CHAPTER TWO

Matteo

The scent of motor oil and metal made my nose wrinkle in disgust.

This was the place?

A pitiful mechanic shop tucked in the ass-end of nowhere?

I stepped over a discarded wrench and shoved open the garage doors with enough force to make them scream on their hinges. My boots echoed across the concrete floor, followed by the thud of my men dragging in a wheezing, red-faced human behind me.

Clyde Braxley.

Debt collector. Scum. Informant.

He was barely standing now, held between two of my wolves. Blood trickled from his nose, and one of his eyes was already swelling shut.

Good.

I turned toward him, my voice low but sharp. “Are you absolutely sure this is the place?”

He gulped, the sound wet and pathetic. “Y-Yes. I swear. This is where she works. The Carrington girl.”

“The last of that cursed bloodline?”

He nodded quickly. “She’s been hiding here for years. Goes by a fake name. But it’s her. I promise.”

I looked around the empty shop. Everything was in place. Half-disassembled bikes. Open toolboxes. A mug with lipstick still on the rim. Warm engine oil cooling in the air.

But no one was here.

She’d run.

Damn it.

A low growl vibrated in my throat. My wolf was already pacing under my skin, snarling, restless.

I turned to my men. “Sweep the woods. Don’t stop until you’ve torn every damn tree apart. She’s close. I can smell her.”

The order was met with a flurry of movement—boots crunching gravel, men shifting into wolves, claws digging into the earth. They vanished into the forest like shadows with teeth.

Beside me, Kai Maddox, my Beta and closest ally, leaned against the frame of the broken garage door. His face was calm, but his eyes were sharp.

“You’re sure it’s her?” he asked.

I didn’t answer immediately. I walked to the center of the garage and inhaled deeply.

Her scent was still in the air. Not just oil and sweat—but something else. Something soft. Wild. Unmistakably wolf.

Unmistakably her.

“Ten years, Kai,” I said quietly. “I’ve hunted ghosts. Scoured cities. Burned villages. I’ve torn through every lie and ledger looking for the last of the Carrington filth.”

Kai gave a small nod. He didn’t need reminding. He was there the night the Bloodshade Pack burned.

“My father. My brother. My mother.” My voice darkened. “All dead because of her family. They set the trap. They watched us burn. And she vanished like smoke.”

Kai’s voice was low. “So what happens when we catch her?”

I turned my head, my jaw clenched tight.

“I do what should’ve been done ten years ago,” I said. “I finish what her family started.”

A cold wind cut through the air, carrying the sharp scent of pine and…

There. Her again. Stronger now. Fresh. Not from the shop—from the woods.

I didn’t wait.

My eyes burned gold, claws stretching beneath my skin, and I stormed into the trees. My pack moved silently around me, spreading like a net, but I didn’t need them to find her.

She was calling to something primal in me. Rage. Memory. And something else I couldn’t name.

The closer I got, the thicker the air became—charged with heat and electric static. My Alpha aura rolled off me like smoke. It was instinctive, forceful, dominant.

I felt them before I saw them.

Two shadows, crouched behind a fallen log. Female. One trembling slightly. The other still as stone.

There you are.

I pushed more of my aura into the clearing. Not enough to kill—just enough to suffocate. They’d feel it in their bones. In their blood. Their wolves would bow, even if they didn’t want to.

Sure enough, they froze. One clutched the other protectively, but they couldn’t move. Couldn’t run. My power held them fast.

I stepped into view, slow and deliberate. My heart thundered in my chest—but not from anticipation.

From something I didn’t yet understand.

“Which one of you,” I said, voice low and lethal, “is Aveline Carrington?”

The shorter one, with streaks of dirt and sweat on her face, lifted her chin despite the weight of my aura pressing down on her. Her brown hair was a tangled mess. Her eyes were sharp—too sharp for someone her age. Worn down by years of surviving.

“I am,” she said, voice shaking but defiant. “What do you want with me?”

I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what I wanted—to erase her bloodline. To avenge the ghosts of my family. To fulfill the promise I’d whispered over their corpses.

But I never got the words out.

Because my wolf—

My wolf roared.

MATE!!!

The sound slammed through my skull like a bell made of iron and flame.

I stumbled back a half step.

No. No, this isn’t possible.

My vision flickered. Her scent crashed over me like a tidal wave. My wolf, once snarling for blood, now howled with hunger. Need. Obsession.

Mate. Mate. Mate.

“No…” I breathed, eyes locked on hers. “No. You can’t be—”

But the bond was already tightening. The invisible thread between us coiling like a brand into my chest. My wolf thrashed, clawing at me from the inside, desperate to get to her.

This wasn’t happening. This was wrong. This girl—this cursed, cowardly, Carrington-born traitor—couldn’t be my mate. And yet… every cell in my body screamed that she was.

Aveline blinked, confusion and fear twisting across her face. She didn’t feel the bond yet. Or maybe she did, but didn’t recognize it.

She stepped forward, her legs shaking beneath her, lips parting. “You…”

“Don’t speak,” I snapped, my voice more broken than I meant it to be.

She froze.

I turned away from her, struggling to pull air into my lungs, struggling not to shift or throw myself at her or collapse from the heat rushing through my veins.

This was the last thing I expected.

And it was a curse.

I clenched my fists, drawing blood from my own palms, and hissed the only thing I could say without losing my mind:

“I should kill you where you stand.”

She didn’t flinch. “Then do it.”

And that was the moment I realized just how dangerous this girl was. Not because of her blood. Not because of her past. But because even now—especially now—I didn’t want to kill her anymore.

I wanted to claim her.

And that terrified me more than any enemy ever had.