Chapter 2
Griff Madoc
The med bay smelled like bleach and blood.
It wasn’t a real infirmary. It was a converted storage room inside a Watch outpost, all hard cots, steel tables, and curtained partitions that didn’t hide sound worth a damn. It was the kind of place built for stitching soldiers back together just enough to send them back out again.
Tamsin didn’t belong here.
She belonged under open sky by the warm comfort of a campfire with her knife sheathed at her thigh. She belonged in places where she could breathe.
Instead, she lay motionless on a narrow cot with a thin blanket pulled up to her waist, her skin still too pale, her lips a little too dry. A sheen of sweat clung to her temples, but it wasn’t the violent fever-sweat from before.
She hadn’t woken since we’d all marked her.
It had been hours. It felt like days.
Eamon said it was normal. That her body needed sleep the way the starving needed food. That the two venoms—lycan and wolf—had torn her to pieces from the inside out and now the pieces had to knit back together.
I believed him.
Mostly.
But my wolf didn’t do ‘mostly.’
My wolf did mine.
I sat in the chair beside her cot, elbows on my knees, hands clasped so tight my knuckles ached.
I’d been in this same position long enough to memorize every freckle on her face, every faint scar she’d collected over the years, every twitch of her lashes from whatever dream she was trapped in that I couldn’t save her from.
The only sound now was her soft breath and the distant echo of boots in the corridor outside. Every time those boots got too close, my wolf rose like a snarl in my chest.
I didn’t trust this place.
I didn’t trust the people who ran it.
And I didn’t trust the man who’d dragged her into it.
Elias Kade leaned against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest like he’d been carved out of stone.
He was fifteen years older than me, give or take. His hair was tinged with gray at the temples. There was dried blood on his knuckles that didn’t belong to him.
I didn’t know much about him other than the fact that he was a natural-born wolf hiding inside the Watch.
A man raised among people who would have put a bullet between his eyes if they’d known what he was.
He was a wolf who’d spent his whole life pretending to be human while training human killers to hunt and murder other wolves. He should be my enemy.
Nox sat on the other side of the partition, sharpening a blade with lazy, quiet patience. He didn’t look up often, but I could feel his attention like a pressure point. There was nothing relaxed about him, no matter how still he seemed.
Nox Byrne had always been like that. He’d walked into our lives like a shadow that decided it wanted a pack, and none of us had been stupid enough to ask too many questions about what he’d done before.
There were lines you didn’t cross with men like Nox.
Bishop stood near the sink, washing his hands with a methodical thoroughness. He was lean with icy blond hair and pale blue eyes. He had never raised his voice around us. Never needed to. When he did speak, it was with the kind of quiet certainty that made other men listen.
Eamon moved between them all like a careful tide, checking supplies, wiping sweat from Tamsin’s brow with a cloth he’d boiled twice because he didn’t trust the Watch’s idea of clean. He was calm in the way only doctors could be, like he’d already accepted the worst and decided to fight it anyway.
Eamon Tierney had once been the sort of man London would have praised. Handsome in a polished way, educated, connected, with access to high society and the kind of credibility that opened doors.
Then he’d started using those doors to hide wolves.
Kids who’d been bitten and hadn’t gone feral. Women whose families were being dragged away for ‘containment.’ Men who’d done nothing wrong except survive the wrong kind of wound.
He’d joined the Accord while he was still human.
He’d paid for it in blood.
I’d paid for it too.
My gaze drifted back to Tamsin’s throat.
The mark there was healing fast. Already, it was less angry, the bruising fading into something that looked more like a shadow than a wound. My bite. My claim.
A strange ache tightened behind my ribs.
I’d fought my feelings for her for years.
Not the instinct to protect her; that had never been a fight at all. That had been as natural as breathing. Watching her back, stepping in front of danger for her, making sure she always made it home. I’d been doing that all her life.
No, it was the quieter feelings that had been harder.
The one that stirred when she laughed—really laughed—and the sound cut through the noise of everything broken and reminded me that joy was still possible.
The one that tightened in my chest every time she walked straight into danger, chin lifted, confident that the world could be better and she would be the one to make it that way.
The one that crept up on me slowly as she grew, not all at once, until one day I realized she wasn’t the fierce girl with dirt under her nails and a knife too big for her hand anymore, but a woman shaped by fire and loss and hope.
A woman who carried grief without letting it hollow her out.
A woman who could look at a ruined world and still believe it was worth saving.
A woman who’d taken the ashes of Skye and built something alive from them.
The Accord.
The two of us had started it in secret with some of the few survivors of Skye.
It started with quiet meetings, coded messages, safehouses stitched together like patchwork.
A network of people who believed the lie England told the world was exactly that: a lie.
Not all wolves went feral. Not all bites were a death sentence.
Wolves could live with humans. Wolves had lived with humans, in places like Skye, until the British decided harmony was a threat that had to be controlled.
A soft sound left her throat, barely more than a breath.
My head snapped down.
Her lashes fluttered. Her brows drew together, like she was fighting a dream. A faint whimper escaped her lips, and my wolf surged forward, pressing against my skin like it wanted to climb into bed with her and wrap around her until nothing could touch her.
“Tam,” I murmured before I could stop myself.
Her breathing hitched.
For a second, I thought she’d wake.
She didn’t.
But her hand moved, just an inch, searching for someone, anyone, hopefully me. I caught it, wrapped my fingers around hers and held on like that could anchor her to me.
“Easy,” I whispered. “I’m here.”
Across the room, Elias moved just the slightest bit.
I felt his attention on me, calmly assessing. He exhaled through his nose.
“If I hadn’t bitten her, she’d be dead,” he said bluntly.
“I know and I appreciate that,” I answered quietly.
Elias stiffened at that, clearly expecting me to lash out instead. I finally looked up at him then and pulled in a breath of my own.
“But don’t mistake my gratitude for trust.”
His eyes didn’t flinch. They were an odd color, almost washed out, a storm-pale gray.
“So, here’s what I want to know,” I said, leaning forward just enough to make the challenge unmistakable. “Not why you bit her. You did what you had to do, and we all have to thank you for that.”
His jaw tightened.
“I want to know why you’ve been hiding.”
Silence spread throughout the room.
“You didn’t just survive inside the Watch by accident,” I continued. “You worked for them while knowing exactly what they do to wolves like us. To wolves like you.”
Elias’s eyes flicked briefly toward Tamsin, toward the others, then back to me.
“I was born like this,” he said finally.
“That’s not an answer,” I said. “But it’s a start.”
His mouth tightened, but he nodded once.
“I learned early that being visible meant death,” he said. “The Watch gave me a place to hide in plain sight. They thought they owned me. They made assumptions.”
“And you let them,” I said.
“Yes. I did. Until now.”
At least he was honest.
Nox shifted slightly in the other room, the soft scrape of metal on stone resuming after a moment. Bishop dried his hands, listening without interrupting.
Elias went on. “I watched how they operate. How they hunt. How they think. I learned where they move wolves, how they disappear people, which orders come from where and whom. And I kept information out of their hands when I could.”
Eamon’s gaze flicked to him, his expression thoughtful.
“And when you couldn’t?” I asked.
Elias didn’t answer right away.
“When I couldn’t,” he said finally, “people died.”
He didn’t look proud. He didn’t look ashamed either.
He looked tired.
Eamon cleared his throat gently. “Griff.”
I didn’t take my eyes off Elias. “What?”
Eamon’s voice stayed steady. “You’re not wrong to question him. And you’re not wrong to be angry, but we need to think about Tamsin. If this turns into a fight right now, it won’t help her.”
My jaw tightened.
Eamon was right.
I looked back down at her.
Her skin had more color now, not much, but better than it had been. Her breathing had deepened, no longer quick and frantic. She was improving, albeit slowly.
“She’s stabilizing,” Eamon explained as he moved closer, checking her pupils, the marks on her skin. “Her fever’s breaking. The wolf inside her is holding.”
“And the lycan venom?” Nox asked quietly from the other side of the partition.
Eamon’s mouth tightened. “It’s still there. But it seems to be contained, at least for now.”
Her fingers twitched in my grip.
“Tam?” I whispered, my voice hopeful.
Her lips parted. A faint sound slipped out, half sigh, half plea.
“My knife,” she breathed, barely audible.
I leaned closer, brushing my thumb gently over her knuckles. “You’ve got it,” I murmured. “It’s with you. I promise.”
Her brow smoothed, tension easing like she’d been searching for that reassurance even in her sleep.
Then she sank deeper into rest.
I stayed there long after, holding her hand like it was the only fixed point left in a world that kept trying to tear her away.
Across the room, Nox resumed sharpening his blade. Bishop finished at the sink and took a deep breath when he thought no one was looking. Eamon patted Tam’s forehead with a wet cloth and she sighed softly.
Elias remained against the wall, watchful and unreadable.
And me?
I stayed exactly where I was.
Because I couldn’t live with myself if I failed her again.