Chapter 15 Cornered #2
“There’s something else,” he says, and the Alpha is back, fully and completely. “Last night. A single wolf, eastern boundary. Crossed our markers and came within half a mile of the village.”
I move closer to the table despite myself, looking at the map. “Where exactly?”
He points. The marker sits on the eastern approach road, close to the cluster of cottages at the edge of the village. Close to Ivy Cottage.
My blood goes cold.
“The trail,” I say. “Which direction?”
“Southeast. Towards the old logging road. Lewis lost it at the river.” He watches me study the map. “If her scent is getting stronger, she’s broadcasting to every wolf within range. The rogues aren’t pushing closer because of territory, Roan. They’re pushing closer because of her.”
I stare at the marker. Half a mile from Phoebe’s cottage. Half a mile from a woman whose changing scent is drawing exactly the attention she can’t defend herself against.
“Double the eastern patrols,” I say. “Pairs, overlapping shifts. Extend the perimeter from the logging road to the church.”
“Already done.” My father’s voice is quiet. “I assigned the teams this morning. Whatever else you think of me, Roan, I protect my people. And if she’s your mate, she’s my people too.”
I don’t have an answer for that. It’s the most honest thing he’s said to me in years, and it sits uncomfortably against the narrative I’ve built about who he is.
Rebecca catches my eye as I turn to leave. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. Her expression says: Go. Tell her. And for once in your life, don’t run afterwards.
I feel her before I reach the cottage. The bond pulls me towards her with brutal certainty, every instinct in me narrowing to protect.
The mate bond has been a background hum since the day I woke up with her scent on the bandages.
A steady pull, persistent but manageable, pointing towards her no matter where I stand.
Today it’s different. Today it’s a wire pulled taut, vibrating with a frequency that translates directly into my nervous system as distress.
She’s afraid. Not the sharp, immediate fear of danger but something worse: the slow, creeping dread of someone who can feel themselves coming apart and doesn’t understand why. It seeps through the bond, and by the time I reach her lane, my wolf is pacing so hard my hands are shaking.
It’s early evening. The surgery sign is dark.
The curtains are drawn, which is wrong. Phoebe keeps her curtains open until she goes to bed.
She told me once she likes watching the light change over the hills in the evening, and the fact that I remember this tells me everything about how far gone I am.
I stand at her gate, and I have a choice.
I could wait. I could go home and plan the perfect speech, find the right words, build a careful framework of explanation that won’t frighten her away. I could be strategic. I could be smart.
Or I could stop being a coward and go to the woman who needs me.
I walk up the path and knock on her door.
The silence that follows is long enough that I consider the possibility she’s not answering. Then I hear footsteps, slow and unsteady, and the door opens.
Phoebe looks terrible. There’s no kind way to say it.
Her skin is pale and damp, her hair tangled, her eyes shadowed with the particular exhaustion of someone who hasn’t slept properly in days.
She’s wearing an oversized jumper that swamps her frame, and her hands are trembling where they grip the door.
But it’s her expression that guts me. She looks at me. The relief on her face is so naked, so desperate, it cuts through every layer of self-protection I’ve built. My wolf whines inside my chest. Our mate is hurting. We let it happen.
“Hi,” she says. Her voice is rough. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
“I’m here.”
“I know. I can feel…” She stops. Frowns. Tries again. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I step inside without waiting for the invitation because the bond is screaming at me to close the distance, and because she looks like she might fall if she stands much longer.
The cottage is cold. She hasn’t lit the fire.
There’s a mug of untouched tea on the kitchen table and a notebook open to a page covered in handwriting so shaky it barely looks like hers.
“Phoebe.” I take her hands. They’re freezing, and the contact sends the bond flaring through us both. She gasps, and I feel her pulse jump beneath my fingers. “How long has this been going on?”
“Days. I don’t know. It’s getting worse.
” She looks at our joined hands as if she can see the warmth flowing between them.
“Roan, something is happening to me. I can hear things I shouldn’t be able to hear.
I can smell things that don’t make sense.
My hands won’t stop shaking, and I can’t sleep because the dreams…
” She breaks off, and I watch her fight for the composure that’s been her armour since the day I met her. “I think I need help.”
“I know.” I tighten my grip on her hands because letting go isn’t something my body is willing to consider. “I know what’s happening to you. And I need to tell you something.”
She looks up at me with those brown eyes, exhausted and frightened and still so stubbornly intelligent that even now, even like this, I can see her filing information and looking for patterns.
“Okay,” she says. “Tell me.”