Chapter 10 - Mara
I wake to the sound of my own breathing, sharp and uneven, as if the air in this room is thinner than it should be.
The sheets are a mess, all twisted, damp, heavy with the kind of aftermath that no amount of washing will ever get out.
My thighs ache, not just from the heat, but from the marathon of everything that happened.
The memory of it is so physical I feel it in every muscle.
The way Cade’s hands locked around my waist, the way his body pressed into mine, the way I couldn’t stop myself from wanting more, always more, until my voice was raw and my skin was slick with his touch.
I tell myself it doesn’t mean anything. That it was just sex, just proximity, just everything building to a point where it had to break.
But that’s not entirely true.
There was something else there. Something I don’t want to understand, something that felt less like a choice and more like instinct, like my body was reacting to something my brain doesn’t understand.
I don’t like that. I don’t like how easily it happened or how hard it is to shake the feeling of it now. And I definitely don’t like that part of me that doesn’t even want to shake it.
Cade’s still asleep, heavy and still, a great mountain with his back to the window.
The morning is light and gray, and I shift, wincing as the soreness blooms in my hips and lower back, but the fever that had taken hold of me is gone, or at least left me for dead.
Instead, it’s replaced by something bone-deep and shivery, a hollow echo of need that feels more dangerous because it’s not chemical anymore.
I don’t move for a long time. I just watch him breathe and let the images hunt their way through my head: the way he’d carried me to the tub when I could barely stand, the way he held me in the water, careful and so gentle my throat tightened.
The way he’d whispered that it would pass, that I was doing well, and how he’d kept his hands on me like I might vanish if he let go.
I keep waiting for him to wake and turn on me, but when he finally shifts and turns his face toward mine, all I see is a strange, quiet calm.
He’s not afraid. He doesn’t look disgusted.
He just studies me, blue-gold eyes clear and alert, and for the first time since I was dragged into this world, I feel like maybe I’m not the only one off balance.
He doesn’t say anything. He just props himself on an elbow and runs his thumb along my jaw, tracing the line to my ear and back, over and over. The silence is so absolute I can hear the pulse in my own throat.
“You alive?” he asks, voice so low I almost miss it.
I nod, but my voice snags on the first word. “Yeah. Still here, I guess.”
The next words are harder to find, because what do you say after you’ve let a shifter wreck you so much in the space of a single day?
I keep expecting it to feel like a story I heard about someone else, but every detail is burned in.
The taste of his skin, the way he’d growled my name, the way I’d begged for it.
The part I can’t stop replaying is that I wanted it, even after the worst of the heat broke.
I wanted it more than I’ve ever wanted anything, and I still do, even now, when I should be thinking about escape or survival or revenge.
Cade brushes hair from my face and searches my eyes with a seriousness that makes something in my chest twist. I have no idea how someone can be so gentle after what he did to me last night, or the way I begged him to do more.
It makes me want to cry, or laugh, or maybe just crawl back under the covers and never come back out.
He says, “You want food?” as if it’s a normal morning, not the aftermath of an apocalyptic event. “Or you want to sleep?”
I swallow, not trusting my voice, and shake my head. “I’m good.”
I want to tell him I don’t want to move, that I’m terrified of what comes next, but I can’t get the words out. He seems to get it anyway. He doesn’t press, just pulls the duvet back over my shoulders and tucks it in around me like it’s not the most intimate thing anyone’s ever done for me.
I watch him get up, stretch, and pad naked to the window.
The light on his skin is unfair, a living sculpture, all muscle, scar, and inevitable force.
I want to call him back to bed, but I don’t.
There’s a sudden, sharp ache between my legs, and I can’t tell if it’s soreness or want or both.
He disappears into the kitchen, and I close my eyes, letting the smell of coffee and the distant sound of water running in the pipes trickle through the haze in my brain.
It’s not the heat that’s making me dizzy now, but the aftershock of what I did. What he did to me.
And the fact that I want to do it all over again.
I lie there with my eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about the ache between my legs or the residue of Cade’s scent clinging to my skin.
The sheets are sticky, the pillow smells like his hair and the soap he uses, and I can feel my whole body vibrating with the need to move, to get up, to take a shower or just run, but the duvet is too heavy and too warm, and I can’t seem to will myself to do anything but exist.
I keep going over it in my head, the way it started, the way it ended, the fact that at no point did I ever really want him to stop.
I always thought if I ever wound up in this kind of situation, locked up in a mountain cabin with a wolf, completely at his mercy, I’d try to kill him the first chance I got.
That I’d hate him, hate the way he looked at me, hate the way he touched me, hate every second of what he did.
But I didn’t. Even now, after the fever has burned itself out, I don’t hate him.
Not even a little. Mostly, I hate myself.
Because I want it again.
Because I can still taste him on my tongue and feel the outline of his hands on my hips.
Because my body keeps replaying the exact moment he finally lost control, the way he held me down and pushed inside me and didn’t stop until I was coming so hard I forgot where I was.
Because he was gentle afterward, and because he looked at me like I was something rare and beautiful and not just a mistake the world kept making.
I pull the covers over my face and squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that if I lie still long enough, the world will just reset and I’ll wake up back in the city, back on my shitty mattress on the floor, back where things were simple, and revenge was the only thing I had to live for.
But I know that’s not going to happen, not after last night.
I think about my parents and try to picture their faces.
I don’t know exactly who killed them, only that it was hunters.
The ones who used to pass through the area regularly but never caused any problems until that day.
Ever since, the only thing I’ve wanted is to make them pay.
They weren’t as organized back then as they are now, but as the Order has grown and developed, so has my need for revenge.
To find the people who killed my parents, make them suffer, and not let anyone hurt me again.
I never even thought about what I was, because it didn’t matter.
I was human, they were dead, and that was the end of it.
But now I have Cade’s words echoing in my head, and the lab report tucked between two books in the library, and the memory of myself last night, begging for him to touch me again.
Did my parents know what I was? Were they just regular people, or was there something else they never told me?
It wouldn’t change anything, not really, but it makes me queasy to think about it.
Maybe they were trying to protect me when they moved to the city; maybe they knew what would happen if anyone ever found out. Maybe the hunters did find out.
Maybe this changes everything. But how do I even begin to unravel this new information? I feel further away than ever from finding out the truth.
I try to remember the last time I felt normal.
Not just physically, but mentally, like my head was my own and not a pawn in someone else’s game.
Every time I think about the blood draws, the pills, the way Trish watched me take them, a cold knot forms in the pit of my stomach.
I want to think it was all routine, that I wasn’t an experiment, but the evidence is starting to pile up.
I can see it all now: the way the hunters never let me out of their sight, the way they talked about my “health,” the way everyone changed around me after the first time they took my blood.
If I’m really honest, I think I knew there was something off from the start.
Not just about them, but about myself. I never let myself dwell on it, because I was so focused on the mission, on revenge, on getting through each day without letting the rage eat me alive.
Maybe that’s why I never questioned the blood draws, or the “vitamins,” or the careful way Trish tracked every bite of food I ate.
Maybe I wanted to play my part so badly that I let them do whatever they wanted, as long as it kept me close to the target.
But now that I know what I am, or at least what Cade and the rest think I am, all I can see is how stupid I was for not asking questions sooner.
I used to think I was in control. That I’d infiltrated their little compound with nothing but spite and a willingness to survive.
That was the only thing they used me for: cheap labor and the occasional blood draw.
But what if it was more? What if they were dosing me with something that made the omega genes wake up, or worse, kept them simmering just under the surface until I popped?
What if the ‘vitamins’ were never vitamins at all, but something to make me go into heat?
What if that had happened and I’d been surrounded by hunters like Salty? The thought makes me sick.
Would it have made a difference if I’d refused to give blood, or spat out the pills, or run the first time I caught them watching me with that clinical, speculative look?
Probably not. I couldn’t have left, not until I got what I wanted.
I needed to know who killed my family, and that meant staying in the game, even if it meant letting them run their experiments on me.
The memory makes me sick, not just because I let it happen, but because I wanted it to work.
I wanted the hunters to trust me. I wanted to be useful.
I played the victim so well that I almost forgot I was one.
But now I’m not even sure who the real enemy is.
The hunters who killed my parents, or the ones who kept me alive?
The shifters who want to use me for their own ends, or myself, for letting it all happen?
I look at Cade when he comes back into the room, steaming mugs in hand, and I realize I don’t even know my own mind anymore.
He sets the coffee on the nightstand and sits at the edge of the bed, taking a sip of his.
For all my muddled thoughts, I immediately shift to thinking about last night again, the one thing that feels real right now.
Cade’s hands on my body. As if he can read my mind, his eyes flicker to mine, and I let the covers drop slightly, revealing my breasts.
He hesitates for a moment before leaning over, placing his coffee next to mine, his large frame dwarfing mine as he looks down on me.
“Are you trying to tempt me?” he asks, amusement lacing his words. “Even though the heat is over?”
I should say no, shouldn’t I? I shouldn’t be tempting this alpha who could crush me with one hand.
Instead, I let the rest of the covers fall away and relish the way his eyes turn golden. “Maybe I am,” I whisper, but my words are swallowed by his kiss, and I let myself drown in the moment and push thoughts of the hunters, escaping Cade, and revenge away. At least for now.