Chapter Six

I wake in a bed of fur.

It takes a moment for that to register. First there’s softness, thick and heavy around my body. Then the faint drag of coarse hair against my skin when I shift. Sight comes back second. I stare up at a ceiling of wooden planks, dim and unfamiliar.

Not my bedroom.

I must have blacked out. I don’t remember getting here. Just walking through that strange town beside him, the bite throbbing on my arm, the ground tilting beneath my feet, and then nothing.

Shit.

I jolt upright and immediately regret it.

Pain slams into my skull, sharp and blinding. My vision swims, the edges going dark as my body protests the movement. I groan and squeeze my eyes shut, breathing shallowly until the pounding eases enough that I don’t think I’m going to pass out again.

When I finally look down, my arm is wrapped in clean bandages.

For a second, I just stare at them.

Did he?

No. There’s no way that prick bandaged me. He already admitted the only reason he saved me was because he likes—

I clamp down on the thought, but it doesn’t go away completely. It lingers, ugly and unresolved, pulsing beneath the dull ache in my head.

I tear my gaze away from the bandages and my stomach clenches.

I’m wearing different clothes.

When those men dragged me here, I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Now I’m in a… my thoughts trail off as I run a hand down my thigh, fingers catching on something soft and unfamiliar. I shift in the bed to get a better look.

A fox fur skirt.

And a brown suede halter top.

I snort, sharp and humorless. “That’s fucking pretentious.”

Bandaging my arm is one thing. Stripping me down and changing me into what looks like ceremonial roadkill couture is something else entirely.

That’s a different kind of violation.

I’m so busy scowling at my outfit that I don’t hear the door open.

I don’t notice him standing there, braced in the doorway with his arms crossed, until his voice hits me like a blow to the chest.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “You don’t like your outfit?”

There’s a smirk in his tone, like he finds this amusing.

Like he thinks he’s done me a favor.

“Where are my clothes?” I demand, shoving the blankets away as I stand, like that might give me back some space. Some power. I almost laugh at myself for thinking it would work.

I’m still tilting my head back to glare at him.

I was doing that from the bed too.

“You’re wearing them,” he says simply. His gaze flicks down once, then locks back onto my eyes.

“No. I want the clothes I came here in.”

“Destroyed,” he says.

My heart stutters. “Bullshit.”

“Oh?”

That’s all he gives me.

Then he turns and walks away.

I follow, because of course I do.

He leads me through a house built from my worst nightmares. Wood and fur everywhere. A fire burning low in the hearth of the living room, heat radiating out in heavy waves.

He stops when he reaches the couch and perches on the arm of it, waiting.

I don’t understand why until I look back at the fire.

My jeans are in it.

Not near it. In it.

“What the fuck!” I screech, lunging forward. I grab the poker and hook the fabric, yanking them free and dropping them onto the floor without thinking.

The denim is blackened and smoking. Holes burned clean through the thigh. The smell of scorched cotton fills the room.

They’re ruined.

I stare down at what’s left of them, my chest tight, hands shaking.

Behind me, the fire crackles.

The bear skin rug beneath my feet is untouched.

“Why would you do that?” I ask, my eyes still locked on the jeans like staring at them might undo what’s been done.

It doesn’t.

“Human clothes are a disgusting affront to everything this pack believes in.”

“You could have told me to change,” I snap. “Or sent those men with clothes I was allowed to wear.” My voice is just shy of a scream now. I don’t care.

“You would not have worn clothes they brought you, Greer.”

No. I absolutely would not have.

That isn’t the point.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I ask.

“A lot,” he says, shrugging.

I narrow my eyes at him, imagining what it would feel like to slap him. I’m not stupid enough to try it, but I indulge the thought anyway.

“You know my name,” I say. “Thanks to you, everyone knows it. I don’t even know yours.”

“You never asked.”

“When was I supposed to ask?” I fire back. “In the diner, when you knocked me on my ass? At my house, when you were in wolf form? Or when you knocked me on my ass again?” I gesture sharply at my arm. “How about when you bit me?”

The wound throbs in response, like it resents being acknowledged.

“You still haven’t,” he says.

“Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell—” I stop myself. I already know I’m not winning this. He’s not normal. “Fine. What’s your name?”

“Rurik Vane,” he says. “Alpha of the Blue River pack.”

“I asked for your name, not your résumé.” I roll my eyes and kick what’s left of my jeans back into the fire. “You’re just as pretentious as your dumbass name.”

“Greer Genevieve Walter.”

My mouth drops open as I turn to stare at him.

My boss did not give him that.

“How?” is all I manage.

“Don’t leave your mail out,” he says. “Not if you’re going to invite people into your house.”

“Invite is a strong word,” I mutter.

He cocks a brow. “The way you begged and screamed for me for eight hours suggests otherwise.”

“Fuck you,” I snap.

“You will,” he says calmly. “Soon.”

I stare at him for a long moment, trying to come up with something to say. Anything. My mind comes up empty.

“Shy now?” he asks. There’s an almost imperceptible smile at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m not fucking you again. Ever. I don’t care what you said to old Gandalf.”

“You are,” he says simply, already turning away.

I follow him, because apparently I’ve never learned when to stop.

“Not willingly.”

“More willingly than you think.”

“Bullshit,” I say, because it seems to be my default setting right now.

He stops so abruptly I run straight into his back. I bite back a curse and immediately want to put my head through the wall for noticing how solid he is.

“What you felt when you went into heat,” he says. Then he bends, bringing his face down to mine until there are only inches between us. His gaze drops to my mouth once, then lifts back to my eyes. “That was from breathing in an alpha’s scent.”

My pulse kicks.

“Now imagine what happens,” he continues quietly, “when you smell an alpha’s heat.”

I swallow. “I won’t let it happen.”

The words sound thin even to me.

“You think so?” He straightens, looking down at me like this is already decided. “You can’t fight biology.”

“Maybe not,” I say, forcing my chin up. “But I can fight you.”

He laughs. Not softly. Not cruelly. Like the idea genuinely amuses him.

“Do it.”

“I will,” I say, scanning the space as we step into what looks like a stone-age kitchen.

A wood-fed oven. A stone pit stove. No cabinets. Just shelves climbing the walls in a pattern I can’t make sense of. Everything is stone or wood or iron. Nothing hums. Nothing blinks.

There isn’t a single label on anything. Every container is opaque, sealed with a wooden lid. No boxes. No jars. No instructions.

Not an Oreo in sight.

I know immediately I’m going to hate it here.

I wander toward the shelves, running my fingers along the lids like they might give something up if I touch them long enough. They don’t. Every container looks identical. Heavy. Final.

“What’s in these?” I ask.

“Food,” he says.

I glance back at him. “That narrows it down.”

He ignores me, crossing the room to the hearth. He lifts one of the lids without looking and scoops something dark and thick into a bowl, movements practiced and efficient. He doesn’t ask what I want. He doesn’t ask if I’m hungry.

Then he dips the bowl into a basin near the hearth. I step closer despite myself, curiosity winning out over my very real desire not to be curious at all.

The water level drops for a heartbeat, then rises again, refilling itself.

“How?” I ask. I lean closer, scanning the stone. No pipes. No hum. No sound of a pump. I didn’t expect one, but still.

“It’s fed,” he says.

“By what?”

He gives me a look like I asked where the sky comes from. He sets the kettle onto the fire-fed stove, then brushes past me to grab wood from the pile by the back door.

My eyes snag on the door and don’t move. I’m not sure I could look away even if I wanted to.

I don’t get the chance to consider making a run for it before I feel the brush of his shirt against my forearm. His breath ghosts my temple, close enough that my skin prickles.

“Try it.”

I tilt my head back despite myself, and one corner of his mouth tips. Almost a smile, if a demon knew how to smile.

“I love a good hunt.”

His eyes gleam at the thought, bright and intent, and my stomach clenches in response.

I don’t bolt for the door.

That would be stupid.

Instead, I take one careful step toward it. Slow. Casual. Like I’m just stretching my legs. Like I didn’t just picture him chasing me through the woods with that same look on his face.

He doesn’t move.

I take another step.

The air feels thicker the closer I get. Not magically. Just heavy, like my body is bracing for something my brain hasn’t caught up to yet. My arm throbs where he bit me, a sharp pulse that seems to time itself to my heartbeat.

“Stop,” he says.

Not loud. Not angry.

I stop.

I don’t turn around.

“That was a test,” I say, because I can’t help myself. “Right?”

“Yes.”

I swallow. “And?”

“And you failed it.”

I finally turn to face him. “I didn’t even touch the door.”

“You were thinking about it.”

“That’s not illegal,” I snap.

“It is here.”

The words settle wrong. Heavy. Like they’re meant to.

He pushes away from the wall and crosses the room, unhurried. He doesn’t crowd me. He doesn’t reach for me. He just stops close enough that I can feel the heat of him again, that low, wrong pull in my gut tightening.

“You don’t leave the den without me,” he says. “You don’t open exterior doors. You don’t test exits.”

“And if I do?”

He tilts his head slightly, considering.

“Then I will assume you want to be chased.”

My pulse jumps.

“That’s the rule,” he continues. “You follow it, or I enforce it.”

He watches me for a moment, like he’s waiting for me to argue. When I don’t, he turns back to the hearth just as the kettle whistles. He pours the water into the bowl with the strange black substance, then sets it on the table and covers it with a lid.

I look down at the bowl, then back up at him.

“Do you expect me to consume that… sludge?”

“I do.”

“What about you?” I ask, scowling as I pull the lid back to inspect it. “Where’s your sludge?”

To my surprise, it isn’t black anymore.

I lift the lid fully.

Beef stew.

Potatoes. Carrots. Celery. Chunks of meat floating in rich broth.

I wish I could say that was the worst part.

It isn’t.

The worst part is the way my mouth waters at the smell. How my stomach tightens, traitorous and eager, like it recognizes the food before my pride can intervene.

“I ate mine this morning,” he says, adjusting the cuff of his sleeve as though it isn’t already perfect. “Three hours before you finally woke up.”

I scowl and let the lid fall back onto the bowl a little harder than necessary. The stew sloshes dangerously close to the rim.

“That’s a nasty habit,” he adds. “Sleeping until noon. I’ll have to break you of that.”

“Break me of it?” I snap. “For what?”

“There are other things I want to say to that,” I add, then bite them back. For now.

“This world does not work the way yours does,” he says calmly. “We grow our food. We hunt our meat. We do not live in days of laze.”

“Days of laze,” I repeat, rolling my eyes. He’s insane. Completely.

“You will not laze your days away,” he continues, unmoved. “You will gather. You will produce.”

“Produce what?” I demand. “You’d better be talking about fruit.”

“Whatever I give you.”

“That doesn’t answer my—”

“This is the last meal I will provide you,” he cuts in, eyes dropping to the bowl. “Eat it before it gets cold.”

I stare at him.

“You want to eat again?” he continues. “You’ll catch your own fish. You’ll shoot your own game. You will trade your bounty in the market for grain.”

“You will watch me starve to death before I do a single one of those things,” I say. My voice is flat. No humor left in it.

He doesn’t blink.

“Incorrect,” he replies. “There is only one way you’re dying.”

He looks at me then. Really looks.

“And it won’t be starvation.”