fear that had been bright and sharp just seconds ago was dissolving, like colors bleeding out of a photograph.
She was losing consciousness.
Mate. MATE.
My wolf did not ask permission. The shift tore through me, bones reshaping, muscles burning, fur pushing through skin, clothes ripping to shreds. Pain lanced through my shoulders as my skeleton reformed, my jaw elongating, my hands curling into massive paws before they hit the ground.
I did not fight it. I let the beast take over because the beast was faster, stronger, deadlier. Because the man had failed to protect her, and now the wolf would finish what the man could not.
I reached for her with everything I had, clawed through the bond even as I ran on four legs now, paws slamming against frozen ground.
The forest blurred around me, trees and shadows and the sharp scent of pine cutting through my heightened senses.
She was there, I could feel her, but she was fading. Slipping somewhere I could not reach.
Drugged. He had drugged her.
Michael had been watching. Michael had planned for this. He had known she would not come truly alone, and he had prepared. Just like he had prepared last time he took her. Just like he always prepared, always one step ahead, always anticipating our moves before we made them.
But he had not prepared for what I would do when I found him. He had not prepared for the wolf that was coming for him now, four hundred pounds of rage and teeth and the absolute certainty that someone was going to die tonight.
It would not be her. It would not be me.
It would be him.
My phone was somewhere behind me with my clothes, along with my jacket and my shirt and any pretense that I was a civilized man.
Viktor would arrive to find an empty car and wolf tracks heading toward the cabin.
He would understand. He had watched me pace the bunker for weeks while we waited.
He knew what I would do if Michael touched her.
I ran faster. The cold air burned in my lungs, but I barely felt it. The trees blurred past. My mate’s presence wavered in my mind like a candle in a storm, guttering but not gone. Still alive. Still there.
I had promised to be there before Michael could touch her. Had promised to tear through anyone who stood between us. Had promised she would never face him alone.
I had been too slow. Too trusting of the plan. Too willing to let her walk into that trap while I counted minutes in a car like a fool.
The wolf inside me howled, and I howled with him, the sound tearing through the frozen night. A declaration of war. A promise of what was coming.
I was coming now, and nothing would stop me. Not the trees, not the distance, not the monster waiting in that cabin with my mate in his hands. I would find her. I would kill anyone who had touched her. And I would bring her home or die trying.
This time, there would be blood.