Chapter 2 Harkan
Harkan
The wolf wanted to hunt.
He paced beneath my skin like a caged animal, clawing at the edges of my control with every breath. Find her. Chase her. Bring her back. The impulses came in waves, relentless, each one harder to swallow than the last.
I ignored him. I was good at that.
A century of chains had taught me how to separate myself from my beast, how to stow him away, how to come back to myself. I rubbed at the scars encircling my wrists, the last testament to what it had cost me to come back.
"You're going to wear a hole in the floor.
" Cara leaned against the doorframe of my study, tall and sharp-edged, her silver-streaked dark hair pulled back from a face that had never learned how to soften.
She watched me pace with the kind of resigned patience she'd perfected over the years.
"Or your own feet. Whichever gives out first."
"Report," I said, not stopping.
She glanced at the small, spelled glass hanging from her belt—a simple thing, charmed to show the positions of our wolves on watch. "Jex let her in last night. Rhett gave her a room. She slept maybe four hours." Her thumb traced the glass. "She's awake now. Moving around."
The Lock & Key's demon bouncer and alchemist bartender.
Good people. Neutral territory. She'd chosen well, even if she hadn't chosen me.
And I knew she was awake. Consciousness had flickered back into the bond the moment she'd stirred—a torch sputtering to life in the back of my mind. She was tired. Anxious. Determined.
Planning to run.
Stop her, the wolf snarled. She's OURS.
I shoved the thought down with all the others. She wasn't ours. She wasn't anyone's. That was the whole damn point.
The wolf didn't care. He'd known from the moment her lips touched mine—that desperate kiss meant to fool Varro's man. No consultation. No warning. Just the bone-deep certainty that she was meant for us, and the instinct to claim her before anyone else could.
I hadn't wanted this. A mate meant vulnerability. Attachment. Someone else for my enemies to use against me, another throat for their blades to find. I'd already learned that lesson once—had it carved into me the day I watched my sister die while I stood there, useless, unable to stop any of it.
Never again. I'd sworn it. Never again would I let someone close enough to destroy me when they were ripped away.
The wolf had ignored that oath completely.
And I kept right on pacing.
"She's going to bolt," Riven said from somewhere behind Cara. Youngest of my inner circle—all lean muscle and restless energy, dark hair perpetually falling into his eyes—and still learning when to keep his mouth shut. "You know that, right? The second she thinks she has a clear path, she's gone."
"I know."
"And you're just... letting her?"
I stopped. Turned. Riven flinched back a step before he could stop himself, and I made myself breathe through the satisfaction that curled in my chest at the reaction.
The wolf liked fear. I didn't.
Most days, I could tell the difference, but not today. Not with him tearing at my thoughts with every passing moment.
"She spent thirteen years as a slave," I said, keeping my voice even. That's what my sources told me. Thirteen years of Varro's leash. "Over a decade with a collar around her throat and a brand on her wrist. If I chase her down and drag her back, what does that make me?"
No better than the filth that chained her, that’s what. No better than the bastard who’d chained me. I knew enough about captivity that I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
"Varro," Riven said quietly.
"Exactly."
Silence settled over the room. Cara's expression shifted into something almost approving. Riven looked away, jaw tight.
I turned back to the window, staring out at the fading daylight. Somewhere across the Divide, in a room above a bar, Sable was preparing to run from me. She was moving now—the bond stretching like a thread pulled taut. Every step she took away from me was a small, sharp ache beneath my ribs.
The wolf howled in the cage of my bones.
Go. Go. GO.
"How many do we have watching the Lock & Key?" I asked, gritting my teeth against the beast refusing to be denied.
"Four at the exits. Two on the rooftops." Cara pushed off the doorframe, moving closer. "She won't get far without us knowing."
I fought off the urge to snap at her. "She's not a prisoner. I won’t tell you again."
"I know that. But she's also not safe." Cara's voice dropped, careful—like the words themselves were dangerous. "Varro's men have been crawling all over the Divide since last night. They're looking for her, Harkan. It's only a matter of time before—"
Before they caught her. Before they took her. Before…
Fuck, I hated it when she was right. "I know."
I knew. Gods, I knew. The crime lord wouldn't let her go—not his prized truth-taster, the witch who'd made him rich and powerful and feared.
The witch who sussed out every enemy, every mole, every usurper.
The only reason he hadn't moved yet was because he was waiting.
Watching. Trying to figure out how serious I was about protecting her.
He'd find out soon enough. I’d given Sable my word, and I didn’t break my word. Not ever again.
The bond pulsed. Sable was moving faster now, her emotions bleeding through in fragments. Fear. Determination. The wild, desperate hope of a caged bird seeing an open window.
She's leaving, the wolf snarled. She's LEAVING. Stop her. Catch her. KEEP her.
My hands curled into fists at my sides.
"Let her go," I growled, more to myself than to Cara.
"Harkan—"
"I said let her go."
The words tasted like ash. Every instinct I had screamed against them—a century of survival telling me to chase, to claim, to never let go of anything that mattered because the world would rip it away the moment I loosened my grip.
But I'd already taken too much from her. Bitten her without permission. Marked her without consent. If she wanted to run, if she needed to run, then I would stand here and let her go and my wolf would hate every fucking second of it.
The bond stretched thinner. One block. Two. Three.
The ache in my chest sharpened into something with teeth.
She's hurting, the wolf realized, suddenly still. She's hurting because of the distance. Because of US.
I closed my eyes. Breathed through it.
Four blocks. Five.
"Harkan." Cara's voice was tight. Her eyes were on the spelled glass. "She's slowing down."
My knees threatened to buckle. "I feel it."
Six blocks. Seven.
The bond shuddered.
My eyes snapped open.
Something was wrong. Not just the distance—something else. Her magic was sputtering, guttering like a flame in a storm. I could feel her confusion, her fear, the dawning realization that something was very, very wrong.
She's weak, the wolf growled. Vulnerable. UNPROTECTED.
"Get the others," I said.
Cara was already moving. "Harkan, what—"
"Now."
Eight blocks. Her knees hit the ground. The impact hit like a punch to my own chest—her exhaustion, her bone-deep weariness of a body pushed past its limits.
And then, cutting through the bond like a knife through silk: danger.
Not her fear. Not her panic.
Presence. Multiple. Hostile. Closing in.
The wolf didn't ask permission this time. He simply took.
My vision sharpened, colors bleeding into the hyper-vivid clarity of the hunt. My teeth ached as they lengthened. My nails bit into my palms, claws splitting skin.
"Varro's men," I snarled, and I was already moving, already running, the door slamming open hard enough to crack the frame.
Cara fell into step beside me, her own shift rippling beneath her skin. Riven flanked my other side, with Kael and Declan close behind—I didn't remember calling them, but they were pack, and the pack always knew when the Alpha was hunting.
The Divide blurred around us. I ran like I hadn't run in decades—not since the chains, not since Helene, not since I'd had something worth running toward.
Faster, the wolf demanded. FASTER.
The bond screamed.
She was fighting—brief sparks of defiance and fury flooding my senses—but she was too weak, too drained. They were hurting her. Someone was hurting her, and the distance between us was still too far, and I couldn't—
If she dies—
I shut the thought down before it could finish. Pushed harder. Faster.
The howl ripped out of me before I could stop it—a sound that had nothing to do with the man and everything to do with the beast wearing his skin. It tore through the evening air, rage and warning and promise, and somewhere behind me, my pack answered in kind.
Coming, the wolf snarled. We're coming. Hold on. HOLD ON.
Through the bond, I felt her hear it. Felt the spark of something that might have been hope before a fist connected with her face and her thoughts scattered into pain and stars.
Another blow. Her ribs. Something cracked.
The world went red.
I didn’t remember the last two blocks. Didn’t remember the alleys I tore through or the people who scrambled out of my path.
One moment I was running, and the next, I was there—skidding into a narrow street that stank of blood and fear and the particular brand of cruelty I'd learned to recognize a long time ago.
Four men. Armed. Spelled blades and runed knuckles and the cold efficiency of hired killers.
One of them had Sable by the hair, hauling her limp body off the ground. Blood streamed down her face. Her fox was pinned beneath another man's boot, shrieking and snapping, foxfire flickering weakly.
For one heartbeat, everything stopped.
Then the man holding her looked up, saw me, and made the mistake of smiling.
"Too late, wolf," he said. "She's coming with—"
I tore his throat out before he finished the sentence.
Blood sprayed hot across my face, my hands, my chest. The body dropped. Sable dropped with it, crumpling to the cobblestones in a heap of dark hair and darker bruises.
The other three had half a second to react.
It wasn't enough.
Cara hit the one pinning the fox, her claws opening him from shoulder to hip in a single savage swipe. Riven and Kael took the third together, a coordinated strike that left the man gurgling on his own blood. The fourth—scar-faced, clearly the leader of this little band of sycophants—tried to run.
Declan cut off his escape. Drove him back toward me.
Good.
I wanted this one to last.
"Wait," Scar-face gasped, backing up until his shoulders hit the alley wall. "Wait, we were just following orders, Varro said—"
"I don’t give a fuck what Varro said." I stalked forward, letting him see what I was—the claws, the fangs, the eyes that hadn't been human since I'd felt my mate's ribs break. "I want you to deliver a message for me."
Hope flashed across his face. Pathetic. "Yes, anything, I'll tell him—"
"You will tell him nothing." I smiled, all teeth. "You're the message."
His scream echoed off the alley walls for a long, long time.
When it was done—when the red haze finally cleared and the wolf retreated, satisfied, into the cage of my bones—I stood in a street painted with blood and breathed.
Four bodies. Four messages for Varro.
Not enough, the wolf muttered. Should have made it slower.
Probably. But I had more important things to worry about.
I turned to find Sable exactly where she'd fallen, crumpled against the cobblestones like a broken doll.
Her fox had dragged himself to her side, pressing his small body against her neck, his foxfire guttering weakly.
He looked up at me as I approached—amber eyes bright with fear and fury and something that might have been reluctant gratitude.
"I've got her," I said quietly. "You did well."
The fox stared at me for a long moment. Then he moved aside, just enough to let me close.
Sable's face was a mess. Split lip, swelling eye, blood matting her dark hair to her temple. Her breathing was shallow, hitching on every inhale—broken ribs, at least one, maybe more. She was unconscious, pale as death, and so fucking fragile that something in my chest cracked just looking at her.
Ours, the wolf whispered. Not demanding this time. Aching. She's ours and she's hurt and we couldn't—
I gathered her into my arms as gently as I could manage with hands that still wanted to tear the world apart. She weighed nothing. Less than nothing. A wisp of a woman with a spine of steel and a mouth that could cut glass.
The mate bond purred at the contact—her pain easing, my rage settling into something almost bearable. I hated how right it felt. Hated how the wolf preened with satisfaction. Hated how some part of me, buried deep beneath a century of scar tissue, didn't want to let her go.
This didn't mean anything. She was injured. She needed help. That was all.
The wolf knew I was lying. I ignored him, too.
Her fox leapt onto my shoulder, claws digging in, his small body trembling.
"Harkan." Cara approached carefully, like she wasn't sure which version of me she was dealing with. Fair. I wasn't sure, either. "We should move. Varro will send more."
"Let him." I didn't look up from Sable's face. "I'll kill every one he sends."
"I don't doubt it. But she needs a healer, not a battlefield."
She was right. I knew she was right. But the wolf didn't want to move, didn't want to do anything except stand here in this blood-soaked alley and hold the woman who'd tried so hard to leave us.
She'll try again, some part of me whispered. When she heals. When she's strong enough. She'll run again.
Probably.
But that was a problem for later.
Right now, she was here. She was alive. She was in my arms, and for reasons I refused to examine, that was enough.
I turned toward the stronghold, Sable cradled against my chest, her blood seeping into my shirt and her heartbeat steady beneath my palm.
The wolf settled into watchful silence.
The Divide held its breath as I walked. I could feel them watching—from windows, from doorways, from the shadows between. An Alpha covered in blood, carrying a broken witch through the streets.
Let them watch. Let them whisper. Let Varro hear exactly what had happened to the men who'd dared to touch her.
This was just the beginning.