Chapter 6
Nadia
The storm doesn’t stop. Snow falls so thick that I can’t see past the shelter’s opening; just endless white and shadow pressing close.
I sit with my back against stone that leeches heat through the dead operative’s coat. Rifle across my lap. Blades on the floor beside me. Eyes on the man just a few feet away.
Allon hasn’t moved since we got here.
He sits against the opposite wall, hands locked in suppression cuffs resting loose in his lap. His breathing stays even. Controlled. The kind of rhythm you learn in combat—shallow enough to conserve energy, deep enough to stay conscious.
The gash above his eyebrow has stopped bleeding, the edges raw and ugly, less healed than they would be if the cuffs weren’t suppressing his dragon. Snow has melted off his hair and refroze in his stubble. He looks like something carved from winter itself—cold and hard as an ice sculpture.
Still.
Too still for someone recently ambushed, restrained, dragged through a forest by an armed stranger who’s planning to kill him.
My finger rests against the rifle’s trigger guard. Not on the trigger—not yet. But close. Ready. Waiting for him to make a move.
He doesn’t.
Dammit.
The cuffs glow faintly—runes etched into metal pulsing with suppressed energy. They’re doing their job. I can’t sense any dragonfire. Can’t feel the heat that should radiate from a dragon this powerful, even at rest.
Just cold stone and colder air and the man who ordered my mate’s death sitting close enough that I could end this in seconds.
So why haven’t you?
The question has been circling my thoughts since I dragged him in here. Relentless. Hungry. Refusing to let me rest.
I know why.
He was unconscious when I pulled him from the wreckage. Defenseless. Killing him like that would have been murder. Not the justice Chance deserves.
Aurora trained me better than that. Wolves don’t slaughter helpless prey. We hunt. We fight. But we don’t butcher.
I won’t become what the Syndicate is. Won’t let grief turn me into something that kills without honor. Without the lines that separate executioner from monster.
But he’s not unconscious now. Hasn’t been since we left the scene of the battle.
My grip tightens on the rifle. My wolf surges closer to the surface, wanting me to do something.
Now.
Not later. Not when the storm clears.
Now.
I just need him on his feet. Need those cuffs off. Need this to be what it should be: justice delivered by someone who earned the right to take his life.
Not slaughter.
Combat.
Fair.
The thought steadies me even as my pulse kicks harder. Even as that unfamiliar sensation floods through my system again—hot and fast, clawing up from my stomach into my chest.
I ignore it. Crush it down beneath half a decade of discipline. It’s adrenaline. Stress. My body’s response to impending violence.
Nothing else.
Jericho shifts slightly. Metal scrapes stone. The sound cuts through the shelter. My wolf snarls beneath my skin.
His eyes are on me. Pale gray. Sharp. Alert.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move beyond that small adjustment. Just watches me with the kind of focus that says he’s been calculating. Assessing. Preparing for whatever comes next.
Good. Let him prepare. Let him understand exactly what’s coming.
The air between us pulls tight. Electric. My breathing stays controlled, but my heart is racing. Every muscle coiled. Ready.
He straightens slowly. Careful. Deliberate.
“You’re okay,” I say. My voice comes out flat. Hard.
“Yes.” One word. No inflection. No fear.
It should satisfy me. It doesn’t.
Because I want fear. Want him to understand what it felt like when they called me and told me Chance was dead. Want him to feel that moment when the world stops making sense and grief rips through your chest.
I want him terrified. But he’s not. He’s calm. Watching. Waiting.
“Storm’s not clearing,” he says quietly.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Something shifts in his expression. Understanding, maybe. Recognition that whatever timeline he thought he had just collapsed.
“No,” he agrees. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
Silence drops between us. Heavy. Charged. My wolf paces inside my skin. And I’m done waiting.
The code matters—it has to matter. Because if it doesn’t, if I cross that line, then Chance died for nothing. Then everything Aurora taught me means nothing.
Then I’m just another murderer in a world full of them.
But the code doesn’t require patience. Doesn’t demand I sit here while he rests and recovers. It just requires fairness. And fair doesn’t mean comfortable.
I stand abruptly. The movement sends fresh adrenaline spiking through my veins. My hands want to shake. I lock them down.
Allon tracks me. Every line of his body coiled despite the restraints.
“On your feet,” I say.
He doesn’t move immediately. Just holds my gaze for one long moment—not defiant, not pleading. Just… measuring.
Then he rises. Slowly. Carefully. Controlled despite the injuries and cold and exhaustion.
The man is massive. Six-six at least, and built like a weapon forged over centuries.
Broad shoulders that could block a doorway, arms corded with muscle that shift beneath the fabric of his jacket with every movement.
His chest is a wall of power, tapering to narrow hips and long, powerful legs.
The kind of body that screams dominance.
Magnificently male in a way that’s designed to intimidate.
It doesn’t. Because I’m wolf. And wolves don’t fear dragons.
We fight them.
I stand ready. The rifle stays in my hands, but my finger moves off the trigger. I won’t need it. Not for this.
We face each other across three feet of frozen air. Him towering. Me grounded. The space between us charged with violence waiting to happen.
Stone dust and cold sweat fill the air. And underneath—smoke and winter pine. Dragon. My wolf takes it in automatically. Marks it. Files it away as data.
Enemy signature.
My pulse kicks harder.
That sensation flares again—hotter this time, flooding through my skin before I can stop it. Fast and wrong and impossible to explain.
I crush it down. Bury it beneath rage and grief and too many years of loss. A combat response. My body preparing for violence.
Nothing else.
“You know why I’m here,” I say. Not a question.
“No,” he says quietly. “But I can guess it’s personal.”
“Do you want to know?”
“Would it make a difference?”
“No.”
“Then I won’t waste my breath asking,” he says. There isn’t a flicker of sarcasm in his tone. Just acceptance. “I’m guessing I don’t have many breaths left.”
The pragmatism should make this easier.
It doesn’t.
Because there’s something in the way he stands there—controlled, competent, ready—that my wolf recognizes. Something that registers as worthy… The kind of hunt that matters. The kind that proves you’re the better killer.
My hands flex. My breathing quickens despite my attempts to control it.
“You should be resisting this,” I say.
“Would it help?”
“No.”
“Then why consume the energy?”
“Most people would at least try.”
“I’m not most people.” He shifts his weight slightly. Testing his balance. Preparing. “And you’re not most people either.”
The observation lands strangely. Like he’s seeing something I’m not showing.
I ignore it.
“You have something to say to me,” he continues quietly. “Say it.”
For a second—just a second—I want to tell him. Want to make him understand whose life he took. What he destroyed. Who I lost. The future he stole from me.
But words won’t bring Chance back.
And this man doesn’t deserve to know. He can go to the grave without that satisfaction.
“No,” I say. “There’s nothing to say.”
His jaw tightens fractionally. The only sign he’s not as calm as he appears.
Good.
I step closer. “You don’t deserve to know any more.”
Something flickers across his face. Not fear. Just acknowledgment. But if he’s expecting a bullet in his head right now, he’s not going to get one.
I need this to be fair.
The word hangs over me. Fair. The thing the Syndicate didn’t give Chance when they ambushed him on a routine mission. The thing this man didn’t give any of them when he signed that order.
But I will. Because I’m not him. I’m not the Syndicate. I’m wolf. And wolves have principles. Even when killing.
Especially when killing.
My pulse pounds. My wolf snarls. That heat floods my system again—stronger now, undeniable, skittering under my skin like something alive. Long dormant nerve endings firing up.
I ignore it. Lock every unwanted response behind walls of discipline and rage.
Still, there’s this gnawing resistance in my gut that has nothing to do with conscience and everything to do with something I don’t understand and won’t acknowledge.
But it doesn’t matter. My decision is made. This man killed Chance. Signed the order that destroyed my life. And now he pays for it.
That’s justice. That’s what I came here to do. That’s what happens next.
The storm howls outside. Snow falls in sheets that erase the world.
Inside this shelter, two killers stand facing each other.
And one of us is about to die.
“We’re going to fight,” I tell him. “To the death.”