The Wolf Beneath

Chapter Four 

The napkin still burned in Raven’s fist as the word on it, carved into her mind like a scar.

Wolf.

The warehouse pulsed with noise around her as laughter, the clatter of pool balls, the clink of bottles all blurred into static.

Raven couldn’t stop replaying the stranger’s too-clean jacket, the way his eyes had lingered on her like he’d already stripped away her skin.

Her wolf paced inside her chest, hackles up, teeth bared. It wanted to hunt him down. Tear him apart. But hunters didn’t come alone, and if he’d found his way inside the Iron Fangs’ den, then there was already a crack in the walls around her.

Sabrina tugged at her arm. “Rave, you’re making me nervous. What’s going on?”

Raven forced her fist to unclench, stuffing the napkin into her pocket. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Nothing?” Sabrina’s voice pitched higher. “You nearly bit that guy’s head off for talking to me, and now you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I said drop it,” Raven snapped. Too sharp. Sabrina recoiled, her lips pressing into a thin line. Guilt flickered in Raven’s gut, but she didn’t apologize, she couldn’t.

Not when every second wasted was another chance for the hunters to close in.

Later, when the music dimmed and most of the Fangs had either passed out or peeled away into the night, Raven slipped outside. The air was cool against her burning skin. She leaned against the wall, closing her eyes.

Her wolf surged.

You can’t keep hiding, it whispered, voice low and furious. Not from them. Not from him.

Images flashed behind her eyelids as she remembered the night of her first shift. Blood on her skin, screams and her father’s voice breaking as he tried to soothe her, even while fear trembled in his words. 

She had lost control, back then. Lost herself to her wolf and when she came back, the memory was nothing but fragments of claws, fire, and the metallic taste of blood.

That was why she hid it now. Why she kept her wolf locked down, even among the Fangs.

Because if they saw what she really was, if they saw the truth of her bloodline, they wouldn’t call her sister. They’d call her monster.

And Axel, damn him, had seen too much already.

Mine, her wolf whispered, mocking and insistent.

“Shut up,” Raven hissed under her breath.

“You talking to yourself, cousin?”

Her eyes snapped open. Cole leaned against the corner of the building, cigarette glowing between his fingers, grin sharp as a blade.

“Or maybe to that Rider alpha who had you cornered earlier?” he continued. 

“Reed doesn’t buy your little story. Neither do I.”

Raven stepped forward, voice low and dangerous. “Careful, Cole. If you keep poking, you’ll regret it.”

His grin widened, as his eyes burned.

 “You think you’re untouchable because Reed tolerates you. But one slip, Raven, just one and I’ll be the first to put you down.”

Smoke curled between them as he walked away, leaving the threat hanging heavy in the air.

By dawn, the warehouse lot was quiet again. Raven had tried to sleep, but every creak of the floorboards set her on edge. The napkin in her pocket weighed a thousand pounds. When she finally stepped outside for fresh air, Reed was waiting.

He leaned against his bike, cigarette dangling from his lips, watching her with that predator calm that made her skin crawl.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

“Didn’t realize I needed your permission.”

He smirked faintly. “You’ve been… restless. Distracted. Makes me wonder what’s keeping you up at night.”

Raven forced a smile. “Maybe I just don’t like living in a clubhouse full of drunk idiots.”

“Maybe,” he said, flicking ash onto the ground. “Or maybe you’re hiding something.”

Her pulse jumped, but she kept her face smooth. “If I were, you’d already know.”

Reed studied her in silence. The weight of his gaze was almost worse than Axel’s as it wasn’t desire, it was calculation, a hunter of a different breed. He didn’t want to claim her. He wanted to dissect her.

Finally, he straightened. “Just remember, Raven, wolves that play both sides get eaten alive.”

He flicked the cigarette away and mounted his bike, riding off without another word.

That night, the unease crystallized into danger.

Raven was heading back from a supply run when she caught the scent so sharp, metallic and wrong. 

Her wolf bristled instantly. 

Hunters.

She froze in the alley behind the warehouse, scanning the shadows. 

Too quiet, too still.

Then the first bolt sang through the air.

Raven ducked instinctively, the silver-tipped arrow embedding in the wall where her head had been a heartbeat before. Her wolf roared inside her, surging to the surface.

Figures emerged from the darkness, three of them, armed with crossbows and blades that gleamed even in the dim light. Hunters. The same blond man from before led them, his smile cold and precise.

“Found you,” he said softly.

Raven’s breath came fast, adrenaline spiking. She couldn’t shift here, not in the open, not with the risk of Fangs stumbling onto the scene. But her wolf clawed at her skin, desperate for release.

The hunters closed in.

“Run,” the blond man said. “Let’s see what you really are.”

Her control snapped.

Heat tore through her veins, bones bending, claws pushing at her fingertips. Her vision sharpened, the world glowing with the hues of prey and predator. The wolf surged forward, breaking free.

Then….

“Raven!”

Cole’s voice.

Her head whipped around, heart seizing as she saw him standing at the mouth of the alley, eyes and mouth wide open, staring not at the hunters, but at her.

At the flash of her shifting eyes. At the claws glinting under the streetlight.

“Holy shit,” Cole whispered, realization dawning.

The hunters grinned.

And Raven knew, in that split second, that everything was about to unravel.

Hunters circled her as Cole froze.

Raven’s wolf was halfway unleashed and one wrong move would expose her secret to the entire Fang pack.

And if that happened, the Iron Fangs wouldn’t protect her.

They’d destroy her.