Chapter 2
Nadia
The snow comes down heavy enough to muffle the world. No wind. No birds. Just the rhythm of my paws hammering frozen ground and the rasp of air dragging through my lungs.
I’ve been traveling for over a day.
Aurora wouldn’t use the highways. Too exposed. Too many variables. A high-value Syndicate defector traveling under protection? They’d take the northern route—the one that cuts through protected wilderness where they control every approach, every sightline, every emergency extraction point.
I’d laid it out in my head during that first hour of running, eliminated the southern options, the interstate corridors where Syndicate operatives could stage an ambush.
That left the northern forestry roads. And if I ran hard enough, cut through terrain the convoy couldn’t navigate, I could reach the eastern approach before they passed through.
Almost impossible. But not if you move like you mean it.
The human part of me—the sliver that still calculates, still plans—tracks the ache in my chest and knows I’m pushing too hard. The wolf doesn’t care. She’s been caged for too long, fed scraps of purpose through surveillance jobs and containment duty. Now she’s free, and she’s hunting.
I cut through forest shadows, following the scent web threading through the trees.
Diesel exhaust. Scorched metal. The acrid tang of dragonfire containment tech—chemical suppressants mixed with smoldering fire.
It’s like a trail of breadcrumbs in the air, and I follow it east across ridges and ravines, taking shortcuts the convoy can’t.
My breath fogs white. My paws barely leave prints in the snow.
The forest thins as I climb toward a narrow ridge, and I slow, dropping low, letting my body melt into the landscape. Below, the access road cuts through the valley in switchbacks, and there—fresh tire tracks carved deep into crusting snow, edges already hardening in the cold.
I creep closer, nose down, reading the tracks layered into the frozen earth.
Multiple humans. Oil smoke. Leather and coffee and the faint metallic sweat of nervous guards. And underneath it all, that burnt-copper signature unique to dragons who’ve been locked down too long, their fire suppressed and restrained until it turns cold.
Him.
The thought cuts sharp.
I ghost alongside the ridge, keeping to cover, wind at my nose so nothing downwind can catch my scent. The tracks are recent—an hour old at most. Maybe less.
Not far now.
My pulse kicks once, hard. The wolf’s focus narrows: see him, and end it.
No memory. No hesitation.
Just action.
I pause beneath a cedar overhang where the branches hang low and thick, snow piled heavy enough to create a pocket of darkness.
My body shifts before I consciously decide, bones grinding into new alignment, spine curving, fur receding.
The transformation is controlled violence: cartilage snapping into human joints while the wolf stays close.
The cold hits hard.
I’m naked except for patches of fur on my forearms and calves, snow melting against overheated skin. My breath comes in ragged clouds. I should be shivering.
I’m not.
Because the hunt doesn’t care about exposure.
And neither do I.
I move forward on human feet, quieter now, using the rocky terrain for cover. The low rumble of engines reaches me before I see them—a deep, grinding sound that echoes off the valley walls.
I drop into a crouch behind an outcrop of stone and peer through the brush.
The convoy appears around the bend below: three matte-black vehicles crawling along the narrow road, Aurora insignia muted beneath layers of snow and road salt.
The lead SUV moves cautiously, headlights cutting pale beams through the falling snow.
The transport van follows close behind, flanked by a third vehicle bringing up the rear.
Everything precise. Routine. Bored guards who think the biggest threat is ice on the road.
Then I see him.
The side window of the transport van is open—just a crack, enough for air circulation. And there, sitting motionless beside an escort, is Jericho Allon. I know it’s him.
Not cuffed. Not restrained. Just… still.
His back is straight despite the jolt of the rough road. His gaze fixed forward like he’s carved from stone. There’s no fear in the way he holds himself, no tension. Just the bearing of a man who looks like he thinks he owns the world he lives in.
And his eyes—
They glow faintly gold before he blinks, the light swallowed by shadow.
He shifts slightly as the van navigates a pothole, and the movement is controlled, economical. Like a man who’s learned to conserve energy in case he might need it for survival.
He’s big. Dwarfing the guards sitting with him and making the interior of the vehicle look cramped. But I don’t get a sense of clumsiness from him. Everything about him is taut, controlled.
Something tears through me. Not fear. I don’t give a fuck how big he is. This is something else.
Every sense sharpens until the world goes knife-edged and too bright. I can hear his heartbeat from here, slow and steady, a counterpoint to the engine’s rumble. I can smell him through diesel and snow and distance: smoke and iron and something underneath that tastes like winter storms.
Heat spreads fast.
Wrong. Impossible, considering I’m crouching practically naked in the ice.
But it crawls under my skin anyway, starting low in my belly and rising, flushing my chest, tightening my throat until I have to plant a hand beside me just to stay grounded.
For one breathless moment, I can’t move. Can’t make sense of this. Can only feel the pull threading through my ribs.
What the fuck?
I crouch in the snow, fingers flexing, every nerve screaming contradictions: kill him… go to him… run.
The sharp taste of adrenaline floods my mouth. There’s a sound in my skull like radio static, high and sharp, and my heartbeat syncs with the rhythm of his—matching, mirroring, impossible.
The transport van rounds the bend and disappears down the slope.
The sound fades.
I stay frozen, shaking, hand buried wrist-deep in snow that should burn cold but doesn’t register at all.
My chest heaves. My vision swims.
You found him.
The wolf snarls in approval. But something’s wrong. The hunt doesn’t feel like victory. It feels like vertigo. Like standing at a cliff edge, drawn forward and terrified at once.
I force my breath to slow. Count backwards from ten. Anchor myself in the cold, the pain, the solid reality of stone beneath my knees.
Ten. Nine. Eight.
My pulse settles. The heat recedes to a dull ache.
Seven. Six. Five.
Thought returns. Logic. The anger that’s kept me alive.
Four. Three. Two.
And then guilt roars back so hard it nearly doubles me over.
Chance.
His name still hurts.
All this time, I’ve carried his memory, refused to let anyone close, refused to feel anything that might dilute the purity of my grief. And now—now—my nerve endings fire up in response to the man who killed him.
I dig my claws into the frozen earth until they scrape rock.
Prey.
That’s what this is. Recognizing my quarry. Senses heightening as I prepare for the kill.
The wind shifts, carrying the scent again; smoke and something that burrows under my skin and stays.
I bare my teeth at the empty road.
“You won’t walk into Aurora that easily.” The words come out low. Savage. Reminding me of why I’m here.
I rise slowly, legs shaking, and start moving parallel to the route he vanished down. My feet leave bloody prints in the snow—human skin torn on rock and ice—but I don’t slow. The wolf takes over again, just enough that the pain becomes distant.
I slip through the trees toward the next pass, muscles coiling, mind focused on a single objective.
End this.
Before it ends you.
Behind me, the prints I leave fade fast, swallowed by fresh snow. My mind races as I try to make sense of the sensations that had overwhelmed me back there.
Recognition without understanding.
A gut-deep reaction to the man I plan to kill. Probably adrenaline at the knowledge of what I have to do.
That’s all it was.
An unnecessary feeling.
And I’ll bury it the same way I buried my mate.