Chapter 13
Jericho
Morning light cuts across the parking lot as we leave the room. Gray sky threatening more snow. The temperature hovers just above freezing, sharp enough to make each breath visible.
Nadia walks three feet ahead of me. Not beside me. Not within arm’s reach. Just far enough that the distance becomes its own message.
I watch her move. The careful way she holds herself—shoulders tight, spine rigid, every line of her body locked down. She hasn’t glanced back once since we left the room. Hasn’t spoken except to confirm we’re getting the cash first.
Yesterday’s silence was exhaustion and survival. This is deliberate erasure. She’s trying to pretend last night didn’t happen.
Except it did.
The feeling of her straddling me lingers.
The taste of her mouth, hot and desperate and demanding.
The lush heat of her grinding against me through fabric that did nothing to hide how wet she was, how much she needed this.
The sounds she made when my hand found her breast. The way she gasped when I bit her throat. How close we came to—
Heat floods my system before I can stop it. My dragon stirs, restless and wanting despite knowing this is neither the time nor the place.
My cock twitches at the memory of her weight on me, the drag of her pussy against my length, the way she rocked and ground like she couldn’t get close enough.
I force the thoughts down. Focus on the present. On the back of her head and the careful distance she maintains and the fact that we need to function like normal people while we’re in this town.
Normal people?
I want to laugh out loud. We’re so far from that, it’s a joke.
I am dragon. And right now, my dragon is reaching out to this female in a way that is unfamiliar to me. Insistent. He recognized something in her from the start. Since the moment in the convoy when I saw her on the ridge. Connection. Clear and certain and absolute.
Although, to what end?
Dragons mate. I know that. The concept exists in our culture—finding a partner whose fire complements your own, whose presence makes your dragon settle rather than rage.
But wolves? I know almost nothing about her kind, aside from what was necessary to subdue an enemy. And the fact that they take mates too. But like us?
I have no frame of reference for this. Dragon bonds are about fire recognizing fire, about two flames that burn brighter together. Not this—whatever this is that makes my dragon claw at my ribs, demanding I claim what’s mine.
Except she’s not mine.
She came here to kill me for killing her mate.
The motel office is small. Just a counter and a weathered man in his sixties watching something on a small television.
“Morning,” Nadia says, all professional neutrality. “We’re here for the wire transfer. Room seven.”
He nods, turns down the TV. “Five hundred, right? Need to see ID.”
She glances at me. She doesn’t have anything with her. I produce identification that had been in my bag. He counts out cash with methodical slowness, makes me sign a receipt.
Three minutes. We’re back outside with money in hand, heading down the main street before either of us speaks.
“Wait here,” she says as we stop in front of a general dealer. I nod, sticking to my previous strategy of letting her make the decisions. She disappears inside, reappearing a few minutes later.
I raise an eyebrow when she doesn’t volunteer any information.
“Shoes.” She glances down at the new pair of sneakers she’s sporting. She’s been barefoot since the start of this adventure, and I’ve been so distracted by trying not to die that I’ve barely even noticed.
“There’s a diner,” she says, her gaze fixed on the storefronts ahead. “Two blocks down.”
“All right.”
That’s the extent of our conversation.
I follow her down the street. Timber Ridge. Population maybe a few hundred. The kind of place where everyone knows everyone, and strangers get noticed.
We’ll get noticed, but it can’t be helped. We need food, and there’s only one option.
The diner is classic small-town America: vinyl booths, laminate tables, a long counter with stools.
Windows facing the street. Television mounted in the corner playing morning news on mute.
Maybe a dozen people scattered throughout.
Locals. Loggers, probably. A few older couples.
A waitress who’s likely worked here for decades.
We take a booth by the window. Nadia sits across from me and immediately picks up the menu, using it as a barrier.
I study her instead.
Her attention stays fixed on the laminated pages like they contain vital intelligence. The set of her mouth is hard, her posture defensive even sitting down.
The waitress arrives. An older woman with a name tag reading “Deb,” her smile genuine but tired. “What can I get you folks?”
“Coffee,” Nadia says. “And the breakfast special.”
“Same,” I add.
Deb nods, pours coffee from a pot she’s carrying, and heads back to the kitchen.
The quiet that settles between us feels deliberate. Weaponized.
Nadia sets down the menu and wraps both hands around her coffee mug. Drinks it black. Her focus shifts to the window, tracking the few people moving along the street.
I drink mine and try to figure out what to say. If there’s anything that won’t make this worse.
My dragon doesn’t care about worse. Just wants her to look at me. Wants her scent to stop wrapping around me like a physical touch because even across the table, even in a diner full of other scents, I can smell her—wolf and woman and the faint remnants of arousal that probably only I can detect.
God, she’s beautiful.
Want surges through me. My dragon pushes at my skin, demanding I reach across this table and make her acknowledge what happened between us. Make her admit that when she kissed me, when she was grinding on me with her wetness soaking through to my skin—that it meant something.
Except I’m not certain what it meant.
And pushing her right now would be tactical stupidity.
Why would I even want to, dammit?
So I drink my coffee and watch her study the street and try to ignore how my body responds to her proximity.
The way my fire rises when she shifts in her seat.
How every small movement registers—the way her throat works when she swallows, how her fingers curl around the mug, the slight parting of her lips before she takes another sip.
Everything about her is fascinating now that I know how she tastes, how she feels, how she sounds when she’s desperate.
Deb returns with food. Eggs, bacon, toast, hash browns. Standard breakfast that we both need after not eating for days.
We eat without speaking.
I watch her anyway. Can’t stop myself. The precision with which she cuts her food.
The deliberate way she chews. The flutter in the hollow of her throat.
Small movements that shouldn’t matter but do because I can’t stop remembering what it felt like to have my mouth there, to feel her pulse racing beneath my tongue.
Her gaze stays on her plate or the window. Never drifts in my direction.
Halfway through the meal, movement outside catches my attention. Black SUVs. Three of them. Moving slowly down the main street.
Every muscle in my body goes rigid.
I know those vehicles. Syndicate standard—armored, tinted windows, probably carrying four agents each. Twelve operatives minimum.
They’re here. For me.
I set down my fork with careful control. Keep my voice low. “Nadia.”
The shift in my tone makes her glance up. “What?”
I tilt my head slightly toward the window. “Syndicate.”
Her gaze shifts. I watch understanding cross her face, see her posture transform from tense civilian to field operative in half a second.
“How many?” Quiet.
“Three vehicles. Twelve agents minimum. Could be more.”
The SUVs stop at the far end of the street. Doors open. Agents emerge, dressed in civilian clothes but moving like military. Spreading out. Systematic search pattern.
They’re going from door to door.
“We need to leave,” Nadia says.
“Not yet.” I keep my voice calm. “Running draws attention. We finish eating. Pay normally. Walk out like there’s no problem.”
Her mouth compresses into a thin line, but she nods. Picks up her fork. Takes another bite, even though tension radiates from her.
I do the same. Force myself to chew and swallow while twelve trained killers search the town for us.
The agents work methodically. Starting with businesses on the north side. Showing something—a photograph?—asking questions. Moving to the next location.
They’re three buildings away.
I catch Deb’s attention. “Check when you have a chance.”
She brings it over. Nadia pays in cash, leaving a normal tip. Not too much, not too little. Forgettable.
Smart.
“Ready?” I ask Nadia quietly.
She nods.
We stand and move toward the door. Not rushing. Not hesitating. Just two people leaving after breakfast.
Icy air hits us as we exit.
The agents are two buildings away now. Close enough to see clearly—professional, alert, armed despite the civilian clothes. I recognize the lead agent. Rogan Thorne. Former tactical unit. Efficient. Ruthless.
“Keep your eyes forward,” I say quietly. “Normal pace. Back to the motel.”
Nadia walks beside me now instead of ahead. Closer. Playing the part, even though we both know it’s theater.
We turn the corner onto the side street where the motel sits. Around the building, away from immediate visibility.
“Will they search the motel?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“How long do we have?”
“Hard to tell. Maybe an hour if they’re thorough with the businesses first.”
We reach our room. She unlocks it, and we slip inside.
The door closes. The act drops immediately. We’re not a couple. We’re two people trapped in a room with a Syndicate kill team hunting through the town.
“We can’t stay here,” she says.
“We can’t leave.” I move to the window, staying out of direct view. “Extraction isn’t until tomorrow. We try to run now, on foot, they’ll find us. And your shoulder—”
She touches it unconsciously. “It’s nothing. My wolf—”
“Your wolf lost just as much blood as you did. You won’t be up to speed for at least a few more hours.”
The wound has healed more, but she’s not at full strength. Not enough for a prolonged chase through terrain that the Syndicate can search with vehicles and air support.
“So we stay,” she says. Already accepting the reality.
“We stay.”
She moves to sit on the edge of the bed. I remain by the window. Watching the street through the half-closed drapes. Waiting to see if the Syndicate searches this far or if we get lucky.
Not going to happen.
The quiet expands between us. Different from the diner. There’s no performance now. No pretending. Just two people confined together with everything unresolved and a kill team outside.
I can feel her presence behind me. Hyperaware of the small space, the lone bed, the fact that last night we were tangled together in that exact spot, and now we’re acting like it never happened.
My dragon stirs. Her scent fills the room, stronger here than in the diner, mixing with my own until they’re almost indistinguishable. Fire recognizing something in her heat. Claiming. Mine.
Not fucking mine, goddammit!
“Are they nearly at the motel?” she asks.
“Not sure. Could be minutes. Could be hours. Depends on how thorough they are.”
“And if they knock?”
“We stay quiet. Hope they move on.”
“And if they push it?”
I look at her. She’s watching me now, eye contact restored because necessity overrides personal discomfort.
“Then we fight our way out,” I say.
She nods once. Accepting that too.
More quiet.
Outside, I hear an engine. I watch one of the SUVs move further down the main street. They’re spreading out. Covering more ground.
We might have time. Might get lucky.
Or we might not.
Either way, we’re confined here. Together. With everything from last night sitting between us unacknowledged, and the very real possibility that in the next hour we might have to fight for our lives.
My dragon moves beneath my skin. Wanting her attention. Wanting her to look at me the way she did last night—pupils blown wide, lips swollen from kissing, that desperate need written across every line of her body.
I turn back to the window. Try to focus on the threat outside instead of the one inside this room. Try to forget how she felt on top of me, the sweetness of her mouth, the desperate sounds she made when she was close to coming. How close my hand was to sliding into her pants when she—
Focus.
Outside, the Syndicate searches.
Inside, we wait.