Chapter 3
Alexandria
Present time
Istare at the retreating vehicles in disbelief.
Those assholes promised to keep me safe, then they left me here.
Among men who are half beasts.
Who almost tore their men to shreds.
The cold hits now that the adrenaline is draining out of me, and I start to shiver. I tuck my hands under my arms and straighten, locking my knees before they can betray me.
I will not fall apart in front of three naked predators.
One of them stalks toward the edge of the clearing, scanning the tree line like he’s on patrol. Another drags a shredded pair of jeans from the porch and shakes dirt off before hauling them up over a pair of massive thighs.
The third one stays where he is.
Watching me.
He bends, retrieves his own ruined denim, and steps into it without breaking eye contact. Every movement is deliberate. Controlled. Like he’s holding something in place inside himself.
He buttons slowly.
Still watching.
I swallow.
I hate that I’m aware of him.
He stands there like this is normal. Like everything that just happened is no more than background noise.
“What’s your name?” he demands.
“Alexandria.”
He repeats it under his breath, as if he’s testing it. There’s a flare of light in his eyes.
“Alex?”
“Nope.”
“Lexy?”
I curl my lip. “Alexandria.”
He nods approvingly.
“Gunnar,” he says. It’s less like a name than the sound of rocks breaking.
He points to the other two.
“Torin.” The one who looks like everything is a joke.
“Orson.” The most feral-looking of the three.
“Brothers.”
That figures.
I hook my thumbs into the straps of my backpack and give him my hardest look. “What the hell just happened?”
My voice echoes in the clearing. I’m grateful for that. It sounds stronger than I feel.
His nostrils flare and he looks all mad again. “They shouldn’t have brought guns onto my land.”
I blink slowly, fatigue weighing on my eyelids. “Why did they?”
“They were testing us. It cost them.”
I think about the injured men—half-killed for my sake. “I’m a high-value witness,” I say, as it hits me—really hits me—for the first time.
“Dumb assholes.” Anger flares in his eyes. “That stunt could’ve got you hurt.”
I blink. Wonder why that bothers him.
“So, that thing?” I wave my arm, a small part of me still wondering if I imagined the whole thing. “Where you just turned into grizzly bears—?”
“We’re shifters.”
He says it like it’s as ordinary as breathing.
“And you can just… do that whenever you want?”
“Yes.”
“And the man who brought me here knew that?”
“Yes.”
I turn slowly, scanning the tree line, the empty road, the collapsing lodge behind me.
Then I look back at him. “I’m not staying.”
The other two stop moving.
He gives me a hard look. “You don’t have a choice.”
“Like hell I don’t.” My voice rises. “You think I’m just going to live in a broken-down cabin with three strangers who are half-animal?”
“Much safer than the city,” he says.
“How can you say that?”
“Because this is my land.”
There it is again.
My land.
He gestures past my shoulder. “You see that ridge?”
I turn, despite myself. A dark line of rock cuts against the fading sky.
“From there down to the river bend. East to the old logging road. West to the ravine. Thirty-two thousand acres. This is our territory.”
I stare at him. That isn’t a backyard.
“No one gets close without us knowing,” he adds.
I raise an eyebrow. “Because you’ll track them with your heightened beast senses, right?”
“Exactly.”
I blink. He’s not kidding; he really means it.
“The lodge, the clearing, the stretch to the creek,” he continues. “That’s where you can move freely.”
“And beyond that?”
“You don’t go alone.”
“And if I do?”
He holds my gaze for a moment before answering. “You don’t know this terrain. There’s no signal. No marked trails. The ravine drops fast. Snow still holds in shadow. You twist an ankle out there, you won’t be calling anyone.”
“I’m not helpless.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You said I don’t have a choice,” I press. “What happens if I walk down that road right now?”
His jaw tightens.
“You’re a target,” he says.
That hits harder than anything else he’s said.
One of the other man-beasts moves closer to the porch steps, arms folding loosely across his chest. The third has stopped pacing entirely.
They’re listening.
“You don’t own me,” I say quietly.
“No,” he agrees. “But if something comes through those trees, I’m the one who deals with it. That means I decide how this works.”
“And how does it work?” I ask.
“You use the lodge. All of it. Clearing and creek during daylight. After dark, you stay inside. If you hear a vehicle on the lower road, you come in immediately. If one of us tells you to move, you move.”
“That sounds like a prison.”
“That sounds like staying alive.”
Silence stretches between us.
The wind cuts across the clearing.
The cops are gone. So are the vehicles.
The only direction left is the lodge.
“I need a minute,” I say.
He studies me for a long moment, as if deciding something. “Stay in the clearing.” He turns away from me, attention already sliding back to the forest.
Like the matter’s settled.
I look at the road.
Then I step away from him.
Not toward the lodge.
Toward the gravel track the SUVs disappeared down.
I take another step, then a third. Gravel crunches under my shoes.
I expect someone to call out, but only silence reaches my ears. I keep going. I lengthen my stride, exhilaration racing through me.
The road slopes downward. The trees close in tighter here, branches arching overhead. The air feels different beyond the clearing—warmer, heavier.
No one stops me.
My pulse pounds in my ears.
The road dips sharply around the first bend.
Gravel shifts under my shoes. I speed up.
Then I start to run.
I don’t know where I’m heading. I don’t care. I just want to return to that point in my life when I was making my own decisions—even if that was whether to drag my ass into my dead-end job or not.
The slope steals control almost immediately. My steps turn uneven. Too fast. My balance tilts forward.
The ground drops.
My foot slides.
For a split second there’s nothing under me but air. I yelp—
And a hand clamps around my upper arm.
I’m jerked backward before I hit the dirt. My body slams into solid heat instead.
Another hand grasps my waist, fingers digging in.
My breath leaves me in a sharp rush.
He holds me there, his chest crushing my backpack against my back.
“Enough,” he says, close to my ear.
I twist in his grip, furious at how easily he stopped me.
His fingers are locked around my arms like he’s holding onto something that might bolt.
I try to tear myself away from him. “Let go.”
He doesn’t.
He just stands there behind me, chest rising and falling with a deep rumbling sound.
Then his hold shifts, and he turns me to face him.
His eyes are different up close—not wild but focused, the irises gold, almost glowing. And those hard lines of his face—handsome in a brutal kind of way—
“I won’t let you get yourself killed, Alexandria.” His voice is rougher now, like it’s mingled with the sound of his beast. “If you run, I will come after you.”
A shiver goes through me.
I don’t know whether this should calm me or terrify me.
For a moment neither of us moves.
The road ahead of us is darkening. The clearing feels much farther away now.
He releases me abruptly.
I step back at once, rubbing my arm where his fingers were.
I look down the road again.
Then back at him.
“I’m not staying,” I say.
He holds my gaze. “You’re not leaving.”