CHAPTER TWO

I couldn’t speak. The sound of the rain, the roar of the bikes still rumbling behind him, the distant barking of a dog in someone’s yard, everything faded beneath the weight of his voice as he stepped into view.

Five years. Five whole years without seeing his face, and yet the moment his helmet hit the wet pavement and his eyes met mine, I knew. No one else had those eyes. Blue as ice, fierce as fire, watching me like I was both a ghost and a threat.

My knees hit the cold pavement fully now, and I gasped as pain exploded in my side. My ribs. Something had cracked, maybe broken. I couldn’t tell anymore. My whole body throbbed. But I didn’t care. He was here.

My ex-stepbrother. My forbidden memory.

He looked down at me without moving, his tall frame casting a shadow even in the dim yellow glow of the streetlights. His black jacket clung to his chest, rain trailing off the leather, and his jaw was harder, sharper, sculpted like it had been carved by war itself. This wasn’t the boy I used to sneak glances at across the pack house courtyard. This was a man. A dangerous one.

“Draven…” I breathed as I tried to rise, my voice breaking on his name.

His gaze didn’t soften. He stepped closer with slow, deliberate strides.

I flinched, not from him, but from the cold, from the sharp edge in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“Get her up,” he barked over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off me.

Two of the other men dismounted behind him. One had a scar running down his cheek; the other was towering, probably seven feet tall. They came toward me with hard steps.

I scrambled back, heart racing, arms bracing behind me. “No! Don’t. I can walk,” I lied, grabbing the edge of a trash bin to push myself up, ignoring the burning scream in my side.

Draven raised a hand to halt them, and the men froze in place.

I stood, legs wobbling, soaked from head to toe, chest heaving like I’d run for miles. “Why are you here?” I asked through clenched teeth, holding his stare.

His brows twitched, but his voice remained clipped. “You’re not in any shape to ask questions,” he said, arms crossed over his chest.

“I can still ask,” I countered.

A muscle jumped in his jaw.

The last time I saw him, he was twenty and laughing under a full moon, shirt half off, chasing one of the younger wolves through the woods. I was sixteen then, and hopelessly in love with someone I had no right to feel anything for. But the boy from that memory was gone. And the man in front of me? He looked like he’d forgotten how to laugh.

“I’m taking you with us,” he said flatly as he turned back toward his bike.

“Why?” I asked, my voice thin, sharp with confusion.

Draven stepped closer again. My heart stuttered against my ribs. “Because I said so,” he muttered, as if that answer should be enough.

I didn’t argue. I wanted to. I should have. But I was too tired. Too broken. And some stupid, buried part of me,some little girl who used to trust him, still felt the faintest flicker of safety in his presence. Even if I didn’t know what he wanted from me.

One of the wolves handed him a thick black cloak from the bike. Draven stepped forward and threw it around my shoulders, not gently, not roughly, just efficient. Cold.

“Ride with me,” he ordered, gripping the handlebars as if waiting for me to argue.

And I did. Without a word, I climbed onto the back of his motorcycle.

I didn’t ask where we were going. I don’t know how long we rode, if maybe minutes, maybe hours. I pressed my cheek against his back, every bump in the road a knife against my bruised ribs. My fingers curled around the sides of his jacket to keep from slipping, though part of me feared he’d pull away.

He didn’t speak. None of them did.

The world passed in a blur of trees, dark roads, and the smell of wet pine. The rain had faded to a drizzle by the time we reached what looked like an old lodge, hidden deep in the forest.

He parked first. Everyone else waited until he dismounted before they did the same. He climbed off and turned to me.

I almost expected him to help me off the motorcycle. But he didn’t.

So I swung my leg over clumsily and nearly fell to the gravel. My foot slipped, and I let out a choked sound as my body tipped forward.

A strong hand grabbed my arm before I could fall.

I looked up, breath caught. Draven’s jaw tightened. “You’re still reckless,” he muttered, as if annoyed he had to catch me at all.

“And you’re still a jackass,” I said before I could stop myself, pain lacing my voice as I brushed his hand off.

His eyes cut to me, sharp and sudden, like a blade unsheathed. But then… just for a second… something flickered across his face. Something almost like amusement.

It was gone before I could be sure.

He let go of my arm, his voice already retreating. “Inside,” he ordered, turning away.

The lodge was warm. Dimly lit. Wooden walls. A stone hearth where the fire crackled low. It looked like a safehouse. But to me, it felt like a den.

He walked ahead like I was nothing. Like I was just a job. A burden. A mistake that should’ve been left bleeding in the rain.

A woman near the fire stood quickly as soon as he entered. She didn’t even glance at me, only at him. Her spine straightened like she sensed power before he even spoke.

“This is Liora Hale,” he announced without looking back.

“She stays here. No one touches her. No one speaks to her. Not until I say,” he added, voice cool.

And that was it. He started walking away, like I wasn’t even standing there. Like I hadn’t almost died tonight. Like he wasn’t the boy I used to dream about.

“Wait,” I said, my voice low and tight as I stepped forward.

He paused at the doorway, his back still turned to me.

“I...” I swallowed hard. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say. But the words rushed out anyway. “I didn’t know you’d come,” I confessed, breath shaky.

He turned his head, just enough to look at me over his shoulder.

And there it was. That face. The one I memorized five years ago. His jaw was sharper now, eyes colder, but it was him. The boy I once followed like he was my whole world. The boy who made me feel safe in a house where I was always too quiet, too unwanted.

Even when it was forbidden, I felt it.

That bond.

Since I was sixteen, I knew it in my bones. He was mine. And now he was here but not the way I dreamed.

His stare cut straight through me, slicing deeper than any blade. And then he spoke, each word colder than the rain outside.

“I didn’t come to save you,” he said, voice as sharp as ice.

I froze.

“You’re not here because you matter. You’re here because someone has to pay for your father's sin,” he said with cruel finality.

I shook my head, heart pounding like a war drum. “I don’t understand. What did he do?” I asked, desperate, voice cracking.

Draven stepped closer, his presence towering, suffocating. “You really don’t know?” he asked, gaze hard as stone.

I blinked up at him, trembling where I stood. “No… I don’t. I swear,” I pleaded, every word aching.

He scoffed, the sound cold and sharp. “Of course you don’t. He kept you protected. Sheltered. While I’m the one who suffered,” he said, eyes burning now.

His voice dropped lower, like a growl caught between his teeth. “And now, you’re all that’s left of him.”

His eyes were ice.

And in that moment, I knew:

He didn’t come to save me.

He came to make me bleed for a past I didn’t even understand.