Chapter 9 - Fern
I can’t focus on a single word in front of me.
It’s been two hours since Connor left my office, and I’ve read the same paragraph of case notes at least a dozen times.
The words all run together, rearranging themselves into meaningless shapes on the page.
My mind keeps drifting back to our conversation, replaying it on a loop I can’t seem to break.
The way he looked at me when I pushed him away. The quiet acceptance in his voice when he said okay. The promise that I don’t have to carry my burdens alone anymore.
I don’t know what to do with any of that. I don’t know what to do with him.
Outside my window, the sun has started its descent toward the tree line. Most of the staff left an hour ago and headed home to their families. Skylar poked her head in to ask if I wanted to grab dinner, but I waved her off with some excuse about paperwork.
The truth is, I needed to be alone. Needed time to think without the weight of curious eyes and unasked questions pressing down on me.
The lottery. The bonding ceremony. Connor.
It’s too much. All of it, too much.
I push back from my desk and rub my temples, trying to ward off the headache building behind my eyes.
Maybe I should call it a night. Go back to the cottage, take a hot bath, and pretend for a few hours that my life hasn’t been completely upended by ancient werewolf traditions and a man who turns into a wolf.
My phone vibrates on the desk, and I glance at the screen out of habit. My stomach drops straight to the floor.
Unknown number.
I stare at the phone as it buzzes again. The sound is impossibly loud in the empty office. Every instinct screams at me not to answer, not to engage, not to give him any indication that I’ve seen his attempt to reach me.
The call ends. A moment later, a notification appears. One new voicemail.
Then another vibration. A text message.
Stop ignoring me.
My hands start to shake as I scroll through my messages with trembling fingers.
Dozens of texts have come through today, all from unknown numbers, all variations of the same threat.
They must have come through while I was with patients, when my phone was silent and tucked away in my desk drawer, where I couldn’t hear it screaming warnings at me.
You can’t hide from me.
I will find you.
You belong to me, Fern. You always will.
Did you really think you could run?
The room tilts sideways. I grab the edge of my desk and try to breathe, but my lungs have forgotten how to work. Each inhale comes too fast, too shallow, and my vision blurs at the edges as panic claws its way up my throat like a living thing.
He found me. Somehow, despite everything I did to cover my tracks, despite the cash payments and the burner phone and the random route I took across three states, Robbie found me.
I’m vaguely aware of my phone going off again with another message lighting up the screen, but I can’t look at it.
Can’t move. Can’t think. My chest constricts like someone is squeezing my ribs with both hands, and I slide out of my chair onto the floor, pressing my back against the wall as I fight for air that won’t come.
This is what dying feels like, some distant part of my brain observes. This is how it ends.
“Fern.”
The voice cuts through the fog, distant and distorted like it’s coming from underwater.
“Fern, look at me.”
Hands hold my shoulders, firm but not painful. I blink, and Connor’s face swims into focus, his blue eyes intent on mine as he crouches in front of me.
“You’re having a panic attack,” he tells me. “I need you to breathe with me. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Can you do that?”
I try to shake my head, try to tell him I can’t, but he doesn’t let go.
“Yes, you can. Watch me.” He breathes in slowly, holds it for a count of three, then exhales through parted lips. “Match my rhythm. In… and out. In… and out.”
I focus on his face, on the sound of his voice, on the warmth of his hands anchoring me to reality. Slowly, agonizingly, my lungs start to remember their purpose. The pressure in my chest loosens just enough that I can draw a full breath, then another.
“That’s it,” Connor praises. “Keep going. You’re doing great.”
It takes several minutes before the panic fully releases its grip on me. When it does, I’m left shaking and wrung out, slumped against the wall with no energy left to hold myself upright.
“How did you know?” I manage to ask, my voice coming out raw and hoarse. “How did you know to come back?”
“I was still in the parking lot. Saw you through the window. What happened?”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer. My phone vibrates again on the desk above us, and I flinch so hard my head cracks against the wall behind me.
Connor follows my gaze to the phone, then reaches up and grabs it. I watch his face as he scrolls through the messages, as his features harden into something cold and dangerous. A muscle ticks in his cheek, and his grip on the phone tightens until the case creaks in protest.
“Who is this?” he demands.
“My ex.” The word comes out as barely more than a whisper.
“The one you’re running from.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
Connor sets the phone on the desk with exaggerated care, like he’s afraid he might crush it if he doesn’t concentrate. “He’s threatening you. These messages are direct threats.”
“He’s been sending them since I left. I block the numbers, but he just gets new ones.
” I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them, making myself as small as possible.
“I thought I was careful. I paid cash for everything, avoided main roads, didn’t tell anyone where I was going. But he found me anyway.”
“Maybe not.” Connor crouches back down to my level, his voice gentling. “He could be sending them blind, hoping you’ll respond and give away your location.”
“Or he could be outside right now, waiting for me to leave.”
“He’s not. I would have scented him.”
I let out a laugh that sounds more like a sob. “You can smell him?”
“I can smell any human who gets close to pack territory. Especially one who doesn’t belong here.” Connor reaches out like he’s going to touch my arm, then thinks better of it and pulls back. “You’re safe here, Fern. The pack protects its own.”
“I’m not pack. Not really.”
“You’re my mate. That makes you pack.”
The word sends a fresh spike of anxiety through my already overloaded system.
I’m still processing the lottery, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’m supposedly destined to spend my life with a man I barely know.
And now Robbie has found me, and everything is spiraling beyond my control.
“Tell me about him,” Connor urges. “Tell me what I’m dealing with.”
I don’t want to. Every instinct screams at me to keep my mouth shut, to handle this myself the way I’ve always handled everything.
But the look in Connor’s eyes stops me cold.
He’s not asking out of curiosity or idle interest. He’s asking because he needs information.
Because he’s already calculating how to keep me safe.
“I already told you that we were together for three years,” I begin, forcing the words past the tightness in my throat.
“Engaged for six months. But what I didn’t tell you is how he changed during that time.
At first, he was everything I thought I wanted.
Charming. Attentive. He made me feel like the center of his universe. ”
“And then?”
“And then the mask slipped.” I stare at a spot on the floor, unable to meet his gaze while I dredge up memories I’ve spent months trying to bury.
“It started small. Comments about my clothes, my friends, and the way I spent my time. Then it escalated. He’d check my phone while I was sleeping, show up at my work unannounced, and accuse me of things I’d never done. ”
Connor stays silent, letting me tell it at my own pace.
“I tried to leave the first time about a year in. He cried. Begged. Made promises he never intended to keep.” I swallow hard against the bile rising in my throat. “The second time I tried, he didn’t bother with tears. He just made it very clear what would happen if I ever tried again.”
“What would happen?”
I finally look up and meet Connor’s eyes. “He said he’d kill me. And the way he said it… I believed him. I still believe him.”
Something dangerous moves across Connor’s face, there and gone so fast I almost miss it. When he speaks again, his voice is carefully controlled, like he’s holding something back by sheer force of will. “How did you finally get away?”
“Two weeks ago, he broke into my apartment while I was sleeping. Stood over my bed watching me, and when I woke up, he told me I’d never be able to leave him.
That I belonged to him forever. The next morning, after he left for work, I packed everything I could fit in two suitcases and ran.
Drove for three days until my car broke down outside Silvercreek. ”
Connor is quiet for a long moment, processing everything I’ve told him. Then he stands and extends a hand to help me up. “We need to go. Now.”
“Go where?”
“Pack headquarters. Nic needs to know about this.”
I take his hand and let him pull me to my feet, but something in his tone sends warning bells clanging through my head. “And then what?”
“Then we figure out how to keep you safe.”
“How? You said yourself he might not even know where I am.”
“There’s one way to guarantee your protection. One way to make sure every wolf in Silvercreek treats your safety as their own personal responsibility.”
I know what he’s going to say before the words leave his mouth. “No.”
“If we complete the mating bond—”
“No.” I yank my hand free and take a step back. “Absolutely not. I barely know you.”
“The bond would tie you to the pack. You’d have the full protection of every member.”
“I don’t care. This is way too fast. And besides, that’s not a solution, Connor. That’s just trading one cage for another.”
“This isn’t a cage. I’m trying to help you.”
“By forcing me into a permanent bond I didn’t choose? How is that different from what Robbie wants?” I’m shaking again, but this time it’s from anger rather than fear. “He wanted to own me, too. Control me for my own good.”
The comparison lands exactly where I aimed it. I see the impact in the way Connor goes completely still, in the way his nostrils flare as he draws a breath through his nose.
“I am nothing like him,” he states.
“Then stop acting like him.”
We face each other across the small office, neither willing to back down. The silence between us is filled with barely contained emotion. Then Connor steps forward and wraps his fingers around my wrist.
“We’re going to pack headquarters. Right now.”
“Let go of me.”
“Not until you’re somewhere safe.”
I try to twist free, but his grip is like iron wrapped in warm skin. “Connor, I swear to God—”
“You can scream at me all you want once we’re there. But right now, we’re leaving this building.”
He starts toward the door, pulling me along with him. I dig my heels into the carpet, but it barely slows his pace.
“Stop it!” I fight against his hold. “You can’t just drag me around like some kind of—”
He wheels around to face me, and something dangerous glints in his eyes. “If you don’t stop fighting me and come with me right now, I will pick you up and carry you out of here.”
The threat ignites something hot and reckless in my chest. Before my brain can catch up with my body, I swing my free hand and crack my palm across his face.
The sound echoes through the empty hallway.
Connor’s head barely moves with the impact, but when his gaze meets mine again, his eyes are glowing. Actually glowing, that same amber gold I saw when he showed me his partial shift.
“I warned you,” he growls, his voice dropping into a register that vibrates in my bones.
The world flips upside down as he hauls me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing at all.
I scream and pound my fists against his back, but he doesn’t even break stride.
He moves through the medical center at a pace no human could ever match, fast enough that the hallways blend into smears of color around me.
Before I can draw another breath, we’re outside, and the cool evening air slaps against my flushed cheeks.
By the time he sets me on my feet in front of a large wooden building, my entire body is shaking.
“How dare you?” I shove both hands against his chest, and he doesn’t move a single inch. “How dare you treat me like that. Like I’m some kind of possession you can just pick up and relocate whenever you feel like it.”
“I did what I had to do to keep you safe.”
“Safe? Is this how you treat your mate? Manhandling her, ignoring her wishes, and making decisions without her consent?”
“My wolf was screaming at me to protect you. I couldn’t just—”
“I don’t care what your wolf was doing. I’m a person, Connor. A human being with my own thoughts and feelings and the right to make my own choices. And if this is what your protection looks like, then I don’t want any part of it.”
He stands there in front of me, breathing hard with that amber glow slowly fading from his irises. I can see the war playing out on his face, the battle between instinct and reason.
But he doesn’t apologize. Doesn’t step aside. Just watches me with those impossible blue eyes while the last of the daylight bleeds out of the sky behind him.