Chapter 5

Aria's POV

I woke up to find Cain asleep in a chair beside my bed.

For one disoriented moment, I forgot where I was. Forgot the kidnapping, the chase, everything. I just saw him, his head tilted back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, dark hair falling across his forehead and felt safe.

Then reality crashed back in.

He kidnapped me. He hates me. He's using me for revenge.

I should have been terrified or looking for a way to escape.

Instead, something deep inside me—something I'd never felt before stirred to life.

My wolf.

The wolf my father had buried under ten years of wolfsbane and lies.

She was fighting, screaming for her mate.

"No," I whispered, horror crawling up my throat. "No. Not him. Anyone but him."

But my wolf didn't care about logic or reason or the fact that this man had dragged me out of my prison only to lock me in another one. She only knew one thing: that he was mine.

Cain's eyes snapped open like he'd heard me. Maybe he had—wolves had excellent hearing, and I'd been whispering out loud like an idiot.

Our eyes met..

He stood abruptly, the chair scraping backward. "You're feeling it too."

It wasn't a question.

I wanted to lie. I wanted to deny it. But what was the point? He could probably smell the truth on me anyway.

"It's not possible," I said instead, my voice shaking. "Elena was your mate."

His jaw clenched so hard I heard his teeth grind. "Mates die. The bond can happen again. But this?" He gestured between us, his movement quite sharp and angry. "This is sick. The Goddess must be laughing her ass off."

I forced myself to stand even though my legs felt like jelly. "I don't want this any more than you do."

"Good." He took a step back, putting distance between us like I was something toxic. "We ignore it. It doesn't exist."

"Agreed." I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the fever that had burned through me hours ago. "It doesn't exist."

But we were both lying.

I could feel the pull even now, even with six feet of space between us.

This was going to be a problem.

**************************

We rejoined the crew in what looked like a makeshift war planning room. The others were already there—Mika cleaning a gun, Stanley sharpening a blade that was definitely illegal in most territories, Jax pacing around like a caged animal.

Ghost looked up from his laptop, looking grumpy. "We've got a problem."

"Just one?" Jax muttered.

Ghost ignored him. "The King's guards are sweeping the territory. They're moving in a grid pattern, and they're thorough. They'll find us in twenty-four hours. Maybe less."

"Then we move," Jax said immediately. "We pack up and—"

"Where?" Cain cut him off, his voice flat. "They'll track us anywhere. We can't outrun them forever."

The silence that fell over the room was suffocating, I scratched my heels with my toes feeling very nervous.

Bones cleared his throat. He was looking between me and Cain with an expression I couldn't read. "There's one thing the King can't touch though. Mate law."

Everyone went still.

"No," Mika said, but it sounded more like a plea than a command. "You're not suggesting—"

"A Blood Oath," Bones continued. "Ancient magic. If she's his mate—officially, bonded, the King can't touch her without breaking sacred law. And if he breaks mate law, he loses his authority. Every pack in the territory would turn on him."

I looked frantically at Cain, then Bones. "I'm not bonding with him." I ignored the furious beast banging weakly on our mental wall.

"I'd rather die," Cain said at the same time.

Ghost looked up from his laptop. "Then we're all dead. I just intercepted a transmission. The Hounds are three hours away."

Three hours.

"There has to be another way," I said, but my voice sounded weak even to my own ears.

Jax ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "We could fight them."

"And lose," Stanley spoke for the first time, in an ominous tone. "They outnumber us."

"So what?" Cain spoke, his voice cold. "We just give up? Bind ourselves to a bond neither of us wants?"

"Do you want revenge on the King or not?" Bones challenged. "Because if you're dead, you don't get revenge. And if she goes back to him, you definitely don't get revenge."

The logic was sound. I hated that it made sense.

"Elena would want us to survive," I said quietly.

The room went dead silent.

Cain's head whipped toward me, his eyes blazing, his pupils switching in between colours like he was barely restraining himself. "Don't you DARE use her to—"

"She loved us both," I interrupted, holding his gaze even though my wolf was screaming at me to submit, to look away, to not challenge the Alpha.

"And she'd tell us to stop being idiots and do what needs to be done."

Cain's jaw worked like he was chewing on glass. Then he finally spoke, "This doesn't mean anything. It's tactical."

"Agreed," I said, lifting my chin. "Tactical."

But I could see it in his eyes. The same lie I was telling myself.

*****************

The howls started before we could plan anything else.

They were already close!

"They found us early!" Jax shouted, already moving toward the weapons.

Chaos erupted. The crew grabbed guns, knives, anything they could use. Some of them started shifting—bones cracking, fur sprouting, the sound of transformation filling the warehouse.

Mika grabbed my arm, dragging me toward the back. "Stay down and stay—"

"No." I yanked free. "I'm not hiding while you all die for me."

Through the windows, I could see them. Dozens of royal guards in wolf form, massive and coordinated, surrounding the warehouse.

And in the middle of them, still in human form, stood Commander Darius with a megaphone.

"Surrender the princess," his voice boomed. "You have two minutes before we burn you out."

Cain shifted.

I'd never seen his wolf form before. He was massive— twice the size of a normal wolf, black as midnight with eyes that glowed silver. Terrifying and powerful.

The crew shifted around him, forming a defensive line. But I could see it in their stances—they knew this was a losing fight.

Ghost's human form stayed behind, laptop abandoned, gun in hand. He looked at Cain's wolf and shouted, "The ritual! It's now or never!"

Cain's wolf snarled, a sound that made the windows rattle.

I looked at the closing circle of guards, at the crew preparing to die. I looked at Cain, who'd kidnapped me but also stayed by my bedside all night.

Tactical, I reminded myself. This is tactical.

I ran to him, ignoring Mika's shout of protest and grabbed fistfuls of his black fur even though touching an Alpha wolf without permission was a death sentence in most packs.

"Do it," I said, staring into those silver eyes. "The Blood Oath. NOW."