Gideon’s voice cuts in a breath later over the comms, urgent but steady. “Copy. Reroute west. Avoiding the choke.”
Tires shriek in the distance as the convoy pivots. Relief floods me so hard it shakes my legs. For once I am not just surviving—I’ve given them a path out.
The night air vibrates with menace, a charge that crawls across my skin. In the distance, faint bursts of gunfire rip through the trees, echoing like bones snapping. My ears twitch toward every disturbance, catching fragments—shouts ragged with panic, branches splintering, the guttural cry of someone seized without warning. Every sound is raw and immediate, sinking teeth into my nerves. I push harder, muscles burning, each stride driving me deeper into that razor edge between predator and protector.
A rustle in the brush sends my pulse spiking. The figure ahead fumbles at the fence, hands clawing at wire, trying to drag himself over. Too slow. Too exposed. I lunge, smashing into him mid-climb, driving him down into the dirt with a bone-jarringcrash. His breath bursts out in a panicked grunt as I pin him, fangs hovering a whisper from his throat. He thrashes wildly, but my body crushes him into the ground, muscles locked tight with feral strength. His fear pours off him, frantic and sour, stinging the air like acid.
For a heartbeat, instinct drives a vicious hunger to finish him with a single bite, the taste of violence flooding my mouth. The urge burns hot, but I clamp it down, muscles trembling with restraint. My chest heaves, every breath ragged, yet I stay crouched over him, growl low and steady, forcing chaos to bend beneath control.
Cassidy circles, hackles bristling, her eyes blazing as if demanding the answer I have already carved into every tense muscle in my body. The urge to tear him apart snarls just beneath my skin, but I hold it down. I will not kill him. Not unless survival rips the choice from me.
We let the mist surge up over us once more. It tears at my skin, fire and thunder colliding until the beast rips away and leaves me gasping on two legs again. We drag the intruder inside the barn, bind his hands and feet and leave him for Gage and the others to deal with. My body is humming from the run, muscles still twitching with remembered violence. I yank on leggings and a loose shirt from the baskets in the changing room, my hands trembling so hard the fabric sticks to damp skin, every shake betraying the adrenaline still flooding me.
Cassidy watches, buttoning her shirt, pride and worry warring in her eyes. “You’re getting stronger,” she says quietly. “More balanced every time.”
I swallow, heart still racing. “It felt… different. Like I wasn’t drowning in it. Like I could choose.”
She steps closer, hand light on my shoulder. “That’s what it means when the bond settles in.”
My head jerks up. “Bond?”
She exhales hard, as though she has been caging the truth too long. “The bond with your she-wolf. It binds the two of you together. It's stronger than instinct, stronger than reason. It's a tether that sears through flesh and soul.” Her gaze bores into mine, unblinking, fierce. “And once you and Gage really accept the inevitable, that you are his fated mate, you'll become even stronger.”
The words land heavily, but they only confirm what I’ve been refusing to face. The way my chest tightens when Gage is near. The way his voice threads through me like fire and steel. The way I feel him even when he’s not in the room. I want to argue, but my heart beats out the truth I don’t want to admit.
The door blasts open. Gage storms in, dust clinging to his skin and fury sparking off him like fire from flint. His eyes lock on me first, narrowing when they land on my flushed face and the tremor still shivering through my hands.
“What the hell did you do?” His voice is a growl edged in fury.
I lift my chin. “Kept you from being blindsided. You’re welcome.”
“You went outside. During an active ambush.” His steps close the space between us, heat rolling off him. “Do you have a death wish?”
Cassidy steps in, steady and calm. “She held the line. She stopped a spotter. She didn’t lose control.”
That only fuels him. His jaw ticks, his eyes flashing with fury and something darker. He rounds on me. “You could have been killed. You think I can fight out there while waiting for a scream that means you didn’t make it back?”
I meet his fire with my own. “I’m not porcelain, Gage. You don’t get to decide how much I can handle.”
His hand slams against the wall beside my head, close enough that I feel the vibration in my bones. His body cagesmine, breath hot against my cheek. “This isn’t about what you think you can handle. It’s about what I can’t lose.”
The words slam into me harder than I am ready for, ripping the breath from my lungs. My pulse lurches, tangled between fury and the raw ache thrumming in his voice. Heat floods my skin, my body betraying me as I lean into the press of his presence, craving the danger, daring the moment to break open into something reckless and consuming.
The air grows heavy, the clash between us bending toward something perilous and intoxicating. His gaze drops to my mouth, hunger flaring there for a heartbeat so raw I can almost taste it. For an instant I think he’ll claim it, close the last inch, devour the fire he has stoked. Instead he tears himself back, sucking air into his lungs like a drowning man breaking the surface. The silence that follows scalds, searing hotter than the fight ever could.
“You’re a hypocrite,” I whisper, forcing the words past my racing pulse. “You preach control and discipline, but you look at me like you’re starving.”
His jaw flexes, voice low. “Careful, Sadie.”
“Or what?” I challenge, heat threading through my defiance.
The moment stretches until Rush strides in, a ledger in hand. His face is grim. “We’ve got a problem. The dead-drop gave us more than scraps.” He flips it open, the pages scrawled with names and numbers. “Three sets of initials. Every one ties back to board members your foundation has done business with, Sadie.”
The room reels, my stomach plunging hard. The foundation I built, the donors I trusted, many of them rotten through the core. If they realize I’ve seen this ledger, I’m no longer just a target. I become the prize they will hunt without mercy.
A blast of ice floods my veins, numbing and savage, but through it all one truth burns hot and unyielding. I will not run. Not now. Not ever again.
Gage doesn’t let it drop. He looms in the doorway after Rush’s words, his stare boring into me, fierce and unyielding, a promise that he hasn’t forgiven what I did outside. Cassidy excuses herself, tension dripping off her as she slips away, leaving me and Gage caged in a silence that crackles hotter than gunfire and feels even more lethal.
