Chapter 21
NASH
Everything about this moment feels fine.
That’s the first thing wrong with it. I’m not someone who ever feels fine.
I assess, I weigh, I decide, all while cataloguing worst-case scenarios.
This is different. This is a smoothness where there should be friction, a quiet where my wolf should be loud, and somewhere underneath all of it, a part of me knows that and can’t do a damn thing about it.
On top of that, my wolf can’t stop thinking about the woman standing two feet to my left.
Mia Reyes.
I keep tracking her without deciding to. She’s been still for too long—not the loose, easy quiet the rest of us are standing in. Something else. Something with an edge underneath it I can’t name. Her hands are free at her sides, but her weight is forward—like she’s getting ready to make a move.
I recognize her body language even if I can’t quite grasp how I know it. Before the answer can surface, I forget the question.
When I tune back in, Ramsey is talking about his plans for the pack he’s taking over. His voice is warm, confident, and I agree with most of what he’s saying. He’s the authority in this town. Following authority is how things get done.
I look at the tree line. The morning light comes through the oaks at an angle. Nearby, Mia shifts her weight, the light hitting her hair. Making it blaze like a flame.
My wolf goes still.
There’s a thread in me that hasn’t gone dark the way the rest of me has. Every time I track her in my peripheral vision, it buzzes. I shove it back.
She’s not just Mia Reyes. She’s my—
“—be ready,” Ramsey is saying. “I’ll need you two to put down anyone who rejects my claim as their new alpha.”
“Of course,” I say.
The thread inside me hums.
My memory flashes. Mia and me at a party. Hiding away in the solarium. Hands and mouths and bodies pressed close.
For one second, it’s crystal clear. Then the fog closes again.
Ramsey turns to Davina and says something meant only for her.
The hex blade hangs at Davina’s side, metal catching the morning light in a way that makes my wolf recoil even through the fog.
I know that blade. Or some part of me does.
Grey’s memories from the blood oath flash and vanish before I can hold onto them: pain, power, amplification, a weapon that should never be in her hands.
Behind them, the estate grounds are empty and still. Far off, past the eastern gate, something is crashing through underbrush. Moving away.
Mia adjusts her stance again.
This time, my whole body tracks it.
She’s moved four feet to the left. Her weight is on the balls of her feet now. Her hands have dropped. So have her shoulders.
The thread screams.
An urgent voice in my head whispers, come back to me.
My wolf strains to do exactly that.
I blink.
Ramsey is watching me. Easy. Confident. Not watching her.
That’s when she moves.
No warning, no wind-up. Just one leap and she’s airborne. Her wolf explodes from her skin, and she hits Ramsey center-mass. Full weight, full speed, claws out. He doesn’t have time to do anything but take the hit.
They both go down.
Ramsey’s wolf tears out of him, and they become a snarling mass of fur and claws and teeth.
Something fires in my chest; not the compliance, not the wanting-to-agree, something that was there before any of this and has been sitting underneath it the whole time.
An ember under ash. Grey’s power, or the memory of it, burning just hot enough to remember what free will is supposed to feel like.
I can feel the urge to intervene—to come to Ramsey’s aid—but I can’t make myself lift a finger against Mia.
Davina spins. Her hands are raised. Her lips are moving quickly.
Mia has Ramsey pinned. One giant paw across his throat, her full weight on it. Ramsey’s wolf gets its front paw under her and shoves, but it’s not enough to throw Mia from him. She lowers her head and snaps her teeth dangerously close to his throat.
Ramsey’s gaze cuts once toward the tree line.
Waiting.
For his pack. His backup. The wolves he must have stationed out there to ambush Grey and Lexi if our own people failed to bring them down.
No one comes.
Even from here, I understand what that means. Ramsey didn’t build loyalty. He built ambition. And ambition runs the second victory starts looking expensive.
Mia seems to understand it too.
Her wolf lowers her head, blood on her teeth, and something about her goes colder. More certain.
Ramsey’s pack isn’t coming.
Davina raises the hex blade. The metal drinks in the morning light, and the magic gathering around her hand twists toward it like smoke pulled into a chimney.
She slashes the blade through the air.
The hex that fires from it is darker than the others. Sharper.
It hits Mia in the left shoulder.
Mia’s cinnamon wolf flies sideways off Ramsey and hits the flagstone with a grunt. She’s already pushing up when Ramsey gets to his feet. But she’s not quick enough. I sense the damage the magic has done to her from here.
Ramsey clearly does too as his steps slow.
He shifts back to his human form as he crosses the flagstone.
His breathing comes heavily, and the easy manner he had earlier is gone.
Something in me tenses even though I’m still rooted to this spot, torn between them for reasons I can’t name or argue against.
He crouches beside her, and his voice when he speaks is quiet. “How does it feel to know you failed your pack in the end?”
She looks up at him. Her eyes are clear and narrowed at Ramsey, but I hear that voice in my head again, and this time I know it’s her.
Come back to me, Prepotente. Now, dammit!
She snarls, her teeth snapping at Ramsey. He pulls back, flinching in surprise, then his eyes narrow. He reaches for her, shifting back to his wolf as he bends his head to her throat.
His canines shine in the sun, and I know that in a moment, her blood will do the same.
The thought of it breaks something.
Not me.
The leash.
Mia’s voice is still inside me, fierce and furious through the bond, and beneath it, that ember of Grey’s power flares once, hot enough to burn away the lie of Ramsey’s command.
My thoughts snap back into place.
My free will returns.
I inhale sharply against the truth of what’s happening.
Who I am. What I will do to stop this. I’m already moving as I think die.
I would die to stop this—to save her life.
I close the distance to Ramsey at a dead run, no decision involved, just the fact of Mia on the ground and Ramsey’s claws reaching toward her and my body already knowing what to do about it before my brain catches up.
I hit him from the side, still human until I go down with him, rolling end over end. Hands over paws. Skin over fur.
And then my wolf is out, and so is his. And I’ve never felt more power radiating from a single alpha. Not me. Him. And I’ve never wanted to kill anything more than I do now.
I attack quickly, hoping speed will help me. Ramsey’s stronger than he should be. He fights back with everything he has, and I take a hit across the jaw that splits my lip. I don’t slow down.
“Nash.”
Mia’s voice, behind me. Not afraid. But urgent.
I drive Ramsey’s shoulder into the ground.
A bolt of magic hits the dirt an inch from me.
I don’t turn to see whether the hex witch has another one in the chamber. I just fight. Lost to my beast. Letting him lead. Letting him fight for our mate.
The next bolt hits me across the back, but it’s not a blow meant to harm me.
Instead, I feel the compulsion from earlier trying to take hold of me again.
I feel it find the edges of my clarity, infiltrating my resolve.
And I feel Mia through the bond. Not her voice, not words.
Just her essence, present and furious and completely, stubbornly alive.
This thing she feared would steal choice from her is the only thing giving mine back.
I shove Davina’s compulsion out.
The next bolt that hits me is pure pain.
I howl, my wolf twisting at an awkward angle as I go down. Ramsey is right there, waiting for his opening. And I’ve just given him the kill shot. It’s not what I wanted, but if it saves Mia—if it gives her enough time to run before he turns on her again—then it’s enough. It has to be enough.
I turn my head to the side, looking for one last glimpse of her before it’s over. But it’s not defeat I see from my beautiful mate. In fact, she’s not looking at me at all.
Instead, Mia’s wolf crosses the flagstone at a dead sprint and hits Davina at full speed.
Davina’s next strike is already building along the blade when Mia makes contact.
The hex fires wild. The blade amplifies it. I feel that much even through the chaos—the ugly snap of old magic meeting stolen alpha power.
The magic slams straight into Ramsey’s flank.
The sound he utters isn’t one I’ve ever heard from another wolf. He’s shoved off me, sliding sideways against the grass. When he comes to a stop, his wolf goes rigid, all four legs locking up as the deadly hex magic tears through him.
Not dead but down, his body seizing against the stone, all that stolen power suddenly working against him with nowhere to go except to turn inward—on himself.
Davina screams, “What the fuck have you done, bitch?”
She rounds on Mia, hands raised for another shot. But Mia doesn’t give her the chance. She clamps her jaw around Davina’s hand. The skin tears away until only blood and muscle and sinew are left. Davina wails in pain and stumbles, clutching her half-missing hand to her chest.
Mia lets her go. Spits the appendage out along with a mouthful of blood and tissue.
Ramsey snarls, on his feet again, though not without effort. I scramble up and put myself between him and Mia. He glares at me, murder in his glowing eyes.
We engage again, claws swiping, teeth gnashing. Even with the hex bolt slowing him down, the fucker is immovable. I’m flagging. I know it. He knows it.
When he manages a lucky swipe that takes my hind legs out, my belly hits the dirt hard enough that I know it’s going to cost me everything.