Declan
That did nothing for me but make me hungrier. Taking a taste of something I’m starving for and having the starvation expand until it’s crushing my insides.
What’s even worse is knowing I’m not alone.
She’s right there with me. Looking up at me in the mirror—I can see it in her eyes.
The same thing I’m feeling, the same hunger that should’ve been satisfied by what just happened but wasn’t.
If anything, it’s worse. My hand is still wet from her and I’m so hard it hurts.
I should stop. I should step back, hand her a towel, walk out of this bathroom, and sit in that chair until my blood cools and my brain starts working again. That’s what an alpha does. That’s what I need to believe Dad would’ve done.
She turns around to face me. Her eyes drop. She can see exactly what she does to me, but instead of fear, there’s that same flushed heat on her face. The same want.
It makes what happens next seem normal. Inevitable.
She doesn’t resist when I cup her shoulders with both hands and press down until she’s on her knees.
My breath leaves me like I’ve been hit. She’s looking up at me with those blue eyes, wet hair clinging to her bare shoulders while I undo my belt with shaking hands. She watches intently as I free myself—thank fuck, no more zipper in the way—before the tip of her tongue traces her upper lip.
That’s what does it. Whatever thread of control I’ve been clinging to snaps clean in half, and I’m gone.
She gasps at the sight of me and groans when I push my way into her mouth without warning. It should make me gentle and patient, knowing she’s overwhelmed.
Instead, the knowledge this might be her first time doing this sends something primal roaring through me that I can’t contain. Everything in the world boils down to this right here. To what my body and my wolf demand.
I grip her hair tighter. My hips move on their own, pushing deeper into the wet warmth, and the sound she makes around me—not protest, not pain, something closer to a moan that vibrates straight through me—destroys whatever restraint I had left.
My pace is too rough. I can feel it in the way her fingers dig into my thighs, the way she braces herself against the push of my hips as I invade her deeper, harder. Her jaw has to be hurting. Her knees aching on the cold tile. I should ease up. I should…
But her eyes find mine, and she doesn’t pull away.
She takes me. Her lips stretched around me, her cheeks hollowed, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes from the effort, but she doesn’t stop.
She’s right here with me, taking every stroke, struggling to manage me without gagging.
If anything, her fingers tighten on my thighs, and she pulls me closer, and the sight of it pushes me to the edge so fast it’s almost violent.
“I’m going to—” The warning is all I can manage. Two words, barely coherent.
She doesn’t pull back. She stays right where she is, and when I come apart, it rips through me like something breaking open.
My hand fists tighter in her hair. My body goes rigid.
A groan I couldn’t silence if my life depended on it tears out of my chest while I spill into her mouth and down her throat.
Wave after wave, and she takes every ounce.
When it’s over, my legs are shaking. I’m braced in the doorway like it’s the only thing keeping me vertical, breathing hard.
She pulls back slowly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, and looks up at me.
Her lips are swollen. Her eyes are glassy.
She’s still on her knees, trembling, and she looks…
What did I just do?
The guilt hits like cold water. I was rough. Too rough, too fast, too much. I didn’t check in. I didn’t ask if she was okay. I grabbed her hair and used her mouth like the animal I am, and the fact she let me doesn’t make it better.
Her eyes widen slightly when I crouch down, as if she wasn’t expecting me at her level. I reach out and brush the damp hair back from her face, and my hand is shaking. “Are you okay?” My voice is rough and demanding.
She blinks at me. Something that’s almost a smile touches the corner of her swollen mouth. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I’m okay.”
I don’t believe her, but I nod before helping her stand. Once she’s steady, I hand her a towel, then step out of the bathroom. “Take your time,” I say without turning around.
I fix my jeans, buckle my belt, and sink into the chair. My hands are still shaking. My wolf is pacing, restless and satisfied all at once, which makes no sense, but nothing about the last twelve hours has made sense.
I was rough with her. She might have bruises on her knees from the tile. Her jaw is going to be sore. I pulled her hair hard enough that my fingers ache from the grip.
What the hell is happening to me?
I hear her moving around in the bathroom—towel, clothes, the soft pad of bare feet. She comes out dressed in the flannel and shorts, sits on the bed without a word, and holds her wrist out toward the headboard.
I tie her, no matter how regretful it makes me feel. The line between us is beyond blurred now. I doubt there’s any way to fix things.
I’ve barely had thirty seconds to sit down before the bedroom door flies open hard enough to bounce off the wall.
Zeke.
He fills the doorway, every muscle in his body rigid, his nostrils flared.
His eyes go from me to Iris to the bathroom door, then back to me.
I can see him putting it together. The humidity hanging in the air.
The flush on her face. Whatever he can smell in this room—and he can smell it, I know he can. We’re wolves. There’s no hiding this.
“Hallway,” I growl, teeth clenched. When he doesn’t move fast enough, I move him, then close the door once we’re out of the room.
He throws my hands off his chest, snarling. “Did you really just fuck her?” His voice is low. Dangerous. The kind of quiet that comes before an explosion.
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me, Declan. I can—”
“I said no.” I don’t raise my voice because I don’t need to. “And even if I did, I don’t need your permission.”
Something dark and ugly flashes across his face. “She’s Moore’s daughter. Do you understand that?”
“I know exactly who she is.”
“Then what the hell are you doing?” His voice cracks with rage that he’s barely keeping leashed. “You were supposed to be watching her. Guarding her. She’s a prisoner, Declan, but you—what? You smelled her and forgot all of that?”
That lands closer to the truth than I’d like. I don’t let it show. “Careful,” I mutter.
“No. I’m done being careful.” He steps up to me, close enough that if this were anyone other than my brother, my wolf would read it as a challenge.
“Your alpha is handling it.”
He barks out a laugh that’s more like a threat. “Are you?”
“This isn’t your personal vendetta, no matter how you feel about Addison. I understand your anger, but how I handle this situation, how I handle her? That’s my call. Not yours.”
His jaw works like he’s chewing on words he wants to spit at me. His hands are fists at his sides, and I can feel the anger coming off him. Not just anger, either. Hurt. Like I’ve betrayed something he thought was sacred between us. As if I picked a stranger over family.
I haven’t. But I can’t explain what I have done, because I don’t understand it myself.
“I have final say in all pack matters,” I remind him. Steady. Calm. Alpha, even though I don’t feel calm, and I sure as hell don’t feel steady. “This qualifies.”
“This qualifies,” he repeats, flat and bitter. “Right. Pack matters. Is that what we’re calling it?”
“Zeke.”
“She’s leverage. That’s what you said last night. Leverage.” He jabs a finger against my chest. “And you’re in there—”
A howl cuts through the air.
We both freeze. It’s distant but clear. A wolf, somewhere in the surrounding woods, the sound carrying through the open window at the end of the hall.
A warning call. Or a signal.
Footsteps pound up the stairs, and Tara appears behind Zeke, breathless, her dark hair wild around her face. I had no idea she was here until now. I’m that far removed from reality. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah.” The argument with Zeke evaporates. That’s how it works. Everything personal gets shelved the second the pack is at risk. “Where?”
“North. Near the border. Kyran’s people are reporting armored vehicles heading toward our territory from the main road.”
My blood goes cold. It has to be Moore.
Iris.
I don’t want to leave her. The thought is immediate and irrational, and absolutely useless right now. My wolf is clawing at the inside of my skull, torn between the threat at the border and the girl on the bed, and I want to tell him to shut up, but he’s right. I can’t leave her vulnerable.
But the pack needs me. My family needs me. That always comes first.
“Tara.” I turn to my sister. “Stay with Iris. Don’t untie her. Don’t let anyone in this room.”
Tara’s expression is unreadable when she nods. “Go.”
Zeke is already moving. I follow him down the stairs, Cole meeting us at the front door, already pulling his shirt up over his head.
We hit the tree line at a run, and the shift takes me mid-stride—clothes shredding, bones cracking, muscles reshaping, skin splitting into fur.
The pain is brief and familiar, and then I’m on four legs, the ground blurring beneath me while the scent of the forest fills my lungs.
I can smell them before I see them. Exhaust fumes. Metal.
We come over the ridge and see them. Three armored vans, black, no plates, parked in a rough semicircle at the edge of our territory, where the tree line thins out near the north road.
Men in tactical gear are fanning out into the trees, armed with rifles that don’t look like standard firearms. They’re bulkier, with oversized barrels. These men are organized. Professional.
This isn’t a search party. This is a strike team.
There are at least a dozen of them. Maybe more in the vans. This isn’t some group of mercenaries Moore scraped together overnight. These people have training. They’ve done this before.
I signal with a low growl before communicating with my brothers. Flank left, flank right, hold center.
I hold position behind a fallen oak, watching, waiting, letting them push deeper into the trees growing thick and dense enough to turn morning to night.
Deeper into our territory. Farther from their vans.
That’s where their advantage is. Their vehicles, their equipment. In the woods, in the dark? That’s ours.
Zeke hits first. He comes out of the trees to the left like a black blur, two hundred pounds of wolf moving faster than anything that size should move, and he takes down the nearest man before anyone can react. The guy goes down hard, his rifle flying, a strangled shout cut off by the impact.
Then Cole is there, flanking right, driving two more back toward a ravine. Panic spreads through their line. I can smell the sharp spike of adrenaline, the sudden sweat. They weren’t expecting us this fast. Good.
I hear Kyran’s bears crashing through the undergrowth behind us—late, but on their way. The ground shakes when the first one hits the clearing at a full charge, scattering a cluster of men who scramble away like startled rabbits.
I launch myself at the closest group. Three of them, turning toward me, raising their weapons. I take the first one at the chest, my full weight slamming him into the dirt, and I feel his body armor buckle under my jaws. He screams.
Good. Let them scream. Let them know what happens when they come onto our land.
The second one swings his rifle like a club. It catches me across the shoulder, but I shake off the brief flash of pain and lunge. My teeth find his arm above the elbow, and I wrench sideways. He drops the weapon and sinks to his knees, clutching his arm, howling.
The third one backs up and raises his rifle. Not swinging it, but aiming it. He’s calm. His hands are steady.
He pulls the trigger.
A sharp sting in my hindquarter, a pressure and a hiss. I twist around and see it: a feathered dart embedded in the muscle of my back leg. Tranquilizer.
No.
I rip it out with my teeth, but it’s already too late. The compound is fast, faster than anything natural. Moore’s work. It has to be.
It spreads through me like ice water, numbing everything it touches.
My back legs go first, buckling under me.
I scramble, claws tearing at the dirt, trying to stay upright, but the ground is tilting and my muscles are turning to dead weight, and I can feel my wolf being shoved down, pushed away from me, like that gas at Moore’s house but worse.
Another dart. My shoulder this time. I didn’t even see who fired it.
The world goes sideways. I hit the ground hard, leaves and dirt in my face, my body seizing as the drug floods my system. I can hear the fight still happening around me, but it’s fading.
I try to get up. My legs won’t move. I try to shift back to human. My body won’t listen.
Iris. Her face flashes behind my eyes, vivid and clear, even as everything else goes dark. The way she looked up at me from the bathroom floor. The way she held her wrist out to be tied. The way she said her father would make it right, like she really believed it.
Her father sent these people. Her father made the drug that’s shutting me down. Her father knows exactly how to take us apart, because he’s been studying us for years.
I walked right into it.
That’s the last thought I have before the blackness swallows me whole.