CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER THREE.

Nova’s POV

The night feels wrong.

I don’t know how else to describe it. The desert is supposed to have noise crickets, wind skimming over dry brush, the occasional things. Instead, it’s dead quiet, the kind of silence that prickles my skin  and gives me goosebumps.

Cassian walks ahead of me, his stride loose but his shoulders are tight, like he’s waiting for something.

 He hasn’t said much since we left the clubhouse. He doesn’t have to. His shoulders do the talking, tight beneath the leather. His head tips every so often, like he’s catching sounds I can’t.

Every instinct in me wants to ask what’s wrong. Every ounce of survival says keep your mouth shut.

I hug my arms tighter, staring at his back. He looks untouchable like that, black jacket gleaming faintly under the rising moon, boots crunching over dirt. Untouchable and already half gone, like he is sensing things I can’t.

Weird

“Stay close,” he says suddenly.

I jolt. He hasn’t turned, hasn’t slowed, and the sound of his voice is sudden.

“Not planning to wander off,” I mutter, but my feet quicken anyway.

We’re not far from the clubhouse—two miles, maybe three but the stretch of road feels endless. My throat is dry. My nerves are screaming at me to sense something.

But I can’t do that because I clearly can’t do whatever the hell Cassian is doing. 

And then I see headlights heading at us.

Bright lights cut through the dark, too many at once. The engines are loud before I even see them, the sound raking down my spine.

Cassian stops in his tracks.

Six bikes speed past us in a blur. The wind they drag slaps my hair to my face. For half a second, I think they will keep going, just another pack of bikers doing their thing.

But they don’t.

The tires screech as they stop. The circle closes.

They form a half-ring around us, headlights blazing so bright I have to throw up a hand to shield my eyes. My pulse rockets. Cassian’s arm clamps around my wrist and moves me out of their sight and behind him. I stumble, but he steadies me without looking back, his body in front of mine like a wall.

Boots hit the ground. Jackets gleam with another motorcycle club patch. Definitely not his.

Probably a rival?

“Well, well.” One of them steps forward. His grin too wide. “The Crawl moon prince himself. Slumming it?” His gaze flicks to me, and my stomach lurches. “Or just entertaining company.”

Laughter ripples through the group. Ugly, hungry.

Cassian doesn’t flinch. He shifts slightly, enough to block me from their view. His hand twitches once at his side.

“She’s not yours, is she?” the man presses. “Shame to waste her. Pretty thing like that.”

My heart is a hammer against my ribs and I feel the heat of Cassian’s back against me, the fury rolling off him.

“Leave,” Cassian says.

Just one word, but it cuts through the laughter.

The man tilts his head with a smile. “Or what?”

The answer comes too fast for me to process.

Two of them lunge.

Cassian shoves me sideways, and I hit the floor hard, the breath knocked from my lungs.

 I scramble up, choking, just in time to see him move.

It’s wrong, the speed of it. He’s a blur, a storm in human form. His fist meets the first man’s jaw with a crack that is loud. The second slashes at him with a knife. Cassian twists, catches his wrist, and snaps it like it’s nothing.

A scream tears from his throat and I wince at the loudness of it.

The others move forward. Boots, blades, fists, snarls—snarls that don’t sound human.

The fight is chaotic, brutal and raw. They move faster than men should. When they hit, it’s with bone-cracking force and the air stinks of blood afterwards.

One man lunges at Cassian, teeth bared and I swear I see them, too sharp, too long, gleaming.

I blink. Disbelief makes my mind slow.

Cassian groans, not sounding human. The sound is strange, like a beast coming through and then he changes.

I don’t see the start of it. One blink he’s a man, the next he’s breaking apart, bones cracking, skin tearing open like a cage. Fur rips through his flesh. His shoulders hunch wider, muscles bulging, jaw splitting into something monstrous.

It should be grotesque. It should send me screaming.

But I can’t look away.

Because what stands where Cassian was—what rises to its full height in the moonlight is a wolf.

Not a normal wolf. A nightmare. A beast. Massive, silver-eyed, fur streaked dark where blood splatters. His teeth gleam, long and lethal. His growl vibrates through the ground.

The rival gang falters, but too late. He launches at them, a storm of muscle and fur. One man goes down under his weight, blood spraying as teeth find flesh. Another swings a blade, but the wolf twists, fast, savage, snapping his arm like a twig.

The sounds are wet, brutal, final. The others panic, cursing, scrambling for their bikes. They turn on their bikes and within moments they’re gone.

The silence after is deafening.

I’m still on the ground, palms scraped, knees shaking. My breath saws in and out. My brain chants impossible, impossible, but my chest—my chest feels something else.

Because he turns to me.

The wolf. Cassian. Both, somehow.

Silver eyes glowing, locking onto mine. Not feral. Not empty. Him. Always him.

I should run. Every instinct screams at me too. Get up. Get away. Pretend none of this ever touched you.

But my body doesn’t listen.

Instead, I rise, dirt clinging to my palms, and take one unsteady step closer.

His chest heaves, fur bristling, streaked with blood that isn’t his. He stands rigid, muscles coiled, as if he’s waiting for me to scream, to break, to flee.

Instead, my voice scrapes out, raw “Cassian?”

His ears flick. His head lowers. Those impossible eyes soften, the way he did when he stood too close at the bar, when his warning came too late.

Something in me unravels. Something I didn’t know was wound so tight. The tether pulls hard, snapping me forward, heart first.

Not terror. Not revulsion. 

The moonlight hums against my skin. My pulse is loud, yes, but not with the urge to run. With the urge to close the space between us, to press my palm to his impossible chest and feel the truth of him.

I hear my own voice, shaking but clear. “I don’t want to run.”

The wolf stills. Completely.

Then he shudders. Bones twist, fur melts back into skin, and in a rush of impossible sound, Cassian is kneeling in the dirt again. Human. Bare chest heaving, blood streaked down his arms, sweat coating his skin.

His eyes are still lit with something wild, something untamed. But they’re his. Always his.

“You should be afraid,” he rasps.

“I am,” I whisper back, stepping closer, close enough to smell the blood on him, the smoke, the salt. “Just…not of you.”