Chapter 4

Irene's Pov

The smell of burning sage and copper was everywhere. My shoulder felt like someone took a blowtorch to it and then decided to pour salt on the remains.

Silver was the one thing every wolf feared. I had to go and take a blade of it to the collarbone during the first ten minutes of the fight.

Everything after the skirmish was a blur of trees and the rhythm of heavy paws hitting the dirt. I remembered the feeling of Matthew’s massive dark form pressing against my side.

He was guiding me away from the main estate, away from the prying eyes of the pack doctors. He did not say a word.

But the vibration of his growl told me everything I needed to know: he did not trust his own people with my life.

Now, I was sitting on a moth-eaten sofa in a cabin that looked like it had not seen a guest in a decade.

The air was thick with dust and the sharp, medicinal scent of the herbs Matthew was crushing in a bowl across the room.

I was stripped down to a camisole, clutching a blanket to my chest with my good arm. I was trying not to let him see me shake.

He walked over, the floorboards groaning under his weight. He was still shirtless, his skin smeared with dirt and the dried blood of the wolves we just fought.

He looked like a nightmare, but his hands were surprisingly steady as he knelt between my knees.

“This is going to hurt,” he said. There was no sugar-coating, just the truth.

“Just do it,” I rasped.

He pressed the poultice against the wound. I let out a strangled scream, my head snapping back against the sofa.

It felt like my veins were turning into liquid lead. I reached out blindly.

My fingers dug into his shoulders, my nails drawing blood from his skin. He did not move. He did not even flinch.

He just held the medicine there, his eyes locked on mine, forcing me to anchor myself to him.

“Breathe, Irene. Look at me. Just breathe.”

I focused on his eyes. They were not cold anymore. They were swirling with a dark, agonizing sympathy that hurt almost as much as the silver.

Slowly, the fire in my shoulder dulled to a throbbing ache. My grip on his shoulders loosened, but I did not pull my hands away.

I could feel the vibration of his heart under my palms.

“Why are we here, Matthew?” I whispered. “The pack doctor could have handled this.”

“The pack doctor reports to my father,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “And my father sees your blood as a variable. He doesn’t like variables he can’t control.”

He stayed there, kneeling in the space between us. His face was so close I could feel the heat of his breath.

The step-sibling thing felt like a bad joke now. It was a thin, paper-colored lie that we were both pretending to believe.

“I hated you the moment I saw you,” he said suddenly. The honesty of it was like a punch to the gut.

“I noticed,” I muttered, trying to pull back, but he grabbed my wrists, holding them against his chest.

“No, you don’t understand. I didn’t hate you because of your mother. I hated you because the second you stepped onto that dais, my world went out of focus. Everything except you.”

He let out a breath that sounded like a groan. “It isn’t a mate bond, Irene. It is worse. It is a singular counterpart. Our souls are being forced into sync. Every time you hurt, I feel it. Every time you breathe, it changes my rhythm. It is a rare, ancient glitch, and it means I am tied to you regardless of what the law or my father says.”

I stared at him, my heart doing a slow, heavy roll. A singular counterpart.

It explained the whine in my wolf, the way I could feel him in the room before I saw him. It was a cosmic middle finger to the treaty.

“Is that why you saved me?” I asked softly.

“I don’t have a choice,” he whispered. “You are the other half of my pulse.”

He leaned in, his forehead resting against mine for just a second. It was a moment of pure, raw vulnerability that shattered every wall I had built against him.

My wolf was purring, a deep, resonant sound that vibrated in my chest. For a moment, I thought he might actually kiss me, rules and exile be damned.

Then, he stood up abruptly, the mask clicking back into place.

“Get some rest. I need to check the perimeter.”

He tossed his discarded jacket onto the end of the sofa and walked out into the night. I watched him go, my skin still buzzing from his touch.

I felt different, like I finally had a piece of the puzzle. I reached over to pull the jacket over my legs—it was freezing in this cabin—but as I grabbed the heavy material, something fell out of the inner pocket.

It was a folded piece of parchment, the wax seal of the High Alpha broken.

I knew I should not read it, but my name was written on the back in my stepfather’s sharp, authoritative handwriting.

I unfolded it, my breath catching in my throat.

To my Enforcer, it began. The merger is the priority. If the girl becomes a liability, if her lineage causes dissent, or if she distracts you from your duties, you are authorized to neutralize her. Do not let sentiment interfere with the Blackwood legacy.

Neutralize.

The word stared back at me, cold and clinical. It was not a suggestion; it was an order.

My stepfather did not just bring me here to be a part of a family. He brought me here as a chess piece.

The moment I stopped being useful, I was meant to be removed.

And the person he gave the order to was the man who just told me I was his singular counterpart. The man who was supposed to be my protector.

I heard the door creak open as Matthew returned, the scent of the night clinging to him. I quickly shoved the paper into the folds of the blanket.

But I knew my heart rate had spiked. I knew he could smell the sudden surge of fear.

I looked at him, really looked at him, as he walked back toward the fire. He said he hated me because he had no choice but to be tied to me.

But as I felt the weight of that letter against my leg, I had to wonder which part of him was stronger. Was it the soul that was in sync with mine, or the enforcer who had spent his whole life taking orders from a monster?

“Is something wrong?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as he caught the change in the air.

“Just the pain,” I lied, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. “It is just starting to burn again.”

I lay back and closed my eyes, pretending to sleep. But all I could see was the word neutralize burned into the back of my eyelids.

I was in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with a man who might be my soulmate, or my executioner. I had no idea which one was sitting five feet away from me.