11. Chapter 11 #2
“As long as it takes.” But his voice carried an edge she hadn’t heard before. Exhaustion. Strain. The weight of covering too many people with too few resources.
“Declan—”
“We should head back. Storm’s coming in tonight. I want you inside before it hits.”
She caught his arm before he could walk away. The muscles beneath her grip locked up, but he didn’t pull free.
She caught movement at the treeline before he did. Her hand closed on his wrist, pulling him two steps left as a branch cracked where he’d been standing.
He looked at her. Looked at the branch. His gaze shifted, recalculating.
“Storm’s coming.” His voice was rougher than before. “We should head back.”
The words hit harder than they should have. Years of survival instinct pushed back against the vulnerability he was asking for.
But looking at Declan, at the restraint in his touch, the way his attention never stopped even while focused on her, she saw something she’d been denying for weeks. Someone who would die before he let her face danger alone.
That knowledge made something in the investigator in her go quiet.
“I don’t know how to do that,” she admitted. “Don’t know how to not be the hunter.”
“Then learn.” His free hand came up, his palm resting against her face, thumb brushing her cheekbone with devastating gentleness. “Because watching you walk into danger is killing me. And I can’t—” His voice roughened. “I can’t cover you and watch you throw yourself at threats at the same time.”
Her chest tightened. “This isn’t about keeping me safe. This is about control.”
“This is about survival.” His forehead dropped to rest against hers. “Yours and mine. Because if something happens to you, I don’t survive it.”
“Declan—”
“I know you didn’t ask for this.” His breath ghosted across her lips. “Know you didn’t ask for a mate or a bond or a wolf who can’t stop thinking about you. But it’s what we have. And know that your safety isn’t negotiable.”
She needed space. Needed distance before the warmth took over. He was still tied to Mason’s death.
But his hand was gentle on her face. His body wrapped around her like shelter. And their tie pulled at her with an insistence that made it hard to think straight.
“What if I can’t do this?” Her voice broke on it. “What if I can’t stop hunting long enough to let someone else fight for me?”
“Then we figure it out together.” He pulled back just enough to look at her. “But you don’t face Thornwood alone. You don’t walk into danger without backup. And you don’t—” His face went fierce. “You don’t make yourself bait to draw them out.”
She hadn’t said anything about that plan. Hadn’t voiced the tactical option forming in her mind since she’d first noticed the surveillance.
“How did you—”
“Because it’s what I would do.” His eyes searched hers. “And because I know how you think. Know you’d sacrifice yourself if it meant covering the pack. But I won’t let you.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“Watch me.” The words carried conviction. “You want to draw out Thornwood? Fine. We do it my way. With pack support. With contingencies and backup and every possible safeguard. But you don’t offer yourself up alone.”
He stopped. His attention snapped to the tree line.
Sage felt it a heartbeat later. The shift in air pressure, the wrongness that made her combat instincts flare.
“Someone’s coming,” she breathed.
“Not someone.” Declan’s hand moved to the rifle. “Multiple someones. And they’re not pack.”
Below, the shadows had stopped moving. Six distinct positions now, all focused on the ridge where she and Declan stood exposed.
“They’re boxing us in.” Sage’s voice stayed steady. “Three escape routes, all covered. They want us to run toward the compound.”
“Or they want us to stay here. Exposed. Visible. Easy to—”
The crack of a rifle shot split the morning.
Declan moved before Sage could process the sound, tackling her behind the ridge as bark exploded from the tree beside them. They hit the snow hard, him covering her, his weight pressing her into frozen ground.
“Stay down. Don’t move. Don’t look up.”
Another shot. Then another. Coordinated fire designed to pin them in place.
“They’re not shooting to kill.”
“No.” Declan’s hand pressed down over her head, keeping her face buried in his shoulder. “They’re shooting to send a message.”
“What message?”
His arms tightened around her. “That you’re not safe here. That nowhere in Blackridge is safe. That the only way to cover you is to give you up.”
The shots stopped as suddenly as they’d started. Silence crashed over the ridge, broken only by wind and Sage’s ragged breathing.
Declan didn’t move. Didn’t release her. His body stayed curved around hers like a shield, his closeness cutting through her fear, his heartbeat steady.
“They’re gone,” she whispered.
“They’re watching.” His lips brushed her temple. “Waiting to see what we do. How we react?”
“We can’t stay here.”
“No. When I say run, you run? Straight back to the compound. Don’t stop. Don’t look back. Jace will have wolves waiting.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right behind you.” The lie was gentle. Kind. Absolutely transparent.
Sage pushed against his chest. “No.”
“Sage—”
“No.” She didn’t look away. “We run together or we don’t run at all.”
Something in his face cracked open. Pride mixed with frustration mixed with something that looked like grief.
“You’re going to get yourself killed.” The confession tore out of him.
“Then you better keep up.”
His mouth quirked despite everything. “You’re impossible.”
“You’re stalling.” She gripped his jacket. “On three?”
He searched her face. Then gave a single sharp nod. “On three.”
They ran.
Declan shifted between strides, the change rolling through him in a hard, fast wave.
Bone rearranged. Muscle flooded with wolf-speed.
The cold hit differently in that form, sharper on bare skin that was no longer bare, air rushing past fur instead of jacket fabric.
He closed fifty yards in seconds, circled back to Sage’s flank, and held that form until the compound’s western fence came into view.
He shifted back at the tree line, the change reversing in one savage pull, and they crossed the last hundred yards on two legs.