4. Chapter 4
The cabin smelled like him.
Sage stood in the center of the single room and tried not to notice. Tried not to catalog the woodsmoke and something darker, something that made her instincts pay attention in ways she couldn’t afford.
She’d been here five minutes and already the walls felt too close.
The door opened. Declan entered carrying her duffel and heavy equipment cases like they weighed nothing. He set them down near the bed without looking at her.
“This is your space.” He moved to the window and checked the lock with practiced efficiency. “I’ll be next door.”
Sage blinked. “Next door?”
He tested the latch with two fingers, his attention moving with the thoroughness of someone who’d done this a thousand times. “There’s a connecting door in the bathroom. It stays locked on your side unless there’s an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?”
“The kind where you need help and I’m thirty seconds away instead of five minutes.” His tone stayed level, matter-of-fact. “You don’t go anywhere without me. Not to the main lodge, not to the perimeter, not for a walk in the woods.”
Heat flared in her chest. “I’m not a child.”
“No.” He turned to face her, and his eyes held exhaustion. “You’re a human in a pack compound who thinks we’re murderers. That makes you either bait or a target, depending on who’s watching.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Against humans, maybe.” He crossed to the kitchenette and opened cabinets to reveal basic supplies. Canned goods, dried pasta, coffee. “Against wolves, you’d be dead before you knew you were in danger.”
The bluntness of it stole her breath. He moved through the space. Protecting territory. Securing assets.
“How long?” she asked.
“How long what?”
“How long do I have to stay under guard?”
Declan paused at the bathroom doorframe. His hand rested on the wood, knuckles going white.
“Until Jace decides you’re not a threat.” He glanced back at her. “Or until you decide to leave.”
“And if I try to leave without permission?”
“Then I stop you.”
No hesitation. No apology. Just blunt certainty that made her stomach twist.
She’d known what she was walking into. Had understood the risks when she crossed the border, when she lied to an alpha, when she chose to stay in enemy territory.
But standing in this cabin with a man who could snap her neck without effort, the reality of her situation finally settled into her bones.
She was trapped.
“I need to work.” She reached for the laptop. “My files—”
“No internet.” He moved away from the bathroom and headed for the door. “No phone calls. No contact with anyone outside the pack until Jace clears you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair doesn’t matter.” He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “Safe does.”
The door closed behind him before she could respond.
Sage stood alone in the cabin and listened to his footsteps fade.
No internet meant no exposure. No digital trail leading back to her sources.
If she was being honest, the isolation protected her investigation as much as it restricted it.
Then she heard a door open and close next door.
Heard the creak of floorboards. Heard water running through pipes in the shared wall.
He was right there. Thirty seconds away. Close enough to hear if she screamed.
Close enough to hear everything.
Mason smiled up at her from a photo taken two months before he died. Young. Happy. Whole.
Her hands stilled on the image.
She’d given up everything for this. Years of tracking and planning and sacrificing for this moment. And now she was locked in a cabin with a man who made her skin prickle and her instincts scream contradictory warnings.
Dangerous. Safe. Threat. Protection.
Monster. Man. A man her body reacted to.
She shoved the last thought away hard.
She forced herself back to work. Spread the physical files across the table and started mapping them against memory.
Pattern work. The kind she could do without a signal.
One detail snagged her attention. Three of the kills had occurred in the same two-month window as a timber company survey that would have put outside workers through the area. Workers with legitimate reasons to move between pack borderlands. Workers no patrol would have flagged.
She circled that detail in red and wrote a single word beside it. Cover.
The afternoon bled into evening. Outside her window, the compound settled into its rhythm.
An older heavyset man moving with the careful steps of someone whose knees seen too many winters crossed the clearing, carrying an armload of firewood.
He paused near her window, not looking at her exactly, but aware of her the way all of them seemed aware of her.
He set one extra log against her cabin wall, quiet as an apology, and kept walking.
She’d expected guards who sneered. What she got was an old man who left firewood.
As darkness fell she turned on a single lamp and stayed with her files until her eyes burned.
A knock on the connecting door made her jump.
“It’s open,” she called.
The door swung inward. Declan stood in the bathroom doorway, backlit by the light from his cabin. He’d changed into worn jeans and a thermal shirt. His hair was damp.
Sage’s mouth went dry.
“Have you eaten?” he asked.
She glanced at her laptop. Realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had food. “I’m fine.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He paused. Then he disappeared back into his cabin. She heard cabinets opening, the sound of a pan on a stove, the sizzle of something cooking.
Ten minutes later he returned carrying two plates. He set one on the table beside her laptop without a word.
Scrambled eggs. Toast. Simple and hot and smelling better than anything had a right to.
“You don’t have to—” she started.
“Eat.” He leaned against the doorframe with his own plate. “You’re no good to anyone if you collapse from hunger.”
She wanted to argue. Wanted to throw his concern back in his face and prove she didn’t need anything from him.
But her stomach betrayed her with a low growl.
The corner of Declan’s mouth moved. Almost a smile. Gone before she could be sure it was real.
She picked up the fork and ate. The eggs were perfectly cooked, seasoned with something that tasted like dried herbs. The toast was golden and buttered. He’d made her breakfast food for dinner, and it was exactly what she needed.
They ate in silence. Him in the doorway. Her at the table. The air between them charged with things neither would acknowledge.
“Why did you become an enforcer?” she asked finally.
His eyes lifted to hers. “Why does anyone choose their path?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Neither was your question.” He set his empty plate aside. “You want to know if I’m a killer. If I’ve hurt people. If I’m the monster you’re looking for.”
Her pulse kicked. “Are you?”
“I’ve killed.” No hesitation. No shame. “I’ve done things that would horrify you. I’ve protected this pack with everything I am, and I’d do it again without question.”
“That’s not—”
“But I’ve never killed an innocent.” His voice stayed level, eyes on hers. “Never hurt someone who didn’t threaten my people first. Never crossed the line between protection and murder.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
“You don’t.” He pushed off the doorframe. “But you’re here anyway. In my territory. Under my watch. Trusting me to keep you alive even though you think I’m capable of tearing your brother apart.”
The words landed like a gut punch. She set down her fork carefully. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Don’t remind you why you’re here?” Something fierce crossed his face. Something that looked almost like pain. “You made a choice, Sage. You decided to stay. Now you have to live with what that means.”
“It means I get answers.”
“It means you’re my responsibility until Jace says otherwise.” The words came rough, almost angry. “It means I don’t sleep because I’m listening for threats. It means I can’t leave you alone because someone might decide you’re a problem worth solving.”
He stopped. His shoulders locked up.
Sage stood slowly. “It means what?”
“Nothing.” He headed for the connecting door. “Lock this behind me. Don’t open it unless I knock three times.”
“Declan—”
“Three times,” he repeated. “Anything else, you scream.”
He disappeared into his cabin. The latch caught behind him.
Sage stared at the empty doorway and felt something crack open in her chest. Something that felt dangerously like understanding.
He was protecting her. Not because Jace ordered it. Not because she was a threat to contain. But because something in him needed her safe with a desperation that bled through his control.
She thought about the way he’d stood at the door and chosen not to close the distance. The way he could have taken her down before she knew he was there, and hadn’t. Strength held back by something she didn’t have a word for yet.
She thought about the way he’d given her choices. The way he’d listened to her evidence. The way he’d made her dinner without being asked.
She thought about the exhaustion in his eyes and the way he’d almost said something that mattered before shutting it down.
She wondered, not for the first time, if she’d been wrong about him.
The connecting door stayed closed. But she could hear him moving on the other side. Restless. Pacing. Fighting something she couldn’t name.
Sage locked the door like he’d asked. Then she returned to her table and stared at photographs of Mason’s murder until the images blurred.
Outside, wind rattled the windows. Inside, two people lay awake in separate rooms, divided by a wall and a lock and something neither would acknowledge.
And somewhere in the darkness, something waited.