Chapter 10

Gideon's POV

The storm was reaching its violent peak, turning the mountain ridge into a chaotic landscape of mud, roaring water, and thrashing pine branches. I moved quietly through the thick underbrush, keeping my heavy canvas cloak drawn tight around my neck.

At sixty years old, my wolf was slower than he used to be, but my eyes and ears were still as sharp as a newly honed skinning knife.

I was heading back toward my shelter after checking on my fox-tail traps when the sharp scent of copper and fresh rogue sweat caught the cold wind.

I froze behind the trunk of an ancient hemlock tree, my hand instinctively dropping to the ivory handle of the hunting blade at my belt. Through the heavy curtain of rain down in the ravine, two men were crouched by the bank of the rushing stream.

I recognized them instantly. Kael and his younger brother, Bratt—two ruthless, banished enforcers who inhabited the lower valley, preying on whatever weak or injured travelers stumbled off the main pack roads.

Bratt was hauling something heavy up out of the gravelly mud.

"Easy with her," Kael grunted, wiping rain from the jagged scar over his eye. "If we bruise her up too bad, the traders won't give us half her worth."

"She’s out cold anyway," Bratt grumbled, dragging a limp figure into his arms. "Feels like she's burning up with a fever. Her skin is like hot iron."

The rain shifted for a fraction of a second, blowing the heavy fog out of the ditch. The silhouette Bratt held wasn't a fellow rogue or a seasoned border scout. It was a young woman, small-framed, draped in a soaked, dark wool cloak that was plastered to her pale skin. Her dark brown hair was matted with wet leaves and silt, her head rolling uselessly against Bratt’s rough shoulder.

And then her scent hit my nostrils.

It was faint, drowned out by the downpour, but unmistakable: crushed mint, fresh rain, and honey. But underneath that delicate sweetness lay the bitter, metallic stench of a broken mate bond—a jagged, raw wound in her soul that was radiating pure agony.

She was a pack girl. An Omega, recently cast out or fled from the high territory, left to die in the freezing wilderness.

"Put her down, Bratt," I called out, my deep voice cutting through the roar of the rushing creek with smooth, unhurried authority.

Both men spun around, their hands snapping instantly to the heavy iron axes strapped to their leather vests. Kael peered up the muddy slope through the dark, his scarred face twisting into a sneer when he spotted my graying hair and weathered face.

"Old man Gideon," Kael spat, taking a step forward through the slick gravel. "Mind your own business and keep walking back to your cave. We found her first."

"She’s a child, Kael," I said calmly, taking a slow, deliberate step down the muddy embankment. I kept my hands visible, resting loosely near my belt. "And she’s severely ill. Look at her face. If you drag her five miles to the trading camp in this downpour, she’ll be a corpse before you reach the outer gates."

"Then we’ll sell her boots and her cloak," Bratt barked, tightening his rough grip around her small waist. The girl let out a faint, pained whimper in her stupor, her brow furrowing as if trapped in a nightmare. "Get out of our way, old wolf."

"I won't tell you a second time," I said quietly, dropping my stance just an inch.

Kael snarled, a low, guttural growl rumbling in his throat as his eyes flashed a dull, sickly yellow. He drew his axe and lunged up the muddy bank toward me, swinging the heavy iron blade in a brutal, horizontal arc meant to take my head clean off.

He was fast for a rogue, but he was sloppy, relying on brute force rather than balance.

I stepped inside his guard before the swing could finish, my left hand slapping his wrist aside to alter his blow. In the same fluid motion, I drove the butt of my heavy hunting knife directly into his solar plexus. The wind exploded out of his lungs in a wet gasp. As he doubled over, I brought my knee up hard into his jaw. Bone crunched, and Kael went down like a felled log, slipping face-first into the muddy gravel.

Bratt’s eyes widened in shock. He dropped the girl instantly, reaching for his own weapon.

Before his fingers could even wrap around the wooden handle, I closed the distance between us, stepping over his groaning brother. I planted my boot firmly against Bratt’s chest and shoved him backward into the swollen stream. He hit the freezing, rushing current with a loud splash, losing his footing and going under, carried thirty feet downstream before he managed to drag his head above water, gasping and swearing.

"Take your brother and clear out," I growled down at the riverbank, my eyes glowing a firm, steady amber. "If I see either of you near my ridge again, I won't use the back of my knife."

Bratt scrambled out of the shallows further down the river, shivering violently, and dragged his dazed, bleeding brother up the opposite bank. Within seconds, the thick underbrush swallowed them both.

The quiet returned to the ravine, broken only by the steady drum of rain and the rushing creek.

I turned back to the girl. She lay on her side in the mud, half-submerged in wet leaves. I knelt beside her, sliding my calloused fingers against the side of her neck to check her pulse. It was fast, shallow, and fluttering like a trapped robin. Her skin was scolding hot, a dangerous mountain fever taking hold of her exhausted body.

"Hang on, little one," I muttered softly.

I carefully picked her up into my arms. She was shockingly light, her small frame shivering against my chest despite the burning heat radiating from her skin. Her head fell back into the crook of my elbow, her pale lips parted as she drew thin, raspy breaths into her lungs.

As I shifted her weight to get a better grip, her dark wool cloak pulled back slightly, exposing her midsection.

My wolf stilled inside me.

I dropped my gaze to her stomach. To an untrained eye, she looked merely thin and battered. But as a healer who had tended to the women of the northern tribes for thirty years, I recognized the subtle, almost imperceptible shift in her aura. The faint, delicate pulse of a new life was fluttering deep within her womb—fragile, hidden, but stubbornly holding on despite the cold and the trauma.

"A child," I breathed, shock settling into my bones. "You ran into the winter wilderness carrying an unborn pup."

The severity of her situation pressed heavy on my shoulders. She hadn't just survived a rejection; she was carrying the blood of whoever had broken her. If she stayed out here another hour, the frost and the fever would take them both.

I adjusted her securely against my shoulder, wrapping my thick canvas cloak around her soaked body to shield her from the biting wind. Gathering my strength, I began the long, steep climb up the muddy ridge, navigating the treacherous terrain with practiced ease.

Twenty minutes later, the dense pine trees gave way to a secluded, rocky clearing tucked beneath the overhang of a high granite cliff. Tucked safely out of the wind sat my cabin—a sturdy, low-slung structure built from heavy timber logs, its stone chimney releasing a thin, steady trail of sweet oak smoke into the rainy sky.

I pushed the heavy wooden door open with my shoulder, stepping inside out of the howling gale, and kicked the latch shut behind us.

The air inside was warm, smelling faintly of dried lavender, burning birchwood, and crushed wintergreen roots. A small fire crackled quietly in the stone hearth, casting a soft, golden glow across the room.

I carried the girl over to the narrow timber bed near the fire, laying her down gently upon the thick stack of dry wolf furs and woven woolen blankets.

She groaned softly as her head hit the goose-down pillow, her eyelashes fluttering, but she remained deep within the haze of her fever. Her hands twitched, her small fingers grasping blindly at the fur blanket as if searching for something to anchor her to the world.

"Shh, you're safe now," I murmured, stepping back to strip off my wet cloak and toss it onto the wooden drying rack near the door.

I moved quickly around the small cabin, gathering my supplies. I placed a large copper kettle of fresh well water over the hearth fire, then turned to the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling beams. I pulled down bundles of white willow bark to break her fever, raspberry leaf to tone her womb, and crushed goldenseal to fight off the infection brewing in her chest.

I sat on the wooden stool beside the bed, dipping a clean linen cloth into a basin of cool water, and gently wiped the dark mud and dried river silt from her pale face.

Up close, without the mud disguising her features, I could see the sheer toll her journey had taken. Dark, purple shadows bruised the soft skin beneath her eyes. Her lips were cracked and bleeding, and her wrists were lined with red, raw scrapes from crawling through the stone culvert.

"Who cast you out, little Omega?" I whispered, pressing the cool cloth against her burning forehead. "And who was foolish enough to let a female like you slip away?"

She stirred at my touch, her head turning slowly on the pillow. A single, hot tear leaked from the corner of her closed eye, slipping down her cheek and soaking into the linen cloth.

"Jaxson..." she whimpered, the name coming out as a broken, barely audible thread of sound from her dry throat. "Please... no..."

I paused, my hand freezing over her brow.

Jaxson.

There was only one man by that name in this quadrant of the mountains: Jaxson Vance, the newly ascended Alpha of the Bloodmoon Pack.

I looked down at the delicate, broken girl resting on my furs, my jaw tightening as the pieces of the puzzle clicked together. The sudden rejection, the severed bond, the secret pregnancy, and the desperate flight across the border into the dead of night. The proud young Alpha of the south had discarded his true mate to keep his hands clean for pack politics.

"A foolish boy playing at being a king," I grunted under my breath, wringing out the cloth and placing it back on her forehead.

The kettle over the fire began to whistle softly, steam rising into the cozy warmth of the cabin.

I stood up to prepare the medicinal brew, looking back one last time at the sleeping girl. She had a long, brutal road ahead of her, and the fever would fight her through the night. But inside this cabin, protected by heavy timber and stone, the northern storm could no longer reach her.

"Sleep, child," I said softly, stirring the crushed herbs into the boiling water. "You're done running."