Chapter 2
SABLE
Faster, faster, faster.
I’d never felt so cold. Like ice was running through my veins, which was as far from a shifter experience as possible. We ran hot.
But I had more than shifter blood in me.
This cold sliced through every inch of me until I felt like I might shatter. I leaned against a tree, bark rough against my bare back, each ridge and groove biting into my skin.
I took a heaving breath. My body trembled with exhaustion and anger and a need that I had never, ever experienced. The night wrapped around me, pressing into the forest like a living thing. I sought any sign of him, inhaling the humid air until I was lightheaded, but there was nothing. He was gone.
I’d gotten away. The Shadow Moon Goddess had been on my side.
The trees stretched endlessly, tall and ancient, their limbs clawing at the starless sky. I closed my eyes, the cool night air stinging my skin. I was still unclothed, my shift back to human form leaving me vulnerable in every sense of the word.
I felt like I was going to die from the cold.
I’d spent my whole life focused on saving others, saving them from the clutches of enemies or dragging them back from the edge of their own destruction. I’d never had to save myself.
A single kiss had unleashed a side of me I had done everything to forget.
What kind of sick magic had been cast on me that every ounce of my soul was consumed by the need to have him, to hold him, to feel all of him against me?
That my core was alight the instant he was near?
That the woman and the wolf both lost their minds in a single, desperate call to leave everything else behind and claim him?
Me. Claim him. The one wolf on this planet I would never allow into my life.
My fingers curled into the bark at my back. I opened my eyes and scanned the forest, searching for anything to distract me from him. The breeze still hissed his name like a chant, like a curse.
I knew the curse he was under. And I had to stay as far away from it as possible.
Ever since that first moment in the café, when I nearly lost my nerve about leading Logan into Heraclid land—despite knowing it was what fate demanded—my heart had been beating with a need to find Rhys.
The pull had been unbearable then, but now it was worse.
Stronger. And it was urging me back to pack lands that weren’t mine, risking everything I’d worked for.
That we had worked for. My pack, lying in wait all these years, was counting on me.
I wasn’t just putting myself at risk.
I straightened, forcing myself off the tree, the bark leaving faint scratches on my skin that I didn’t try to heal. I couldn’t stay here. There was someone waiting for me. Someone who depended on me. And if I didn’t keep moving, I’d lose everything. Some secrets had to be kept.
The forest opened ahead, the faint silhouette of what had been the Heraclid border in the distance. I took a step forward, the ground cool and firm beneath my feet, the night pressing against me as I left the pull of him behind.
Or at least, I tried to.