Chapter 15-Honor
I feel like I’m floating—like I’ve been cut loose from my body and shoved a million miles above it.
What we just shared still echoes through me, bright and overwhelming, like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
Pleasure so sharp it rewired something deep in my chest.
But now—now I’m stuck.
I can see myself, but it’s wrong.
Like I’m looking through someone else’s eyes.
The world tilts and stretches, colors too vivid, edges too sharp.
My hands don’t feel like mine anymore.
And there’s a fire in the pit of my stomach.
Not heat.
Not adrenaline.
Actual. Fucking. Fire.
And it burns.
It spreads fast, clawing upward through my ribs, curling around my spine like it’s searching for something to tear apart.
“Honor?” Rosalind’s voice cuts through the haze. “Honor, are you alright?”
She sounds desperate.
Too far away.
I feel her shift off me, and the loss of her warmth hits harder than the pain—but that’s good.
I don’t want her too close.
Whatever this is, it’s dangerous.
Something inside me snarls.
Protect her. Don’t let her near you.
“Stay back!” I bark.
The sound that comes out of my mouth isn’t mine.
It’s deeper. Rougher.
Like it scraped its way up from somewhere deep and buried.
Rosalind freezes.
“Oh shit,” she says quickly. “Okay—okay, listen. I have a lot to explain, but you’re going to be okay. I promise.”
Explain?
She’s talking, but I can’t understand her. Her voice sounds like she’s speaking underwater.
My vision swims. Bright lights and inky black darkness swirl around, blinding me.
The fire tightens, twisting my muscles until I groan and collapse onto my hands and knees.
The ground feels wrong beneath my palms—too alive, too loud.
“Hurts,” I manage, the word torn out of me.
Rosalind is moving now.
I can hear again, and it’s loud. Perfect. Too fucking much.
Like I can hear a pin drop from fifty miles away.
I try to focus on my immediate surroundings. And I hear her.
Rosie’s heart is beating wildly.
Her hands are fumbling—maybe for her phone?
Her breath is coming too fast.
Concern wars with the pain inside me because all I want to do is ease her mind, but I can’t.
Whatever this is—it has me in its grip. And it’s fucking strong.
“Hello? I need the Alpha!”
She’s calling someone.
Calling for help.
Her panic hits me like gasoline.
It makes me angry. Not at her. For her.
I want to reassure her somehow. But what can I do?
I’m caught in this fiery hell. Wrapped up in this tug of war for my body and soul—a fight I can’t even name. And I don’t know how long I’m like this.
Seconds? Minutes?
Time is shattered into pieces I can’t hold on to.
But then—a car door slams.
Another engine idles.
Footsteps.
Familiar voices.
“Oh my God, Honor!”
“Shit! It’s happening, isn’t it?”
Hope.
Miles.
And also, not familiar ones.
Male.
“What happened here, Rosalind? What did you do?” The stranger asks.
“Alpha, I—he’s—” she stutters, and a strange scent wafts off her.
It’s acrid and tart.
Fear—something answers for me, and it makes me even angrier.
Grrr.
Get them away from our, Mate.
The words slide into my head uninvited, sharp and absolute.
“Get the fuck away from her,” I snarl, lifting my head.
The effort nearly blinds me.
Everything is too bright. Too much.
When I blink, I see things I shouldn’t—shimmering motes of light drifting along their skin, like the air itself is alive around them.
Power humming just under the surface.
And fur.
What the fuck?
Rosalind is shaking.
And then I notice—she’s still naked. Exposed. Vulnerable.
Mine.
A sound rips out of me—pure instinct—as I launch forward, planting myself in front of her, blocking her from Miles and the stranger even though they’re already turned away.
I don’t care.
No one looks at her.
No one touches her.
Not while I’m fucking breathing.
I throw myself forward, planting my bare feet into the gravel, my entire body coiled like a loaded spring as I stand between Rosalind and the others.
She’s behind me.
Mine to protect.
Mine to shield.
Mine fucking period.
“Whoa—whoa, it’s okay, man,” Miles says quickly, palms up like he’s facing a wild animal. “We’re not looking at her. I swear.”
I snarl in warning, a deep, guttural sound that doesn’t sound human.
Doesn’t sound like me.
“Mr. D’Amato,” a calm voice cuts in, older, steadier. “My name is Marcus Devlin. I’m a friend. It’s gonna be okay, son.”
I growl louder. Son?
“Honor,” Hope says gently, from off to my side. “Look. Rosalind is covered now.”
I glance back and see her draping a thick flannel blanket over Rosalind’s shoulders.
Her hair is a mess, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted—but it’s the look in her eyes that nearly wrecks me.
She looks afraid. Of me? Or is that guilt?
Shit.
I want to go to her.
Pull her into my arms.
Reassure her.
Tell her I’m still me.
But am I?
The pain inside me is growing—like something under my skin is trying to rip its way out.
Then I hear Miles murmur, “I can scent his fur, Alpha. It’s a sure thing now. Honor’s got the dormant gene, too.”
The words make no fucking sense.
Dormant gene? Gene?
My head whips toward them, breath ragged, chest heaving.
“What the fuck are you all talking about?”
Hope’s face goes pale. Rosalind’s too. She won’t meet my eyes.
She looks stricken.
No—it’s definitely guilt this time.
And just like that, the puzzle pieces snap into place.
The half-truths my sister’s been telling me since I got back.
The strange noises in the woods at night.
The voice inside my head.
The way Rosalind always seems like she’s hiding something.
The way Miles watches me.
The way everyone has been watching me.
A hot, violent pressure builds in my chest.
Rage erupts through the confusion like a goddamn explosion.
“Were you all lying to me?” I shout, voice cracking under the weight of betrayal. “This whole time—were you lying?”
No one answers.
Not immediately.
And the silence?
It guts me.
Worse than the fire tearing through my insides. Worse than the bones that feel like they’re splintering under my skin.
Because in that silence lives the truth.
They all knew.
Whatever’s happening to me now… this thing that’s turning my body inside out, that’s making me hear things, feel things, see things that can’t possibly be real?
They knew.
They’ve always known.
My life didn’t just change.
It was never what I thought it was to begin with.
And they let me believe the lie.
Another surge of fire crashes through me and I fall to one knee, snarling as my back arches from the pressure.
“Listen to me, son,” Marcus Devlin says again, and there’s something about his voice—deep, commanding, not unkind—that cuts through the chaos in my head like a blade. “You have to stop fighting the Bear.”
The Bear?
It shouldn’t make sense, but something about his voice or his words makes me feel calmer.
“Let him in,” the man says again, voice steady but stern. Like this is normal. Like I’m the one being unreasonable. “Stop resisting. Accept what you are. That fire in your gut? It’ll stop. You just have to stop trying to hold on to being human.”
“I am human!” I snarl, the words tearing out of me like claws. But the second they leave my mouth, they feel wrong.
Off.
Like something I used to believe without question—but now?
Now they land heavy in my throat like a half-truth. A lie I’ve been desperate to believe.
My fists clench.
My body trembles—not from rage or adrenaline, but something deeper.
Something hot and ancient rising up in my chest and demanding to be felt.
“Rosie?” My voice breaks as I turn to her, eyes searching her face for an explanation.
Something. Anything that makes sense of this.
“Rosie, what is this? What did you do?”
She flinches at my tone—like I struck her.
And then—she makes this sound.
This awful, broken sound—half gasp, half sob—and it punches straight through me like a blade.
“I’m sorry, Honor,” she whispers. Barely audible. Barely holding herself together.
I lose it.
The roar tears from my throat—louder, rawer, animal.
It comes from somewhere primal and dark, a place I didn’t know existed until this moment.
And I aim it at her.
Not because I hate her.
Because I don’t.
Because she’s the only thing in this room I want.
But right now, I don’t know what I am. And I’m not in control.
I don’t know who to trust.
I don’t know what’s real.
My body is burning from the inside out, like my bones are splintering and my skin doesn’t fit.
And the worst part?
Some part of me—the part I’ve always ignored—is howling in recognition.
Like it knows.
Like it always knew.
Like it’s been waiting for this.
I sink to my knees, hands braced against the floor, breath ragged as the truth presses in on all sides.
I’m not who I thought I was.
I’m not what I thought I was.
And the woman I let slip past my defenses—let into my heart—she knew.
She knew something.
And she kept it from me.
I want to scream. To run. To tear something apart.
But all I can do is shake—on my knees—while the world I knew crumbles around me.
This is breaking me.
Worse than any wound.
Worse than any truth.
Because the only person I want holding me together—she’s the one who helped me fall apart.