Chapter 4: East

The truck moved on for hours.

Or maybe minutes. Time had lost all meaning. I lay there, sandwiched between fire and ice, the bond humming its constant, torturous song. Every bump in the road sent pain shooting through my chest. Every breath felt like swallowing glass.

But I was alive. We were alive.

Not for long though because the tracker is still in him. It’s still leading them straight to us.

We had to find someone who could remove it. Someone who knew more than we did.

The bond pulsed.

East. Go east.

I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, rough hands were lifting me. Kael's voice, low and urgent: "We need to move. The truck is stopping."

I tried to open my eyes, tried to speak. Nothing.

Ryker's cold arms wrapped around me, lifting me from Kael's grip. "I have her. Just keep moving."

The world spun. Darkness. Then light. Then darkness again.

When I finally forced my eyes open, we were in another building. Not a motel this time. Something older. An abandoned warehouse, maybe. The ceiling soared above us, lost in shadows. Broken windows let in slivers of moonlight.

Kael was on his knees a few feet away, his shirt off, fresh blood soaking through the bandages on his shoulder. His face was paler than I had ever seen it.

Ryker knelt beside me, pressing a cold cloth to my forehead. "You're awake."

"Barely." My voice was a croak. "Where are we?"

"Abandoned factory on the edge of some town. Kael found it while you were unconscious. Safe, for now."

"For now." That word was already becoming a curse.

I tried to sit up. Ryker's hand pressed gently on my shoulder.

"Don't. You need to conserve your strength."

"For what? Dying slower?"

Ryker's jaw tightened. He didn't answer.

Across the room, Kael let out a low growl of pain. I watched him press his hand to his shoulder, his whole body shaking with the effort of staying upright.

"His wound," I whispered. "It's getting worse."

"The silver is still in there. Working deeper." Ryker's voice was quiet. "If we don't get it out soon—"

"He will die."

Ryker didn't deny it.

I stared at Kael. The most feared Alpha on the continent. The executioner who had made armies tremble had been reduced to this all because of me.

I tried to stand again. This time, I made it to my knees before Ryker caught me.

"Elara, you can't—"

"I can." I shook off his hand. Crawled. Actually crawled across the filthy floor toward Kael.

He looked up when I reached him. His crimson eyes were dull with pain.

"Little wolf." His voice was rough. "You should be resting."

"You should be dead." I pulled the bandage back gently. The wound was ugly, black and swollen, veins of silver poison spreading outward like cracks in ice. "This is my fault."

"Don't." His hand caught mine. Squeezed. "Don't you dare. I would take a hundred blades for you."

"Then you're an idiot."

Something that might have been a smile crossed his face. "Probably."

Behind me, Ryker made a sound. I looked back to find him watching us, his ice-blue eyes unreadable.

"Jealous?" Kael rasped.

"Of what? A dying man and a woman too stubborn to stay unconscious?" Ryker's voice was flat. "Hardly."

But I saw it. The flicker of something in his eyes. Not jealousy, exactly. Loneliness.

I reached out my other hand. "Come here."

Ryker froze. "What?"

"You heard me." I was too tired to explain. "Come here."

He moved slowly, like he didn't trust what was happening. He knelt on Kael's other side, close enough that I could feel the cold radiating from him.

I took his hand and placed it on Kael's wound.

Both of them flinched.

"What are you doing?" Kael's voice was sharp.

"I don't know." And I didn't. Not really. But the bond was humming louder now, pulsing with something that felt almost like instruction. "Just... don't move."

I placed my hands over theirs. Ice and fire, pressed together against poisoned flesh.

The bond exploded.

Light erupted from where our skin met—silver and gold and something beyond color. Kael screamed. Ryker gasped. I felt it all, the fire in his blood, the ice in his, the poison eating away at both.

And then, slowly, the poison began to retreat.

The black veins receded. The swelling eased. Kael's wound pulled together, not healed but no longer dying.

When the light faded, we all collapsed.

I lay there, gasping, caught between them. Kael's breathing was steadier. Ryker's hand still gripped mine.

Then Ryker's eyes went wide.

"Your neck," he whispered.

I looked down. The black veins from the bond poison were gone.

Completely gone.

"I am healed?" I whispered.

Ryker shook his head slowly. "Not healed. Transferred."

"What?"

He lifted his own sleeve. Black veins crawled up his wrist.

"The poison didn't disappear. It moved. From you... to me."

I stared at him. At the black veins. At the horror in his ice-blue eyes.

"You took my poison?"

"The bond did. When we shared, it... redistributed." He looked at Kael. "Check your wound."

Kael pulled back the bandage. The silver poison was gone from his shoulder too.

But new black veins were spreading across his chest.

"No," I breathed. "No, no, no—"

"It's okay." Ryker's voice was calm. "We're Alphas. We can handle what you couldn't."

"You don't know that!"

"No." Kael's hand found mine. Squeezed. "But we know we'd rather carry this than watch you die."

I stared at them. Two Alphas. Two sworn enemies. Both now carrying the poison that had been killing me.

Because they had chosen me.

"Why?" The word cracked.

Ryker's lips curved into something almost like a smile. "Because you're ours, little wolf. And we protect what's ours."

The bond hummed. Different now. Not poison but connection.

But underneath it, something else.

A ticking clock.

If the poison could transfer, it could also kill them.

And I'd just watch it happen.

Then the howling started.

Far away. But getting closer.

Ryker was on his feet instantly, frost spreading across the floor. Kael stood too, slower, but standing.

"They found us again," Ryker said.

"How? We masked our scents. We left no trail."

Kael's eyes met mine. "The light and the tracker."

"A beacon," Ryker agreed. "Straight to us."

"We run again." Kael grabbed his jacket.

"We can't." Ryker's voice stopped him. "Look at her."

I looked down at myself. I was pale. Weak. But the black veins were gone.

"I can run," I said.

"You can barely stand." Ryker moved to me, lifted me gently. "I will carry you."

"You're poisoned now too."

"Then we're all poisoned." Kael's voice was grim. "Makes us even."

The howling grew closer. Lights flickered outside the broken windows.

"They are surrounding the building," Ryker said quietly.

Kael's shadows flared. "Then we fight."

"With what? You can barely stand. I have her poison in my veins. She's unconscious half the time." Ryker's voice was tight. "We fight, we die."

And then I felt it.

A pull. East. Faint but insistent.

"Can you hear that," I whispered.

They looked at me.

“Hear what” Ryker asked.

"East. There's something east. Someone."

"A trap," Kael said.

"No." I shook my head, certain in a way I couldn't explain. "Someone who can help. Someone who knows what I am."

Ryker's eyes narrowed. "A seer?"

"I don't know but it's better than dying here."

The howling was almost on top of us now. Boots pounded outside. Voices shouted orders.

Kael and Ryker exchanged that look. The one that meant they were having an entire conversation without words.

"East," Kael said finally. "We go east."

"Through the back." Ryker shifted me in his arms. "There's a service exit. If we're fast—"

"We're never fast enough." Kael moved to the door, shadows flickering. "But we're still alive. That counts for something."

We ran.

Behind us, the factory doors exploded inward.

Behind us, the hunters poured in.

Behind us, death followed.

But ahead—east—something waited.

Something that might finally give us answers.

Or something that would kill us all.

Either way, we were done running.