Chapter 2 #2
I hated him. I hated that I needed what he gave me, but as I chewed the jerky, as the salty meat and fat steadied me, I couldn’t stop my eyes from flicking back to him.
I took another drink of the water next and it slid down my throat, settling in the pit of my stomach.
The jerky was tough, but it was food, and I hated how hungrily I chewed.
He leaned against the counter across from me, arms folded, watching me with those knowing silver eyes.
I set the glass down hard, the sound loud in the silence. My voice cracked when I forced the words out, but I couldn’t keep them in any longer.
“Why me?”
His brow furrowed.
I stared at him, my throat tight. “Why did you mark me? Out of everyone—why me? Was I just convenient? Some experiment you wanted to claim before the others dragged me away?”
I hated how small my voice sounded, hated the way my chest ached when I asked it, but I needed the answer. Needed to know if I was just another human body to him.
For a moment, he didn’t speak. His jaw worked, his gaze dropping to the counter like he was choosing his words one by one. Then he pushed off from the wall and deliberately stepped closer.
When he spoke, his voice was deep and steady. “Because the second I saw you, I knew.”
My stomach twisted, hot and cold all at once. “Knew what?”
His eyes met mine, silver bright and unflinching. “That you were my mate. That no Council, no soldier, no drug could change that. It wasn’t choice, Mariah. It was instinct. It was… fate.”
I shook my head, laughing bitterly even as my pulse hammered in my throat. “Fate? That’s what you call it? You bite me, fuck me into submission, drag me back here, and now I’m supposed to believe it’s all fate?”
His expression didn’t waver. Calm. Commanding. Too sure of himself, the fucking bastard.
“You can hate me for it,” he said quietly. “But you’ll feel it too. You already do.”
I froze. The memory of his body looming over mine flashed hot and sort of unwanted in my chest. I clenched my fists at my sides, furious at him. Furious at myself.
Varek cleared his throat, and the sound cut through the silence between us. His eyes stayed locked on mine, but there was something different in them now.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said.
I blinked, the words hitting me like a slap. “Looking for me?”
He nodded once. “Your friends… Kendra and Lia. They sent me to find you.”
The breath rushed out of me so fast it almost knocked me off my feet. My knees wobbled, and my hand gripped the edge of the counter for balance. “Lia? Kendra?” The names tumbled out of me in a rush, desperate, disbelieving. “They’re alive? They’re—oh, God, are they safe? Tell me right now!”
For the first time since I’d met him, Varek’s lips almost curved upward. Not in a smile, not quite, but a shift that softened the harsh edges of his face.
“When I last saw them, they were very much alive. And happy,” he said evenly.
My throat ached, and I pressed my trembling hands to my face, tears burning hot at the corners of my eyes. For so long, I thought they were gone, taken by the wolves, broken, used, bred, discarded, maybe even killed.
“They’re alive,” I whispered, my chest swelling with a feeling that was dangerously close to hope. “They’re really alive.”
Varek’s expression hardened again, though not unkindly. “Alive, yes. But safe? No. Not yet. There’s much more happening than you know, Mariah.”
I froze, my pulse stumbling. “What do you mean?”
“The Council’s almost ready,” he said. “They’ve perfected a fertility drug—one meant to make human women bear fertile wolf offspring. Especially fertile female pups. They think it’ll fix everything. Rebuild their numbers… And end the need for human breeders.”
My chest constricted. “I’ve heard about it,” I said quietly. “But last I knew, it was still in testing. It was killing the girls.”
“It’s past testing, and it still kills them within a few years, at most,” he replied, his tone flat and merciless.
“The Council’s preparing to distribute it across every sector any day now.
Every human woman in captivity will get it.
Every woman they can capture before the rollout begins. No exceptions.”
My throat closed up. I could barely breathe. “You can’t be serious.”
Varek’s gaze didn’t waver. “You think I’d lie about this?”
The silence between us stretched tight. The weight of it pressed down on my chest until I felt like I might crack under it. I pressed my hand to my mouth, bile burning at the back of my throat.
“There will be no more need for humans. They’re going to wipe us out,” I gasped.
“They will,” Varek cut in, quiet but unyielding. “Unless we stop them.”
Faces flashed in my mind, girls I’d whispered with in the dark, girls who’d held my hand when the guards came pounding on the doors. I imagined all of them lined up, all of them drugged, all of them doomed to die.
Silence pressed down, thick and suffocating. My rage had burned out, leaving me hollow, trembling, staring at the floor like I could claw answers out of the cracks. For the first time in a long time, I felt small. Fragile. Breakable.
But only for a moment.
I forced myself to swallow the bile, pulled my shoulders back, even as tears burned behind my eyes. I lifted my chin, clenching my fists to stop the shaking.
Varek’s voice cut through the silence, quiet and calm. “I’m not sure what they did to you,” he admitted, his gaze steady but troubled. “I’ve never seen one of our captives lose themselves the way you did. Not like that. And I have no knowledge of the wolves experimenting on women that way.”
I stared at him, my chest tight. “What do you mean?”
“They’re typically treated relatively well,” he said, the words like gravel in his throat. “Because you’re valuable. You’re the ones who carry our children. The Council doesn’t risk damaging what they see as… breeding stock.”
“I don’t know how that… other side of me came out. I’m not like that. I swear I’m not.”
He didn’t answer right away. He just studied me calmly, his jaw tight like he was cataloging every flicker of expression across my face. Then, like a switch being thrown, the memory slammed into me.
I sucked in a sharp breath. “Wait.”
Varek’s brow lifted.
“I remember.” My pulse jumped. “There was this girl. She was new, I think. She was brought into the cells a few days ago. Blonde, soft-spoken. She… she gave me something.” A flash of horror zinged along my nerves.
“She gave me an injection. I can’t remember exactly; I was kind of dazed.
But after that? That’s when everything went wrong. That’s when I lost myself.”
Heat flared in my chest, the pieces finally clicking together. “That bitch poisoned me.”
Varek’s expression darkened, his silver eyes narrowing. “A human?”
“Yes.” My hands curled into fists. “She acted normal, kind even, but she’s the reason I tore those soldiers apart. Whatever she shot me up with made me into that.”
His jaw flexed. “Then she’s more dangerous than she looks.”
“Or she’s a pawn,” I snapped. “Either way, I don’t give a damn. Whoever she is, she doesn’t matter right now. We’ve got bigger problems.”
His gaze flicked back to me, sharp and appraising. “The fertility drug.”
I nodded, fury hardening into steel. “Yes. Whatever’s happening with me, we deal with it later, but if what you said is true? We don’t have time to waste.”
Varek inclined his head once. “Then we’re agreed. Bigger fish to fry than a lone girl with a secret rage serum.”
For the first time, I didn’t feel like I was standing on the opposite side of a battlefield from him.
For the first time, I felt like we were aimed at the same enemy.
And that in some strange twist of—I hated to say it—fate, we were allies.