I hit the ground hard, the poisoned earth knocking the breath from my lungs. Dirt grits between my teeth, dead leaves choking my mouth and nose. The world tilts, blurred and spinning. My thoughts scatter like startled birds, instinct taking over.
Panic surges hot, sharp, suffocating.
I roll, coughing, scratching, fighting blindly. But it’s no use.
Kieran’s massive wolf form pins me down, a wall of fur and weight and cruel inevitability. His claws dig into the ground on either side of my head, the earth trembling with his rage. His breath is hot against my neck—too close, too real—as his body shifts, bonescracking, fur retreating. Human again. Still just as monstrous.
My mind is blank. Not empty, but flooded. Drowning in terror. “Got you, kitten,” he growls, his voice rough with triumph. His teeth graze my throat, sharp and possessive. “Time to?—”
A savage roar shatters the night.
A massive black form crashes into Kieran, ripping him away from me with brutal force. I scramble backward, heart pounding as I watch on in horror. The largest wolf I’ve ever seen looms over Kieran, his thick black fur bristling, muscles rippling beneath his pelt. His size dwarfs Kieran, his sheer presence making the air feel heavier, charged with danger.
Kieran shifts back to his wolf form, trying to circle behind the black wolf, but the creature is death itself. It spins with impossible speed to catch Kieran’s lunging form. His massive jaws clamp onto Kieran’s throat, powerful paws pinning the smaller wolf as he begins to crush his windpipe. There’s no mercy in his mismatched eyes—no hesitation. Just cold, methodical killing.
I’m frozen, horror rooting me in place as Kieran’s struggles grow weaker. His wolf form writhes beneath the black wolf’s relentless grip, his paws scraping at the earth, trying to shift back to human form. But the pressure on his throat is too great, the grip too tight. The sound of grinding bones fills the forest, sharp and final.
I should run. Every human instinct screams at me to flee while these monsters fight, but my wolf...
She doesn’t move. She watches in stillness, ears forward, tail low in submission, recognizing and honoring the power snapping through the clearing.
A russet blur launches from the shadows—one of the Red River enforcers, fur bristling, eyes wild with rage as it lunges at the black wolf. But it’s over before it begins. The massive wolf releases Kieran’s mangled throat only to catch the newattacker mid-leap. His jaw snaps shut with terrifying force, crushing the russet wolf’s spine. The sickening crack echoes through the trees like a gunshot, followed by the thud of a limp body hitting the ground.
Two more wolves charge from the darkness—Moonclaw enforcers, their silver-tipped fur gleaming under the moonlight. They move in perfect tandem, trained killers. But it makes no difference. The black wolf moves like a living shadow, fluid and devastating. He catches the first enforcer by the throat, using its momentum to snap its neck with brutal ease, while his back claws rake deep into the second, disemboweling it in a spray of blood and guts.
The forest floor is slick with gore, fallen leaves soaked black under the cold moonlight. Four wolves lie broken and bleeding, and still the black wolf stands, his breathing barely labored. He shows no sign of exertion, and no remorse.
Then he turns to me.
Those mismatched eyes fix on me, glowing with predatory focus. Blood drips from his muzzle, staining his already dark fur even blacker.
Before my mind can scream, before my legs can obey, my wolf knows.His scent hits us like a tidal wave—earth and rain and wild storms.
The same scent I caught in the grove. It coils around me, seeping into my lungs, my skin, my bones.
I scramble backward until my spine hits a tree, halting my escape, but it’s already too late.
He stalks forward, impossibly graceful despite his massive size. A jagged silver scar slashes across his right eye, and the tip of his left ear is missing—testaments to battles fought and won. More scars pepper his body, hidden beneath thick fur but visible as pale lines where no hair grows.
Ryker Ashmere.
Run, my mind screams. But my body and my wolf refuse to move. I can only watch as he approaches, power rolling offhim in waves. This close, I can see that his fur isn’t purely black. There are strands of silver shot through it, like moonlight caught in darkness.
I’ve seen wolves shift before, but never like this—never with such fluid, predatory grace. It’s as if the shadows themselves reach up to help him change. Bones crack and reform, fur recedes into skin, claws retract into fingers. But where most shifts are violent, painful things, his is almost beautiful in its lethal precision. One moment he is wolf, the next he is man, with barely a sound to mark the transformation.
Even in his human skin, he moves like a predator, all coiled muscle and lethal grace. Blood still stains his mouth and chest. The savage violence lingers in his mismatched eyes, tempered only by the dangerous, dark amusement that curls his bloodstained lips into a grin.
“Mine,” he growls, voice rough and raw, as though it’s been dragged from the depths of the earth. He reaches for me with blood-stained hands. His touch is startlingly gentle despite the violence I just witnessed. “Say it, little seer,” he rumbles. “Say you’re mine.”
“I—” I gasp, but his teeth are already at my neck, sharp and demanding.
“Mine,” he snarls again, and then he bites down, marking me as his mate with a claim that will never fade.
Pain lances through me, sharp and blinding, then relief—molten and fierce—floods in. It reminds me of wildfire, consuming and soothing all at once. His power pours into me, invasive and undeniable, weaving itself into the broken places I didn’t even know I carried.
My visions, always a swirling chaos at the back of my mind, fall silent.
I understand now why I never saw this moment coming.
