Chapter 6, The Friction
Seventeen years
Wren
For a year, we had played this game of shadows. Jace still thought he was training a survivor, but Killian was hunting a prize he wasn’t allowed to claim. We had never crossed that final, jagged line, but everything else was a blur of heat and unspoken promises.
I was three miles into the Black Ridge, my feet silent on the shale. I wasn’t just fast anymore; I was precise. I didn’t hear him this time, but I felt the sudden, overwhelming spike in temperature behind me, a wall of heat that warned me a split second too late.
I tried to pivot, but Killian was a landslide of muscle.
He tackled me, not with a strike, but with a calculated lunge that sent us both sprawling into a thick carpet of moss.
He rolled instantly, pinning my shoulders down with the weight of his forearms.
He was careful not to crush me, but he made sure I felt every ounce of the strength he would one day use to rule the High-Ridge.
“You’re getting cocky, Wren,” he growled. The sound started in his gut and vibrated through his chest, making the air in my own lungs tremor.
“And you’re getting predictable,” I shot back, though my breath was coming in short, jagged bursts.
Killian was shirtless, his skin slick and radiating the fever-heat of a high-ranking wolf. He looked down at me, his eyes a dark, swirling silver that seemed to track the very rhythm of my blood. He reached up, pinning my wrists to the moss, but he didn’t look at my hands.
He leaned down, burying his face in the crook of my neck.
He didn’t kiss me. Instead, he inhaled, a deep, shuddering draw of air that made his chest expand against mine. I felt his teeth graze the sensitive skin over my jugular, the spot where a wolf would plant a claim.
A low, possessive growl tore out of his throat. He leaned in further and licked the base of my neck, his tongue hot and rough. I arched off the ground, a gasp dying in my throat, but he just pressed harder, marking me with his scent and his heat.
“You don’t smell like the others, Wren,” he muttered against my skin, his voice thick and hungry. “You smell like a storm. You smell like mine.”
He moved his mouth higher, his nose dragging along my jawline until his lips were a fraction of an inch from mine. I could feel the frantic thrum of his heart, the raw desperation of an Alpha who was used to getting whatever he wanted, except for the girl beneath him.
“Yield,” he whispered.
The Alpha Command rolled off him, heavy and suffocating. It was a psychic weight meant to snap my spine and force my eyes to the dirt. I felt the pressure of it in the air, like the stillness before a lightning strike, but it slid off me like rain on glass.
I looked him straight in the eyes and arched a brow. “Is that all you’ve got?”
Killian’s jaw tightened, his eyes flashing a vivid, frustrated silver. He let out a huff of disbelief, his grip on my wrists tightening just enough to be felt.
“A year,” he rasped. “A year of this. Any other wolf in this pack would be on their knees for me. Any other shifter would have yielded out of pure instinct by now. But you... you just look at me like I’m a nuisance.”
“Maybe you’re just not as intimidating as you think you are,” I provoked him, my heart hammering so hard I was sure he could feel it through my ribs.
Killian’s gaze dropped to my lips, his hunger practically a physical entity in the small space between us. He wanted to break the rule. I could see the battle in his eyes, the urge to just take what he wanted and deal with his father later.
Instead, he let go of my wrists and sat back on his haunches, looking at me with a dark, wicked promise.
“The Rite is in twelve months,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, dirty hum. “Enjoy your freedom while it lasts. Because when you turn eighteen, I’m not just going to chase you. I’m going to make sure the whole world knows exactly who you belong to.”
He stood up, the wind catching his dark hair. He didn’t offer me a hand up. He just watched me for one more long, burning second before vanishing into the trees, leaving me shivering in the sudden cold.