Chapter 1

Pain.

It was all I felt.

Everything hurt. Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. Thinking hurt.

Existing... hurt.

I tasted blood.

It coated the back of my tongue, metallic and thick, sliding down my throat with every swallow. I tried not to. It hurt too much. The forest floor was cold beneath me. Damp. The scent of wet earth filled my lungs, heavy and suffocating. My fingers twitched against leaves matted with mud and something much darker, stickier—more blood.

I didn't remember falling.

I did remember running. Running as if my life depended on it.

It had.

Boots crashed behind me.

Gunfire split the air.

The sound of my own breathing broke apart.

Hunters.

The word drifted through my head like smoke.

I tried to move. My body didn't respond the way it should have. My ribs screamed in protest. Something sharp dug into my side every time I drew breath.

I should have shifted.

That was the instinct. The answer. The survival mechanism carved into my bones.

But nothing happened.

The wolf inside me was silent.

Not dead.

Just... quiet. Not a peaceful quiet, but an empty, lonely, and lethal sort of quiet.

"Come on," I whispered to myself, though my voice barely existed. "Come on."

If I could shift, I could heal faster. If I could shift, I could run.

But the silence inside me stretched wider.

A branch snapped somewhere in the distance.

My heart stuttered.

They had found me!

Panic slammed into my chest, and I tried to will my body to get up. To move. To run away from its impending end. I managed to force myself to roll onto my side. Pain exploded white-hot across my ribs, and I choked on it, teeth grinding hard enough to crack.

I wouldn't die like this.

Not on my back.

Not begging like a little bitch.

Another sound. Then another.

Closer.

Soft.

Not human —

The air changed. The forest went still in a way that felt... wrong. The hunters never moved like that. This was quieter. More deliberate.

A new scent cut through the damp earth and blood. Sharp. Clean. Dominant.

My pulse spiked in confusion.

That wasn't a hunter.

That was—

The underbrush parted and he stepped into view.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Still as stone. The darkness didn't swallow him — it bent around him.

His eyes found me instantly. Gray. Assessing. Not surprised. Not alarmed. Certain. As if he already knew what he was about to find.

For one suspended second, neither of us moved.

His gaze dragged over me — the blood, the broken posture, the weakness I couldn't hide, and something shifted in his expression.

Not pity.

Something sharper.

Anger.

I bared my teeth on instinct, even as my vision blurred.

"Stay back."

The command came out fractured.

He didn't listen. He took one slow step forward. The ground felt like it tilted toward him. I tried to push up again, but my arms gave out. My body betrayed me, collapsing back into the dirt. Rage flared hotter than the pain and drowned out the embarrassment.

I hated this.

I hated anyone seeing me like this.

His nostrils flared subtly. He could smell it. My blood. My weakness. And something else.

His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

"Who did this?" he asked.

His voice was low. Controlled. It vibrated through the air instead of cutting it.

Alpha.

The realization hit even through the fog. Every instinct inside me should have lowered its head.

It didn't.

"None of your business," I forced out.

His gaze sharpened. For a flicker of a second, something feral flashed behind his eyes — not loss of control, but something fighting to surface. Then he knelt, the movement slow. Intentional. As if approaching something dangerous.

Me.

His hand hovered near my side, not touching yet. Heat radiated from him, close enough now that I could feel it through the cold. I flinched anyway. His hand stilled.

And that was when I felt it.

A pulse?

Not from him — from inside me. The wolf that wouldn't answer before stirred. Weakly, but it stirred. My breath caught. He noticed. Of course, he noticed. The alpha's eyes darkened.

"Easy," he murmured.

Not to command me.

To calm me.

And somehow... that was worse.

"I'm not your—" I started, but my words fractured into a cough.

Blood splattered the leaves between us. His expression changed completely. The restraint didn't disappear. It tightened. He moved closer without asking. One arm slid behind my shoulders, careful but firm. The other braced at my waist.

His touch was warm.

Solid.

Unyielding.

Every nerve in my body reacted at once — pain, adrenaline, something hotter beneath it.

I shoved weakly against his chest. "Don't."

He looked down at me.

There was nothing soft in his face. Nothing gentle. Just certainty.

"So I should just leave you out here to die then?" he asked, gaze hard.

It wasn't a question that required an answer. It was a decision. And before I could argue, before I could fight, before I could even decide if I wanted to—

The world tilted.

He lifted me.

Like I weighed nothing. The forest shifted around us as he turned, moving deeper into territory that suddenly felt claimed. My vision blurred again, darkness creeping at the edges.

But just before everything faded, I heard it.

Not his voice.

Not the forest.

Something inside me.

Faint.

Whispered.

Aaron will make everything okay.

———