CHAPTER 5

LIAM

The girl was staring at me like I had lost my mind. Maybe I had. The last seventy two hours were a blur of blood and running and a pull in my chest that wouldn't stop no matter how far I pushed my body.

My wolf, Kain, had gone insane three days ago. Right in the middle of a council meeting with my ranked wolves. One second I was reviewing border reports and the next Kain was clawing at the inside of my skull, howling one word over and over.

Mate. Mate. Mate.

I told him to shut up. I had been telling him to shut up about mates for years. I watched my father lose his mind over my mother. Watched her twist him into a puppet until the pack nearly collapsed. I watched three other Alphas in our alliance fall apart because their mates were manipulative or weak or both. An Alpha with a mate was an Alpha with a leash. I wanted no part of it.

But Kain didn't care what I wanted. He never did when it came to this.

The pull started like a low hum in my chest. By the second day it was a rope wrapped around my ribs, yanking me south. I tried to ignore it. I buried myself in work at the company offices, signed contracts, took meetings. But the pull got worse. It started to hurt. Like something inside me was tearing apart because I was moving in the wrong direction.

Then Marcus, my Beta, tried to kill me.

I should have seen it coming. The signs were all there if I wasn't so distracted by Kain's constant howling. Marcus had been pushing back on my decisions for months. Small things at first. Questioning patrol routes. Challenging budget allocations. Testing me in front of the other ranked wolves to see if anyone would side with him.

I let it slide because I thought he would back down. He didn't.

He came for me in my office. Two of his loyalists with him. Three against one. I killed the loyalists. Marcus got his claws into my back before I put him through the wall. He ran before I could finish it.

A Beta who attacks his Alpha is a dead man walking. He knew that. Which meant he had somewhere to go. Someone backing him. Someone who wanted me out of the way.

I should have stayed. Should have locked down the pack and hunted him. But Kain was screaming so loud I couldn't think straight and the pull in my chest was ripping me apart. My wolf made the choice for me. He pushed me south. Toward her.

I didn't even know her name until I crossed into Iron Valley territory and caught her scent on the wind. It hit me like a wall. Lavender and honey and something warm underneath that made Kain go completely still for the first time in three days.

Then the name just appeared in my head. Like it had always been there, carved into a part of my brain I didn't know existed.

Neah.

Now she was standing in front of me with blood on her hands. My blood. Her dark eyes were sharp and suspicious and scared, but she wasn't backing down. Her jaw was set and her shoulders were squared and even though I could tell she was terrified, she wasn't running.

I liked that. Kain loved it.

"What do you mean they're coming for me?" Her voice was steady. Controlled. The kind of control that came from practice, not confidence. She had trained herself not to show fear. Interesting for a human.

"My Beta staged a coup three days ago. He tried to take me out and when that didn't work he ran. I've been tracking him but I lost his trail when my wolf pulled me here instead." Every word burned. The wound on my back was bad. Her stitching was clean and the herbs she used were already helping but I had pushed too hard for too long.

"That doesn't explain why anyone would be coming for me. I don't know you. I don't know your Beta. I've never even left this territory."

"I know." I tried to sit up again and the pain nearly blacked me out. She moved before I could stop her, her hand on my shoulder pushing me back down. Her touch sent a current through my skin that made Kain purr. I clenched my jaw and shoved the sensation down.

"Stay down. You'll tear the stitches." She pulled her hand back fast. She felt it too. I saw it in the way her eyes widened for half a second before she locked it down.

"My Beta has been working with someone outside our pack. I don't know who yet. But before he attacked me he said something." I paused. Not because of the pain this time. Because saying it out loud made it real and I still didn't fully understand it.

"He said that Shadow Peak wasn't the only target. He said someone wanted the human girl from Iron Valley. That she was more valuable than any Alpha."

The room went still. The dark haired wolf in the doorway, the one who hadn't moved since they brought me in, took a step forward.

"Why?" He asked. One word. His voice was like gravel.

"I don't know. Marcus didn't explain. He just laughed and said I was too late. That I would lose everything. My pack, my mate, all of it."

"I'm not your mate." She said it quick and hard like she needed to get it out before she lost the nerve.

"You are." I didn't have the energy to argue about it. Kain wouldn't let me deny it even if I wanted to. And the sick truth was I didn't want to. Every instinct I had spent years fighting was now pointed at this girl like a compass needle locked on north. "I didn't want this either. Trust me. I've spent my whole life avoiding exactly this."

"Then keep avoiding it. I'm human. This doesn't work."

"My wolf doesn't care."

"Well my wolf doesn't exist so I guess we're at a standstill." She crossed her arms and I almost laughed. Almost. The pain in my back turned it into a cough.

The blond one poked his head in the door. "Not to interrupt whatever this is, but we have a problem. I just got a call from the southern patrol. There are wolves in the woods outside our border. At least six. They aren't crossing but they aren't leaving either."

The dark haired one moved immediately. "Shane, take Miles and get eyes on them. Don't engage unless they cross. I'll stay here."

"Theo, we need to call Caleb." The girl said it and I watched her whole body shift. The fear she had been hiding cracked through for just a moment. Whoever Caleb was, she needed him.

"Already tried. He's not answering. Neither is the Alpha or Luna." Theo's voice was tight. Controlled. But I could hear the worry underneath.

"That's not possible. Aunt Diane always answers. Always." Her voice cracked on the last word. Just barely. She swallowed it down and straightened her spine.

I recognized that move. That was the move of someone who had been through enough bad things to know that falling apart was a luxury they couldn't afford.

"Let me make some calls," I said. Both of them looked at me. "I still have allies. If Marcus is behind whatever is outside your border, my people can help identify them. But I need a phone and I need you to trust me for about ten minutes."

"Trust you?" She laughed but there was no humor in it. "I don't even know you."

"You know my name. You know my pack. And you know that whatever is out there in those woods is connected to the wolves who tried to kill me tonight. That makes us on the same side whether you like it or not."

She stared at me for a long time. I held her gaze even though the room was starting to spin and my body was begging me to pass out.

Then she reached into her pocket and handed me her phone.

"Ten minutes."

I took it and our fingers touched. That current again. Stronger this time. She yanked her hand back and turned away but not fast enough. I saw the flush creep up her neck.

I made the call. My third in command, Jax, picked up on the first ring.

"Alpha? Where the hell are you? We've been looking for you for two days."

"I'm alive. Barely. Listen to me carefully. Lock down Shadow Peak. No one in or out until I get back. And Jax, I need you to run a trace on Marcus. He's working with someone and whoever it is has eyes on a pack called Iron Valley."

"Copy. Alpha, one more thing. Marcus left something behind in your office. A file. We opened it."

"And?"

The silence on the other end lasted too long.

"It's about a girl. A human. There are photos, location reports, surveillance logs going back years. Whoever wants her has been watching her since she was fifteen."

My eyes found Neah across the room. She was staring out the window at the dark tree line, arms wrapped around herself.

Someone had been watching her since the accident that killed her parents.

And I was starting to think that accident wasn't an accident at all.