But as she rounded the final boulder, her hackles rose.Something was wrong.
The brush she’d arranged was disturbed.
He was gone.
She shifted back to human form, biting back a cry as the transformation pulled at her wounded flank.The silver burn remained, an angry red gash that crossed her hip and thigh.The bleeding had slowed, but the wound pulsed with unnatural heat.
She’d need to treat it soon.
Damn it!Her voice echoed against the rock face, frustration tearing through her.
All her planning, her surveillance, wasted.She’d had one of the twins—her prime suspect—at her mercy, and now he was gone.
Worse, she’d revealed herself.They would know someone was investigating them now.They’d be on guard.
She ran a hand through her hair, tugging at the roots in frustration.
Worse, the twin bond would complicate everything.What one knew, the other knew.What one experienced, the other felt.
It was why they were so effective as enforcers.And why they would have been effective as assassins.
Had her father felt it when they came for him?Had he fought back?Or had it been quick, at least?
The grief hit her anew, a physical pain that doubled her over, stealing her breath.She pressed her forehead against the cool stone, fighting for control.
No witnesses.No body.Just blood and scent.
Not enough to prove anything to a pack council.Not enough for justice.
The connection—mate bond, her wolf insisted—popped and fizzed between them, a practically electric connection that seemed to tug her toward Sunburst territory.
Toward Conall.
Her wolf whined beneath her skin.Mate.
Shut up,she growled at herself, digging her nails into her palms until pain silenced the inner whine.
She leaned against the boulder, suddenly dizzy.The silver wound throbbed, radiating unnatural heat up her side.She needed to clean it, extract any silver residue before it spread further into her system.Without treatment, even a graze could incapacitate a shifter within days.
Nadine stared at the injury with detached clinical interest.The irony wasn’t lost on her.She’d taken a silver bullet—voluntarily put herself in harm’s way—to lead hunters away from the very man she’d been hunting herself.
What kind of twisted logic was that?
I need him alive for questioning.
But that wasn’t the whole truth.
She pushed off from the rock, testing her weight on the injured leg.It held, barely.She needed supplies.Medical attention.
She made it two miles before her wounded leg buckled beneath her.
She collapsed behind a wind-carved sandstone formation, sides heaving with exertion.The silver wound refused to close.The desert air felt cool against her fevered skin.Silver fever—the first sign of systemic poisoning.She needed to treat the wound soon, or she’d be too weak to travel by morning.
And all for what?To protect a man who might have killed your father?
She needed to get back to her supplies.She had extraction tools, purified water, healing herbs—everything required to treat silver exposure.
All of it back at her temporary base, five miles away.
