Chapter 5 - Zane
I don’t normally lose control like this, not over a person.
I’ve spent years training that instinct out of myself, burying it under discipline and routine. You don’t survive the special ops by reacting to every little thing. You survive by staying cold and as untouchable as possible.
So why the hell is she getting under my skin like this? And why am I allowing it to happen?
Standing in the kitchen, hands braced against the counter, I stare at nothing while the sound of Naia’s pacing cuts through the apartment, as it seems to frequently. Even after several days, she hasn’t given it up yet.
She has been relentless. I have listened to hours of it by now, and of her pushing. Of circling back to the same argument again and again, like it’s the one hill we’d both willingly die on. It’s driving me insane.
“You know this doesn’t change anything,” Naia says, voice slicing through the space.
I close my eyes briefly and brace myself for…what is this, round…Ten? Twenty? I’ve already lost count, yet she still isn’t done.
Straightening slowly, I roll my shoulders before turning to face her. I watch as she enters the room, standing with her arms crossed and chin lifted like she’s prepared to willfully ignore my input.
“Funny,” I mutter. “Was about to say the same thing.”
Her eyes narrow, but she presses on. “Keeping me here won’t solve any of your problems.”
“It’s not about solving my problems.”
“You really should get on that. They’re stacking up,” she snaps. “But no…nothing touches you, just me. You made all of this your problem the second you decided to buy me. You could’ve just left it alone, and now I have to face the consequences for your actions.”
There’s that word again—Buy.
It still sits wrong in my chest.
“I got you out,” I say, my patience already thinning, as it does easily now. “If I hadn’t, who knows what disgusting people you could’ve been sent home with.”
“Don’t act as if you saved me out of the goodness of your heart. You jeopardized whatever plan you had and dragged me into something worse.”
I let out a sharp breath, stepping away from the counter as I try to keep my cool, but she’s making it nearly impossible. She really only sees me as a monster, not as someone capable of genuine care.
“Worse? Last I checked, you’re not restrained and paraded around a stage anymore,” I return, feeling another familiar wave of adrenaline move through me. “Yet you’re complaining because I haven’t let you loose like a rabid animal.”
Naia clenched her jaw tightly. “At least in there, I knew what I was dealing with.”
I stop in front of her, incredulous as I blink back at her. “You have to be kidding me.”
“I’m not,” she utters, unfazed. “We both had the opportunity to do something about those bastards back there, and you wasted it.”
Something in me snaps tight, and before I can stop myself, I’m standing right in front of her, rage simmering beneath the surface. “You’d rather be back there?”
“I’d rather be in control,” she fires back. “That’s something you’ve taken away from me, and you refuse to acknowledge it.”
“I didn’t take anything from you—”
“You took my choice. Every single one from the moment you bought me, leading up to now.”
The implications are heavier than I expect, and for a second, I don’t respond because there’s truth there.
A piece of it, anyway.
“I made a call,” I say finally, voice quieter but firm, silently hoping she’ll drop it. “One that kept you alive.”
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“Yeah, you’ve made that very clear,” I mutter, letting the silence stretch again, thick and suffocating.
She stares at me, then starts pacing again, pulling at my nerves in a way nobody else has before.
I run a hand through my hair, frustration building under my skin like pressure I can’t bleed off, well aware that nothing about this is normal. Nothing about her is normal right now, or the way I’m reacting to her, and that’s what bothers me the most.
Not the arguing, and not the attitude. Her. The way she feels in the room, and how I’d be even more irritated if she weren’t here.
“You’re going to wear down the floorboards,” I utter again, not really caring, but wishing she’d stop for five seconds.
“Good,” she mumbles, tone unrepentant as expected. “Maybe I’ll find a way out then.”
Something in me wants to laugh, but I refrain. I don’t need to encourage her.
“Not happening.”
She spins on me without hesitation, snapping back, “You don’t get to keep saying that like it’s law.”
“It is,” I shoot back. “For now.”
“For now,” she repeats mockingly. “God, you really love that phrase, don’t you? You’re unbelievably controlling.”
I scoff. “It’s necessary.”
“Everything is ‘necessary’ to you, so long as you come up with it. Every decision and every move is justified because you decided it was,” she says sarcastically, but not entirely wrong, either.
“That’s how leadership works.”
“I don’t give a damn about your leadership!” she growls out, voice cracking through the apartment, louder than before. And before I have time to react, something shifts. It’s subtle like a flicker at first, then the air tightens, just slightly, like pressure building.
I feel it before I see it, springing my instincts into high alert immediately. Bracing myself, every muscle in my body locks into readiness.
Naia freezes too, eyes wide enough for me to notice, then it happens.
A pulse, barely visible, but there, ripples outward from her like a heat wave, brushing against my skin with a sharp, unmistakable electric edge.
Magic.
My gaze snaps to her fully now, every sense locked in, and pure disbelief moves through me. “What the hell was that?”
She blinks and looks down at her hands like she’s seeing them for the first time. As if she’s just as caught off guard as I am. “I—”
The air crackles in the air between us, subtle but undeniable, and my pulse picks up through every ripple of energy. Alarms go off in my mind, reminding me to be careful and not to let her use this against me.
“That’s magic,” I say, voice low yet sharp with accusation. I watch her closely, preparing myself for anything.
Her jaw tightens. “I know.”
“You know?” I repeat, incredulous and not believing what I’m hearing. “Since when?”
She hesitates, just for a second, like she’s rather store it away and keep it from me for as long as possible, but after that sudden burst, I’m not letting it go. She squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath.
“Recently.”
I stare at her, not knowing where I’m even supposed to start. “Recently. You’re telling me you just woke up one day and decided to start channeling magic?”
“I didn’t decide anything,” she snaps, looking irritated with me, as if I should know better than that. “It just started happening…I don’t know why.”
Clenching my jaw, not sensing an immediate threat from her, I remind myself to stay calm and cool about it. If I push her too far, then she won’t tell me anything. “When did it start?”
Naia averts her gaze, taking her time before she murmurs, “About a year ago. It was only ever small things. Little flickers here and there, but nothing I’ve mastered.”
The answer hits harder than I expect, and I study her more closely now, replaying everything I’ve noticed since she got here.
I knew her for years, and I never once had the inkling she was capable of wielding magic. In a way, it feels like I really don’t know her at all.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Irritation shades her features, letting go of that brief vulnerability. “Because it’s none of your business.”
“It became my business the second you started throwing it around in my apartment.”
“I’m not ‘throwing it around’. I can barely control it,” Naia utters, more defensive now that her secret is out.
“Which is exactly why you should’ve said something.”
She scoffs, tone shifting to a sardonic one. “Oh, right. Because I should just trust you with that.”
“Yes,” I say flatly. Even if she doesn’t believe me, she should at least know the difference between a hostile environment and a safe one. But given where she grew up, they would seem like the same thing to her.
“Like you’ve given me any reason to trust you.”
Well aware that we aren’t getting anywhere, I drag a hand down my face, frustration spiking again, but now there’s something else layered underneath it. The pieces are starting to fall into place.
“The wolves who took you,” I say slowly, thinking it out loud, “they used magic on you.”
She hesitates, seemingly surprised that I’m not yelling back at her anymore. “They did.”
A cold realization settles in my chest as it all starts making sense. “They weren’t just trafficking wolves in general. They were targeting specific ones. Ones with value.”
“Do you think they knew about your powers?”
“They had to know something,” she mumbles, more to herself as she glances away. “Enough to take me down with magic instead of brute force. Beats me how they would’ve known.”
That lines up, almost too well, and my mind starts running through possibilities and scenarios. If they’re identifying magic users and capturing them just to sell them…
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“What?”
I shake my head slightly, pacing once now as the energy shifts inside me, needing to be released somehow. “This is bigger than I thought.”
“No kidding,” she says dryly.
I ignore it and let my thoughts unravel. “How many wolves like you are out there right now?”
Her expression sharpens, as if she’s reaching the same wavelength as me. “That’s exactly why you need to let me go.”
Without hesitation, I stop and turn to her. “No.”
Her eyes narrow immediately in challenge, pushing back immediately. “Yes.”
“No,” I repeat, firmer this time. “That’s not happening.”
“Zane—”
“You’re not running off to confront a group like that on your own. Not when they already managed to weaken you,” I argue, unwilling to concede to this. “If they have others with magic, then who knows how strong they’ll be.”
“I wouldn’t be on my own,” she says, full of confidence. “I’d be back with my pack.”
I stare at her like she’s lost it again, skin growing cold at the idea. “The same pack that treats you like trash?”
“They made a mistake, but they’ll see.” She steps closer, anger and determination flaring again. She sees this as a noble cause and a duty she owes, but she’s wrong. “I need to go back and fix this.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I need to make them pay,” Naia says, sounding more desperate for action and results the longer this goes on. “I need to make them all pay.”
“You’ll get yourself killed. Even you should be able to see that.”
She scoffs, preventing her from seeing the flaws in her half-baked plan. “I can handle myself.”
“You said that before, right after I pulled you from an auction,” I remind her, jaw clenched tight while every instinct in me screams to not let her go.
She glares at me, unyielding. “Watch me.”
I step forward, closing the distance again as my voice drops. “I refuse to watch you die.”
Hesitating at this, she doesn’t say anything while she digests those words. For a second, there’s something in her expression that looks almost like doubt, but then it’s gone just as fast.
“I won’t fail again,” she says, quieter now, but no less fierce, as if still trying to convince herself of exactly that.
I shake my head. “This isn’t about failing. It’s about walking straight into a situation you don’t understand because of your pride.”
“I understand enough.”
“No, you don’t,” I snap, finding it harder to hold back after hearing how willing she is to throw everything away for people who don’t even value her life.
“You have new abilities you can’t control, a pack that would betray you given the chance, and a group of wolves running an operation big enough to be a genuine threat, and you plan to just go back? To risk everything?”
She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t even need to think about it. “Yes.”
The conviction in her voice would be impressive if it weren’t so damn reckless, and if I weren’t on the verge of losing my mind.
I exhale sharply, turning away for a second, trying to rein in the frustration eating away at my insides. She’s making this damn impossible. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. You’re not thinking, Naia.”
“I am thinking.”
“You’re reacting.”
“I’m trying to take action,” she corrects, wholly believing that. “Something you seem to have forgotten how to do without overanalyzing every possible outcome. You’re just trying to hold me back, but I won’t let you.”
I turn back to her as I search for the right words to say, but silence crashes down again, and nothing feels suitable enough. She’ll just keep fighting me no matter what.
After a beat, she murmurs with more finality than I appreciate, “I’m going back.”
“No, you’re not,” I reiterate, growing tired of hearing myself say it, but I won’t give in and allow her suicide mission to happen.
Her eyes burn into mine as she grits her teeth. “You can’t keep me here forever.”
“I don’t have to.”
“Then what? What’s your genius plan, Zane?”
That question hits closer than I’d like. The truth is, I don’t have one. Not a solid one, anyway.
I know I can’t keep her here indefinitely. But I also can’t just drop her back at Wraith Peak like nothing happened, not without making things worse for her, the island, and for all of us.
“I’m figuring it out,” I say finally.
Her laugh catches me off guard, sounding bitter. “Right. Because that’s working out so well so far.”
Choosing to ignore how little faith she has in me, well aware she just wants to loosen my resolve, I shift gears. “We need intel on that group, what they’re doing, and who they’re targeting. Maybe then we’ll manage to walk away with minimal damage done.”
“And I can get that,” she insists, far too hungry to get right in the middle of it. “I’m the best chance you have.”
“No. You’re compromised.”
Her expression goes deadly still, as if in complete disbelief. “Is that what you think?”
“I know it,” I return, unwavering. “I’m trying to handle this with discretion and keep the damage as minimal as possible. We don’t need humans on the island getting suspicious, and with you wanting blood, it would put everything at risk.”
The air between us grows heavier again, but not with magic this time.
Naia just stares at me for a long moment, letting it all settle in before she murmurs to herself, “You don’t trust me.”
I meet her gaze evenly, sensing that I’m walking a delicate line, but unwilling to lie to her. “Not right now.”
It hangs there, honest and brutal, but true. And judging by the way her expression hardens even further, the words hit exactly where they were meant to.
“Good,” she says finally, her voice cold again. “Because I don’t trust you either.”
Something in my chest tightens at that, but I urge myself to ignore it. “Then we’re on the same page.”
But we’re not. We’re not even close.
And that’s the problem.