Chapter 35
ELIZA
The canyon is quiet. Wrong. Not peaceful—never peaceful—but emptied out, like the battle scraped everything living and violent from the air and left behind only the echo of what happened here.
The ground is torn, dark with churned earth and blood that’s already beginning to dry.
The scent of it clings to everything, metallic and thick, but underneath it is something else now. Something fading.
I’m still breathing hard when I finally get to him on the other side of what feels like a field of broken boulders.
“Eliza…”
Cade’s voice is rough, strained, but it’s there. Alive.
I follow it immediately, pushing past a broken ridge of rock until I see him half-propped against the canyon wall.
One leg is stretched out awkwardly, his other bent, his hand pressed to his side where the fabric of his clothing is dark and torn.
Blood stains his fingers. His head is tipped back slightly, eyes open, tracking me as I rush toward him.
Relief hits so hard it almost knocks the air out of my lungs. My hands move without hesitation, checking him over as best I can. His breathing is shallow but steady. His injuries are serious, but not fatal. Not anymore. I press my hand carefully against his side, and he winces.
“Don’t move,” I say, already scanning for what I need to stabilize him.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” he replies, voice tight.
I force myself to focus. He’s here. He’s alive. That’s what matters right now. A howl rises in the distance. Then another. And another.
I look up just as shapes begin to emerge along the ridge above us. Wolves—our wolves. Clara is at the front, her posture commanding, her presence cutting through the aftermath like a blade of order through chaos.
“Eliza!” Clara calls down.
“I’m here!” I answer, raising a hand slightly.
She moves quickly down the slope, the others following behind her in controlled waves. Their attention sweeps across the canyon floor, assessing, confirming, accounting. Clara’s eyes land on Cade, then on me.
“Is he—”
“He’s alive,” I say. “Injured, but stable.”
Clara nods once, sharp and decisive. Relief flickers across her face, but she doesn’t linger in it.
“The hybrid alpha is dead,” she says, confirming what we already know but need to hear aloud. “The pack felt it break.”
I glance toward the center of the canyon, where the remnants of the battle are most concentrated. The shift is undeniable. The oppressive weight that had been pressing down on everything is gone.
Gone.
“Then it’s over,” I say quietly.
“For the main threat,” Clara replies. “But not entirely.”
At her signal, several wolves peel off and begin moving through the canyon with purpose. Tracking. Sniffing. Scanning the terrain for any remaining predators that scattered when the alpha fell. Their movements are precise, coordinated—no longer driven by chaos, but by control.
The pack is hunting again. But this time, it’s cleanup. Clara gives me one last look.
“We’ll secure the perimeter.”
I nod. “Be careful.”
She inclines her head once before turning away, shifting into motion as she joins the others. Within moments, the pack disperses across the canyon, their presence no longer chaotic but methodical, eliminating what’s left of the threat.
I turn back to Cade. For a long moment, neither of us speaks. The noise of the battle has faded into distance. The wolves are moving away. The canyon feels larger now, emptier. What remains is just the two of us in the aftermath of something that could have ended very differently.
“You shouldn’t have come back here alone,” Cade says quietly.
“I wasn’t exactly thinking about logistics at the time.”
His gaze softens slightly as he studies me.
“No,” he agrees. “I don’t think either of us was.”
I shift closer, brushing debris from his shoulder, then hesitating just for a second before settling my hand against his arm. The contact grounds me. He’s solid. Real. Here.
“Don’t move yet,” I say again, more gently this time.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he replies.
The words hang there between us, heavier than they should be for something so simple.
I sit back on my heels, letting the full weight of what just happened catch up with me.
“We made it,” I say quietly.
Cade exhales slowly. “Yeah. We did.”
Silence settles again, but this time it’s not tense. It’s reflective. The kind that comes after something that changes you whether you want it to or not.
I look at him, really look at him.
At the injuries. The exhaustion. The fact that he’s still here despite everything.
“You scared me,” I admit.
His eyes meet mine. “You scared me too.”
A small, almost imperceptible shift passes between us. Something softening. Something aligning. I move closer without thinking this time, my hand finding his again. His grip tightens around mine immediately, like he’s been waiting for that exact connection.
The world around us starts to fall away. The canyon. The battle. The aftermath. The distance between survival and loss. All of it narrows down to this moment.
“You’re here,” I say, quieter now.
“So are you,” he replies.
The space between us closes naturally, inevitably. There’s no hesitation in the way he reaches for me, or the way I lean into him. The relief, the adrenaline, the sheer emotional weight of everything we’ve just lived through—none of it has anywhere to go except into each other.
Our foreheads rest together for a brief moment, breaths mingling, steadying.
Before we lose ourselves in each other in front of Clara and the pack, I help Cade back to my cabin. There, the restraint between us finally gives way.
Our first kiss comes without doubt. It’s not tentative.
Not uncertain. It carries everything we’ve held back, everything we’ve survived, everything we’ve almost lost. There’s urgency in it, but also something deeper—something anchored.
A recognition that what we have isn’t fragile in the way it once was.
His hand comes up to cup the side of my face, fingers steady despite the exhaustion in his body. My hand grips his shirt, holding onto him like I’m confirming he’s real, that this isn’t something I’m about to wake up from.
The bond between us surges—not breaking, not shifting out of control, but settling.
Stabilizing.
I feel it like a current moving through both of us, no longer jagged or unpredictable, but smooth, constant. Balanced. Whatever was strained before is no longer fighting itself. It’s aligning.
Completing.
His dark hair is matted with blood and dirt, and he pulls me with him into the shower. An awful gash runs down his side, but I can see it already starting to close as the water showers our naked bodies.
But it's not enough. It will never be enough.
Another kiss deepens, a slow, deliberate tangling of tongues that speaks of relief and love and a desperate need to reconnect, to reaffirm life.
His hand comes up to cup the back of my head, holding me to him as he deepens the kiss, his tongue exploring my mouth with a possessive tenderness that makes my soul ache.
I pull back just enough to look at him, my eyes tracing the rugged lines of his face.
"I was afraid I was going to lose you."
"Never," he vows, his voice thick with emotion. "Nothing could keep me from you."
His hand strokes my hip, his thumb brushing against my skin, sending shivers of anticipation through me.
He turns me, pressing me against the cool tile with his body. I feel his breath and lips and teeth traveling down my neck to my shoulder, where he delivers a deliciously painful bite at the base of my neck.
I moan and he frantically pulls out my hips, positioning his cock at my slick entrance before plunging fully into my depths.
We both gasp. It's a desperate coupling, but not like the first time. This is something else entirely. This is a claiming. A sealing.
As Cade begins to move, a slow, deep rhythm, I feel it.
A new current of energy flows between us, a golden, shimmering thread of light that connects our very souls.
It's the bond, fully stabilized, a permanent, unbreakable link.
I can feel his love for me, a steady, unwavering beacon, and I know he can feel mine in return.
It's overwhelming, a perfect, complete union of heart, mind, and body.
Our movements become more fluid, more certain, a dance as old as time. His hands grip my hips, guiding me. The pleasure builds, a slow, inexorable tide, but it's secondary to the feeling of connection, of rightness. I am home. I am whole.
When the orgasm finally takes me, it's not just a physical release.
It's a spiritual one, a wave of pure, golden light that washes over me, through me, binding us together in a way that can never be undone.
He follows me a moment later, his body arching over me, his hoarse cry of my name a prayer of thanks.
I collapse back against his chest, my body spent, my heart overflowing.
He wraps his good arm around me, holding me close, his lips pressing a soft kiss to my wet hair.
We stand there, slowing soaping each other, teasing each other, loving each other in the quiet dimness of the shower stall, the bond between us a warm, humming presence, a promise of a future we had fought so hard to win.
When we finally break apart and dry off, neither of us pulls away fully.
Cade wraps a warm towel around me and pulls me to him, exhaling against my forehead.
“That felt like a long time coming,” he murmurs.
I let out a soft breath, my hand still resting against his chest.
“Yeah,” I say. “It did.”
The connection between us remains steady, no longer fluctuating under stress or distance. It’s there in the quiet, in the stillness, in the simple fact that we’re both alive and present and no longer on opposite sides of something we can’t control.
The battle is over. And what’s left between us isn’t just survival. It’s something that has finally, completely, found its balance.