Chapter 19
NASH
It happens between one breath and the next.
No warning. No slow build, no gradual awareness; just the sudden, absolute certainty of a door thrown open to a room I’d stopped expecting to find.
My wolf goes still in a way he has never done before.
Every single nerve ending and cell in my body is suddenly recalibrated to a new purpose. A new reason for existing.
Her.
I’ve known what it would feel like, theoretically.
I’ve just never actually felt it, and the theory turns out to be worth nothing because the reality is so much larger.
It isn’t romantic, exactly. It’s more like gravity.
Like suddenly understanding that a force has been operating on you your whole life and you’ve only just looked down and seen the ground beneath your feet.
Mia stands completely still, staring at me with wide, panicked eyes. The look on her face tells me everything: She feels it too. The same shock. The same recognition. And underneath both of those, working fast to cover them up like she’s shoving furniture in front of a door—fear.
My first instinct is to go to her and pushes me forward a step. My second instinct, which arrives half a second later, is to stay where I am and give her the ten seconds she needs to not bolt.
“Mia,” I say.
“Don’t.” Her eyes are too bright, jaw set hard. She shakes her head once, small and sharp. “Don’t say it.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.” Which is true. I was going to ask if she was all right. But we both know she isn’t, so it’s a hollow question anyway.
She looks at me, and I look back. The mate bond hums between us—new and enormous and completely indifferent to either of our feelings about its existence.
I take one step toward her.
She takes one step back.
I want to tell her it’s okay. That I’ve been waiting for this, hoping for it actually, since the night I met her.
That whatever she’s afraid of, I’m not it.
I want to tell her the truth, which is that I’d rather have a terrified Mia than a calm anyone else and I am prepared to prove that for the rest of our damn lives.
I don’t tell her any of it. Because she already knows most of it and she’s still afraid, and telling her won’t fix that.
The question of why now bubbles up, but I shove it back. None of that matters nearly as much as the fact that it happened at all.
“I can, uh, give you two a minute,” Crow says, awkwardly stepping away.
Behind me, the meeting room door swings open, and Dutch pokes his head out. “Are you two going to stand there all day, or—” He stops. A beat passes, and then he blurts, “Oh shit. Mia, what’s—”
“Go back inside,” she snarls, and there’s a glimpse of violence in her green eyes as she snaps at him.
Beneath the mate bond, I note the sudden dominance that surges in her. A strength I’ve never noticed before. Or did I? It feels similar to her surge during the meeting yesterday. When she’d snapped at Razor. Only this one is much, much stronger.
“Mia? What’s wrong?” Lexi asks as she and Grey and the rest of them trickle out from behind Dutch and come to stand around me.
“Nothing,” Mia growls, eyes flashing.
“Sure.” Dutch crosses his arms, clearly unafraid, though maybe he should be.
Grey steps up beside me. I glance over and note the understanding in his expression. Like he’s read between the lines and knows exactly what’s happening. He doesn’t offer an explanation, but something in his posture eases like a calculation he’s been running has finally resolved.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” he says to Mia. “Why don’t we head into the conference room, and we’ll show you what Marcus found?”
She looks over at him, and some of the fight goes out of her eyes. “I think I need a few minutes,” she says quietly.
“Of course,” Grey says.
That’s when the air changes.
It’s subtle at first. So subtle that my wolf clocks it three full seconds before my brain does. A scent underneath the normal smells of the house. Something else, woven in. Chemical. Bitter. Laced with something that prickles against my wolf’s senses like static.
My wolf goes from still to alert in the space of a single heartbeat.
“Do you smell that?” I ask.
Mia’s already looking around, nostrils flared. “Yes. What is—”
She breaks off, and all I know is that suddenly I want to go outside in a way that is both unreasonable and irresistible.
I see the destination clearly in my mind as if I’d had the thought myself. Maybe I did. Who else would have had it for me? My feet are already moving as I picture it. The back garden where the trees meet the yard. Someone is waiting. Someone whom I am very much looking forward to seeing.
“Where are you going?” Grey asks.
I look over at him and note the look of confusion he wears.
“Outside,” I say like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Don’t worry.”
“Why?” he presses.
“That’s where he wants me to go,” I say.
“Who?”
“My friend.”
“Yeah, my friend,” Dutch echoes, pushing past me on his way out.
“But—” Lexi pulls Grey aside as Razor shoves past him.
Marcus and Razor fall into step with me. They don’t say a word, but somehow, I know we’re headed to the same place. Dutch follows, arms uncrossed, like he’s already forgotten Mia’s outburst and his reaction to it.
Oh, Mia—
I look at her in time to see something flicker across her face. Fast, like a card turning. Then her expression smooths, and I step past her, eager to see my old friend.
Outside, the lawn is crowded with other pack members. Marcus falls into step beside me. He doesn’t look at me. I don’t care. I know we’re both just happy to meet the friends waiting for us on the back lawn.
The estate grounds unspool in every direction, the groomed section giving way to long grass at the south end, long grass bleeding into the tree line where the old oaks press close.
The topiary near the east wall. The flagstone terrace still damp from last night’s rain.
A few birds going about their business in the gutters overhead.
We file along past the gardens. By the time I reach the back lawn, the whole patrol legion and estate staff have joined us.
Dozens of wolves. The numbers shock me, and then I remember how Mia suggested they call all of their security home to protect Lexi and Grey.
Most of my pack security is here too. I nod at them, and we all grin at each other, excited for the moment to come.
We all stop and arrange ourselves in the natural way of wolves, which is to say: instinctively hierarchical, each of us taking a position that has nothing to do with conscious decision.
I doubt this will come to a fight, but if it does, it’s a good morning for it.
He walks out of the trees unhurried. Even from here, I can see the expression he wears.
It’s that same smirk he wore in the forest the other day; self-assured.
Amused. His wolf rides close to the surface, palpable at this distance, all that lab-grown dominance filling the space around him like a morning fog.
I’m so glad to see him finally come home at last. He deserves to rule this place. A golden-haired god, this guy. I’m glad to know him.
“Ramsey,” a few people call out.
Others wave.
Everyone’s just glad he’s here. And beside him, Davina. I recognize her from the pictures in the file. She’s looking at us all like we’re a threat, which is ridiculous, but I don’t bother worrying about her. All I care about is Ramsey. Helping him take this city back is what matters.
Something in the back of my head recognizes the wrongness of that thought. Like an intrusive voice trying to cut through the seams of my mind. I shove it back.
I need to focus now.
Ramsey stops at the edge of the flagstone. His eyes move over us.
“Good morning,” he says.
“Took you long enough,” someone calls back. I think it’s Dutch.
Ramsey grins. He looks past Dutch to Razor and Crow. And Mia. He lingers on her. I don’t like it. But that thought is short-lived when his gaze moves to me. He holds it for a moment, something sharp underneath the pleasantness.
“Cross.” A slight tilt of his head. “No hard feelings?”
“Of course not,” I say.
And that’s true. I consider the fact of it from somewhere far inside myself; that I should have hard feelings, that a restaurant burned to the ground with an innocent man inside and a dead wolf was left at the base of a tree where I had to bury it, but the consideration slides away before I can hold onto it. Like water off stone.
His gaze moves back to Mia.
She stands slightly apart from the rest of us. Something in her posture is harder to read than usual.
Something is wrong.
The thought surfaces for exactly one second. Clear and bright.
Then it’s gone.
Ramsey looks at Mia with an expression of someone who has won a game against a difficult opponent.
“You were my final obstacle, you know.” He says it with a kind of professional admiration. “If not for the Null, I’d have been here weeks ago." He tilts his head slightly. “How long had you been taking it?”
“Long enough,” she says as if it doesn’t matter. “How did you know?”
He cocks his head. “I suggested it, don’t you remember?
” When she doesn’t answer, he says, “It was that party Franco gave for visiting packs a couple of years ago. You mentioned crashing it. Trying to screw with the deal. I told you to take Null to dim your dominance so they wouldn’t sense you meddling. ”
Mia’s been taking Null. For some reason, that feels significant to my wolf. I try to grasp the reason, but it slips away.
Mia’s expression shifts into clarity. “Ah. I’d forgotten.”
“I did too,” he admits. “But then you acted immune to the hex dust I put in that first letter, and I couldn’t figure out why. Seeing Nash with you in the woods the other day reminded me.”
“What a handy coincidence.” She holds his gaze without malice. “And now, here we are.”
He smiles. “Here we are. And where do you stand?”
“I’m all yours now," she says. Her voice is even. Her hands loose at her sides. Her eyes steady on his. “What can I do to help?”
Something moves behind his eyes at that. Satisfaction. Relief. He looks at her for a long moment like he’s double-checking. Then he sweeps his gaze over the rest of us, and his smile broadens.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he says. “For starters, you and your pack can kill your alphas for me.”
I nod. That makes sense. I’d do the same if I were him. Get them off the board. It’ll make the transition easier.
Mia doesn’t hesitate. The two words come out clean, agreeable, utterly without inflection. “No problem,” she says.
And then the others echo her words.
Dutch. No problem.
Razor. No problem.
Crow. No problem.
Ramsey looks over at me. “You’ll give me a hand too?”
“Sure.” My response comes easily. “Whatever you need.”
Resistance tears at the edges of that from somewhere deep.
Something hot sparks under my ribs—an ember under ash—but the thought slides away before I can catch it.
My loyalty to Ramsey is bigger. So, I turn with the others and walk toward the house.
Toward Grey and Lexi, who are standing just inside the terrace doors. Who are watching us come to kill them.