2. Ronan
Ronan
The human follows me into the stairwell with Marcus’s blood on her hands and her camera hanging from its strap against her hip.
The most impossible thing is not the silver cut burning along my ribs while my body struggles to close it.
It is her.
Genevieve Ashcroft should be running.
She should be screaming.
She should be halfway to the street with that camera striking her side and terror in her throat.
Instead, she keeps one palm pressed hard over Marcus’s wound and climbs beside me as though she has been entering hidden wolf territory all her life.
“Pressure,” she says, her breathing tight but controlled. “You’re jostling him.”
I want to snarl, but she is right.
I adjust my grip and slow by a fraction.
Marcus makes a sound low in his throat.
Too weak.
My wolf slams against my ribs.
Mine. Pack. Beta. Brother.
I have carried Marcus out of three territory fights, two knife ambushes, and one warehouse fire.
I have seen him bleed before.
Never like this.
The silver went deep, and whatever coated the blade is already moving through him.
Behind me, Genevieve’s breathing sharpens with calculation.
“He’s losing too much blood.”
“I know.”
“Do you have a medic?”
“Yes.”
“Then move faster without bouncing him.”
This time I do snarl.
She does not flinch.
The human who saw me shift is ordering me through my own stairwell while my Beta dies in my arms.
The second impossible thing is that I obey her.
I shoulder through the second-floor door.
The corridor beyond is narrow, dim, and secured by two steel locks, a camera, and a deadbolt no human should ever pass.
The safehouse wakes around us.
Doors open. Wolves step into the corridor. Every gaze lands on Marcus, then on the human holding his blood inside him.
The corridor goes still.
Genevieve notices immediately.
Her eyes move behind her glasses, inventorying exits, faces, weapons, and threat levels.
Smart.
Too smart.
Dara reaches us first, bare feet silent against the old floorboards, dark hair pulled back, eyes already assessing the wound.
“Silver?”
“Yes.”
Her gaze cuts to Genevieve’s hands.
Human hands. Human witness.
Dara’s mouth tightens, but she says nothing.
Good.
“The alley?” she asks.
“One dead. One escaped in a dark vehicle. No plate.”
“Did the survivor see her?”
“Yes.”
Dara’s expression hardens.
“Callum.”
A young wolf appears at the end of the corridor.
“Get Elias and Niko to Dock 17. Secure the knives, photograph the scene, and collect anything the attackers left behind. Clothing fibers, blood, tire marks. Everything.”
Callum looks at the blood pouring between Genevieve’s fingers, and his face pales.
“What about the body?”
“Preserve it. Do not search it until the entire scene is recorded.”
Genevieve glances at her, interested despite everything.
Dara continues. “Human police cannot find a man killed by a wolf beside evidence of a shifter ambush.”
“Urban concealment protocol?” Callum asks.
“Exactly. Move.”
He runs.
Genevieve looks at me. “What is urban concealment protocol?”
“Not now.”
“That answer is becoming irritating.”
“Good. Stay irritated and keep your hand where it is.”
Her mouth tightens, but she maintains pressure on Marcus.
Dara watches the exchange.
There will be questions later.
“Petra,” she calls.
“I’m here.”
Petra appears from the far room with a medical kit in one hand and clean towels in the other.
She takes one look at Marcus, and her expression empties into work.
“Infirmary. Now.”
I carry Marcus through the corridor.
Genevieve comes with me.
No one tells her to. No one stops her, because her hands are still the only pressure holding my Beta’s blood inside his body.
The infirmary was a storage office before my father converted it.
White tile. Steel table. Locked cabinets. No windows.
It smells of alcohol, herbs, silver neutralizer, and old fear.
I lay Marcus on the table.
Petra is already moving.
“Keep your hands exactly where they are,” she tells Genevieve.
Genevieve nods once, focused rather than frightened.
Petra cuts away what remains of Marcus’s shirt.
The wound opens beneath the light, deep and ugly, its edges silver-black.
My vision tunnels.
The wolf wants out again.
It wants the throat of the man who escaped, the name of whoever sent him, and blood from every person involved.
Dara steps beside me.
“Alpha.”
One word.
A warning.
I look at Marcus and at Genevieve’s hands pressed into his side.
Then I force the claws back beneath my skin.
Petra pours neutralizer over the wound.
Marcus convulses.
Genevieve leans her weight into him without being told.
“Hold him,” Petra snaps.
I brace his shoulders. Dara takes his legs.
Marcus bucks once, hard enough to make the steel table screech across the tile.
Genevieve stays with the wound.
Her face goes pale.
Her hands do not move.
“Good,” Petra says.
It is the highest praise she gives during blood work.
Genevieve does not look up. “What was on the blade?”
“Silver,” I say.
“I gathered that from the knife and the dramatic reaction. I mean what else.”
Petra’s eyes flick to mine.
I should tell the human nothing.
She has already seen and recorded too much: my name, my shift, my pack’s existence, and a man dying in my jaws.
Every secrecy rule I have lived under says she is a breach that must be contained.
Every instinct I possess says she is under my protection.
The wolf says something deeper.
Mine.
I ignore it.
Badly.
“Wolfsbane resin,” Petra says. “Possibly ashthorn. It slows clotting and blocks the early healing response.”
Genevieve nods as though Petra has named a medication she can categorize.
“Then he needs pressure, fluid support, and whatever reverses the toxin.”
“I am working on it,” Petra says.
“Not fast enough.”
Genevieve finally looks up at me.
Marcus’s blood marks her cheek. Her hazel eyes are sharp and direct.
“You getting angry will not make his cells work faster.”
Dara makes a sound behind me.
Almost a laugh.
I stare at Genevieve.
No one talks to me like that in my own infirmary except Dara, and Dara earned the right by keeping me alive through the first year after my father died.
Genevieve Ashcroft has been in my territory less than ten minutes.
The wolf settles—not obeying, but listening.
That disturbs me more than the insult.
Petra pushes a clean pad beneath Genevieve’s hands.
“Shift pressure here. Do not lift. Slide.”
Genevieve follows the instruction exactly.
Petra works with needle, thread, neutralizer, and a clamp I hate seeing near Marcus’s ribs.
The room narrows to blood and breath.
Marcus fades in and out.
Once, his eyes crack open.
“Ronan.”
“I’m here.”
“Human?”
“Alive.”
His gaze drifts toward Genevieve.
She looks back at him as a patient, not a monster or proof of an impossible world.
“Try not to die,” she says. “I have questions.”
Marcus huffs what might be a laugh, then passes out.
Petra’s hands do not stop.
Dara watches Genevieve now.
So do the wolves gathered outside the open door.
I can feel their fear, confusion, and anger.
A human is inside the Black Harbor safehouse after seeing its Alpha shift. Evidence hangs at her side, and her hands are in our Beta’s blood.
I still have not taken the camera from her.
That is a problem.
I look at it resting against her hip.
She sees me.
Her chin lifts.
“No.”
“I did not ask.”
“You were about to.”
“You recorded my shift.”
“You transformed in front of me.”
“To save him.”
“I understand that.”
“No,” I say. “You do not.”
Petra’s hands pause for half a heartbeat, and Dara goes still.
Genevieve does not look away.
“I understand that I went to Dock 17 to confront Marcus. Two men were waiting to kill him. They knew his healing was delayed, which means someone used hospital information to choose when he was vulnerable. Marcus is alive because you shifted, and I recorded evidence the surviving attacker will want destroyed.”
Complete silence.
Even Marcus seems to stop breathing for one terrible second.
Then Petra says, “He is breathing. Do not all lose your minds at once.”
The room exhales.
Genevieve looks back down at the wound.
“I am not giving you my camera.”
Dara’s gaze cuts to me.
The pack waits with her. My authority rests in the room like another blade on the table.
If I order the camera taken, it will be taken.
If I order Genevieve locked in a windowless room, it will be done.
If I order her removed from the territory, my wolves will obey—and the surviving attacker will find her before sunrise.
The wolf rises so hard my teeth ache.
No.
“Keep the camera,” I say.
Every wolf in the doorway reacts.
Dara does not, which means she will yell at me later.
Genevieve blinks once.
“You will not copy or send that recording anywhere tonight,” I say.
“I did not agree to that.”
“Genevieve.”
Her name comes out rougher than I intend.
Her pulse jumps.
I hear it, and she knows I do.
The awareness between us is hot, dangerous, and badly timed.
“I will not send it tonight,” she says. “But I will not destroy it, and I will not allow anyone to erase it.”
It is a negotiated limit, not obedience.
For now, I take it.
“Agreed.”
Dara looks at me again. This time one eyebrow rises.
Genevieve notices.
Petra ties off the last stitch and presses a clean dressing over Marcus’s wound.
“The bleeding is controlled.”
My lungs work for the first time in what feels like an hour.
“But he is not safe yet,” Petra continues. “The silver went too deep. He needs constant observation, and if the fever spikes, he gets another dose of neutralizer.”
“I’ll watch him.”
“You will not.” Petra strips off her gloves. “You are bleeding through your side, and your wolf is so close to the surface that every young wolf in the hall can feel it.”
“I am Alpha.”
“You are also in my infirmary. Sit down.”
A few years ago, I would have argued.
Tonight, my Beta is unconscious, and a human scientist is staring at the open slice in my side as though she wants to classify it.
I sit.
Petra points at Genevieve. “You. Wash your hands before you faint.”
“I am not going to faint.”
“You are white as paper.”
“That is the adrenaline drop.”
“Sink.”
Genevieve hesitates and looks at Marcus.