Chapter 6 - Skylar
I wake up in a bed that doesn’t smell like mine.
For a moment, I just lie there with my eyes closed, trying to convince myself that last night was a nightmare.
That I didn’t watch Bryan tear through six wolves like they were made of paper.
That I didn’t stand in a moonlit clearing and bind myself to him with blood and ancient words and feel the mate bond snap into place like a shackle closing around my soul.
But the ache in my palm tells a different story. I open my eyes and stare at the thin red line crossing my skin, already scabbing over. Proof that it all happened. Proof that I’m trapped.
The cabin is small but clean, with rough-hewn walls and furniture that looks handmade. I don’t recognize the curtains or the quilt draped across the bed. Everything about this space is foreign, and yet I’m supposed to call it home now.
I sit up slowly, taking stock of my surroundings. The bedroom door is cracked open, and through the gap, I can see a sliver of the main room. A couch with a pillow and a rumpled blanket. Bryan slept out there, apparently. Small mercies.
The ceremony was binding, but we didn’t consummate the bond. That’s the one line I refused to cross, the one piece of myself I managed to hold back. Bryan didn’t push. He just showed me to the bedroom, told me to get some sleep, and closed the door between us.
I don’t know what to make of that. I don’t know what to make of any of this.
My clothes from last night are draped over a chair in the corner. My duffel bag is sitting on the floor next to my boots. I grab fresh clothes and change quickly because I don’t want to spend another second in the outfit I was wearing when my life fell apart.
When I push open the bedroom door, the smell of coffee hits me first. Bryan is standing at the small kitchen counter with his back to me, pouring dark liquid into two mugs.
He’s wearing jeans and a gray t-shirt that stretches across his shoulders, and I hate that I notice.
I hate that some traitorous part of my brain has already memorized the way he moves, the breadth of his back, and the bulk in his arms.
The mate bond vibrates between us, pleased by his proximity. I tell it to shut up.
“Coffee?” He turns around and holds out one of the mugs like a peace offering.
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“It’s just coffee, Skylar. Not a declaration of eternal devotion.”
I take the mug because I’m exhausted, my head is pounding, and caffeine is the only thing that might help. The first sip burns my tongue, but I don’t care. At least the pain is something real, something I can understand.
Bryan gestures toward the small table near the window. Two plates sit waiting, each holding scrambled eggs and toast. My stomach growls despite my determination to refuse anything he offers.
“You should eat,” he says. “It was a long night.”
“I’m aware.”
But I sit down anyway, because he’s right. Starving myself won’t change anything. The eggs are decent, seasoned with something I can’t quite identify. I eat mechanically, staring at my plate rather than looking at the man across from me.
The silence between us is thick and uncomfortable. I can feel Bryan watching me and sense his presence through the bond like a second pulse beating alongside my own. It’s invasive and intimate in a way I never asked for.
“We need to talk about what happens next,” he finally says.
“What happens next is I go to work. People are depending on me at the medical center.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” I set down my fork and meet his eyes for the first time since I woke up. “But I don’t have anything to say to you that I didn’t already say last night.”
“The Cheslem threat isn’t going away just because you’re angry with me.”
“I’m not angry. I’m furious.”
He winces, but the flash of pain is there and gone so fast I almost miss it. Good. Let him hurt. Let him feel even a fraction of what I’ve been carrying for ten years.
“Rafe has resources,” Bryan continues, undeterred. “Money, wolves, connections to other cells we thought we’d eliminated. Last night was just the beginning. He’ll send more, and they’ll keep coming until he gets what he wants.”
“Which is what, exactly? You dead?”
“Eventually. But first, he wants me to suffer. He wants to take apart everything I care about, piece by piece, and make me watch. That includes you now. Whether you like it or not.”
I push my plate away, my appetite gone. “I thought the Cheslem were finished. Luna and Nic dealt with them years ago. The purification ritual, the integration of the survivors into the pack... Ruby’s mate, James, almost died while stopping them. Everyone said the threat was over.”
“The threat was contained,” Bryan corrects. “Not eliminated.”
“So what, they’ve just been hiding this whole time? Waiting?”
“Some of them scattered after the purification. The ones who were too far gone to be cleansed, or the ones who chose not to be. They went underground and regrouped in small cells across the region.”
He wraps both hands around his coffee mug, and I notice new scars on his knuckles that weren’t there ten years ago.
“My unit spent years tracking them down. We thought we got most of them. But Rafe... He’s smart.
He stayed hidden, built his network slowly, and recruited wolves who had grudges against Silvercreek or other packs in the area.
By the time we realized he was a threat, he’d already amassed a small army. ”
“And you killed his brother.”
“Lance was organizing an attack on multiple pack territories simultaneously. If we didn’t stop him, hundreds of wolves would have died.
” Bryan’s voice is flat, like he’s reciting facts like a mission report.
“I was the one who found him. I was the one who put him down. Rafe has been hunting me ever since.”
“So you came back here.” I can’t keep the accusation out of my voice. “You brought this to Silvercreek. To me.”
“I didn’t know they’d followed me. I didn’t know they even knew where I was going. The agency dissolved my unit because we thought the threat was over, and I had nowhere else to go. Silvercreek was the only home I ever knew, even after everything. I thought...”
“You thought what? That you could just waltz back in and pick up where you left off?”
“I thought I could disappear here. Lay low until Rafe lost interest or made a mistake that exposed him.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Turns out I was the one who made a mistake. I should have stayed away. Should have known that coming back would only put people in danger.”
“Yes. You should have.”
Bryan doesn’t flinch this time, nor does he defend himself. He just sits there and takes it, like he’s been taking my anger since the moment he stepped back into Silvercreek.
I hate that he won’t fight back. I hate that he accepts my cruelty like he deserves it. Maybe he does deserve it, but his acceptance makes it harder to keep hurting him, and I’m not ready to stop.
“Why did you join them?” I demand. “The Black Ops. Why did you leave everything behind to become a killer?”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t tell me it’s complicated. Don’t tell me I wouldn’t understand. I deserve an answer, Bryan. After everything you’ve put me through, you owe me that much.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. I watch the war play out behind his eyes—the part of him that wants to tell me fighting against the part that’s determined to keep his secrets locked away.
The secrets win. They always do with him.
“It was necessary,” he answers with a shrug. “That’s all I can tell you.”
“You destroyed me. You walked away without a word, without an explanation, without even the decency of a real goodbye. And all you can say is that it was necessary?”
“Skylar—”
“I waited for you. That night, after you left, I went back to our spot every evening for a month. I kept thinking you’d come back, that you’d realize you made a mistake, that you’d explain everything, and we could fix it.
” My voice cracks, and I hate myself for showing this much vulnerability. “You never came. You never even tried.”
Bryan closes his eyes. When he opens them again, something has shuttered behind his gaze. “I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
He stands so abruptly his chair scrapes against the wooden floor. For a moment, he just looks at me—really looks, like he’s memorizing every detail of my face. Then he turns away and carries his plate to the sink.
“I did what I had to do,” he says with his back to me. “I made choices that kept you safe, even if you can’t see that. Even if you hate me for it. That’s all I can say.”
I want to scream at him. I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until the truth falls out. I want to know why he left, what happened in the months after his family died, what turned the boy I loved into this hollow-eyed stranger who speaks in riddles and refuses to let me in.
But I’m tired. Bone-deep exhausted. And I have patients waiting for me, people who actually need my help, problems I can actually solve.
I push back from the table and stand. “I’m going to work.”
“Skylar, wait—”
“No.” I hold up a hand to stop whatever he’s about to say.
“You’ve made it clear that you’re not going to tell me anything real.
Fine. Keep your secrets. But don’t expect me to sit here and pretend we’re going to work through this like some normal couple with normal problems. We’re not normal.
We’re not even a couple. We’re two people who got forced together by magic and circumstance, and I refuse to pretend otherwise. ”
I grab my bag from where it sits by the door and sling it over my shoulder.
“At least let me walk you—”
I yank open the door and step out onto the porch before he can finish. The morning is too bright, the birdsong too cheerful for the weight pressing down on my chest. “Stay away from me, Bryan. I mean it.”
I don’t wait for his response. I just start walking, putting one foot in front of the other until his cabin disappears behind the trees.
The mate bond fights me with every step, urging me to go back, to stay close, to seek comfort in his presence. I ignore it the same way I’ve been ignoring it for ten years.