Relentless Mate (Katu Wolves #10)

Chapter One

Silas

The scent hits me before the main gate of the Hunter compound even comes into view.

Not the scent of home—pine, storm-soaked earth, and pack musk—but something sharp and sweet swirling under it. New. Unexpected. Impossible.

My dire wolf slams against my ribs hard enough that my vision blurs.

Mate. The instinct roars through me like a blade to the gut.

I stagger, planting a hand on the rough bark of a tree.

The world tilts. I’m a seasoned Alpha-born warrior who’s survived war, loss, betrayal, and more.

I don’t stagger and I never lose control.

But the bond doesn’t settle into certainty, it flickers. Just a spark and a flash of heat. Then nothing but the echo of it.

My dire wolf howls in frustration, pacing and frantic, unable to lock onto the scent fully. Something, someone, is interfering. Drugs, fear, pain ... trauma. It muddies the air until I can’t tell what’s real.

She’s close, my dire wolf insists. She’s hurt.

My chest tightens.

I push off the tree, breathing unsteadily. “Not now,” I mutter to myself. I have a mission to lead and a rescue to execute. Emmaleigh’s intel said a Hunter convoy was moving captives tonight, and we finally caught a trace of their trail.

But the scent... Goddess, it coils around my spine and drags.

Marc appears beside me, nostrils flaring. “Are you okay?”

No. Not even close. But I force my shoulders back. “Focus. We move in thirty.”

He nods and jogs toward the trucks. I stand alone in the trees, fists clenched, trying to breathe past the bond’s broken pulse. It shouldn’t react like that. Mate scents don’t glitch. Unless...

Unless she’s so traumatized her animal can’t rise to meet mine. A low growl tears out of me. Whoever she is, she’s already suffering and she’s close. Too close to be a coincidence.

I shove down the panic. One mission at a time. Save the captives. Identify the scent later.

Except fate doesn’t give a damn about my plans.

****

We reach the coordinates Thomas retrieved from the Hunter tech they captured last week, a supposed abandoned warehouse near the river. But the moment our boots hit the ground, my neck prickles.

It’s too quiet. Too open. Too fresh.

Godrick snarls under his breath. “They knew we were coming.”

Raleigh is already scanning the tree line. “We were fed bullshit intel.”

A shadow shifts near the warehouse windows. I inhale and that scent hits me again, harder this time. Closer and panicked. It feels drug-heavy and smothered in fear.

My entire body locks up.

Marc notices first. “Silas...?”

I don’t respond because I’m already moving.

The Hunters burst from the building in tactical formation wearing uniforms, and carrying shock sticks glowing blue. Not the chaotic, scattered Hunters we’ve dealt with before. This cell is organized. Prepared.

Iris’s intel warned us that some Hunter groups have started regrouping, but this ... this is worse. Gunfire explodes shattering the silence of the night. The pack spreads, shifting, snarling, and meeting the Hunter force with brutal precision.

But I only hear one thing. A thin, broken whimper.

Mate.

The sound slices through me like a knife. My control snaps. I tear toward the warehouse, Marc shouting my name behind me, but there is no stopping me right now.

I crash through a half-broken door, splinters flying in all directions. The scent slams into me full force now. Raw. Terrified. Drug-coated. Four cages line the far wall. I scan them so fast my eyes burn. Then, I see her.

A woman curled into herself, thin but unbroken, wrapped in shadows like armor. Her wrists are bruised and her pulse too faint. Her hair falls around her face in a dirty, tangled curtain, but the moment she lifts her head, my world stops.

Golden eyes. Wide and wild. Glowing faintly in the dark like a predator’s. She’s not a wolf or a dire wolf. She isn’t even canine. I clear my mind and scent the air trying to figure it out. She’s a leopard.

My breath leaves my lungs.

A leopard shifter. A species so rare even the Katu pack believes them nearly extinct. Most of us have never seen one and those that have are far and few between, the clans a myth wrapped in silence.

But this woman, this secret the Hunters clearly uncovered before we did, she’s mine. Or she would be, if she had the strength to reach for the bond. Because when our eyes meet, something in her flinches. Something trapped. Something drugged and terrified that tries to rise ... and fails.

The bond sparks, flares, and cuts out.

My chest twists painfully. I lean forward, gripping the bars. “Hey, I’ve got you.”

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t even seem sure I’m real.

Behind me, footsteps pound closer. Marc, Godrick, and Raleigh. Another Hunter charges in with a shock baton. I don’t bother shifting, I simply snap his neck with my bare hands.

He drops to the floor with a thud. The woman’s pupils dilate, fear spiking. Shit. I’m scaring her.

I force myself to soften my shoulders, lower my voice. “You’re safe. I swear it.”

But the lie tastes bitter. We’re in a war zone. No one is safe, especially not her.

The lock isn’t simple. It’s reinforced, Hunter-tech. I slam my shoulder against it once, twice, the metal groaning.

Marc arrives beside me. “Silas, we need to fall back—”

“I’m not leaving her,” I cut him off.

He hesitates, then nods and covers my flank. One more hit and the lock snaps with a scream of metal. When I pull the door open, she flinches away so violently she hits the cage wall behind her. Her breath shudders, too fast and too shallow.

My dire wolf falls silent with worry.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” I say softly. “I’m getting you out. That’s all.”

Slowly, painfully slowly, she uncoils enough to crawl toward me. Not because she trusts me. But because she has no other choice. When my hands finally slide under her, lifting her weight, the bond sparks again, warm, bright, and alive, then breaks apart like smoke in the wind.

She gasps in pain and I nearly drop to my knees. Fated mates aren’t supposed to feel wrong. Not unless she’s too hurt for her animal to answer. Not unless she’s been pushed so close to death the Goddess can barely reach her.

I hold her tighter, careful not to crush her trembling frame. “I’ve got you,” I whisper.

A lie again, because I don’t have anything under control. But I will. I will tear the world apart to make this true.