Chapter Four – Blood and Fire

The scent of wolfsbane was thick in the air, acrid, poisonous, unmistakable!

Grey groaned, pressing a hand to his bleeding shoulder. The wound was already swelling, the skin around it turning an angry black. His regeneration was slowing.

Mira didn’t think. She reacted.

She pulled him deeper behind the dumpster and yanked off her coat. “Don’t move.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Who the hell shoots wolfsbane in the city?”

“Hunters,” she snapped, tearing through her coat pocket for the emergency kit she always carried. It was small; bandages, painkillers, a scalpel, sutures. Barely enough.

But she had one thing that mattered more: a silver syringe tucked inside the lining. One she hadn’t touched in years.

A wolfsbane neutralizer.

“You carry antidote?” Grey looked at her with something close to awe.

“Every day since I was sixteen.”

She didn’t explain that it had been meant for herself. In case her wolf ever came back.

Mira jammed the needle into the muscle above the wound. Grey cursed, his body jerking against the wall. A growl tore from his throat, deep and feral.

“Stay still,” she said, voice taut. “You want to shift with poison in your bloodstream? Be my guest.”

He gritted his teeth. “You’re mean when you’re scared.”

“I’m a surgeon. I’m always mean.”

Mira pushed the rest of the antidote in, then reached for the scalpel.

“You’re not going to cut it out,” he said, eyes wide. “Here? Now?”

“You want it in there longer?”

“Jesus, woman!”

She didn’t wait for him to finish. With one clean motion, she sliced open the bullet track and dug out the slug. Blood gushed. He let out a guttural roar and punched the wall.

She wrapped the wound quickly and looked up.

The shooter was gone.

For now.

“We need to move,” she said. “Before they come back.”

Grey tried to stand, swayed, and collapsed to his knees.

Mira caught him, slinging his arm around her shoulder. His weight was almost too much. His body was on fire, his temperature climbing with the effort to burn out the poison.

“How far is your car?” he murmured.

“I don’t have one. I walk.”

“Smart,” he said, smirking through the pain. “Less trackable.”

“Shut up.”

They stumbled out of the alley, Mira guiding them through the side streets toward her apartment. It was only five blocks away, but each one felt like a war zone. Her senses were on edge, the hair on her arms standing straight.

She could feel the hunter watching them. Somewhere.

But he didn’t fire again.

Not yet.

They reached her building; a crumbling brownstone wedged between a laundromat and a tattoo parlor. She punched in the code and dragged Grey up the stairs.

He collapsed onto her couch the second they made it inside.

Mira locked every bolt on her door. Then she turned to face him.

“You have ten seconds to explain who the hell you are and what kind of trouble you brought to my hospital.”

Grey looked up at her, still pale but smirking. “I told you. My name’s Grey. I’m your mate.”

She crossed her arms. “Try again. And this time, use actual information.”

His face darkened. “I’m the Alpha of the Bloodpine pack. Or… I was. Until they turned on me.”

“Why?”

“They wanted a war. I didn’t. So they tried to kill me. Staged a mutiny. Left me for dead in a rogue zone.”

“And you’ve been running ever since?”

“No,” he said. “I’ve been looking. For you.”

Mira’s breath caught. “Why me?”

“Because you’re not just my mate, Mira. You’re the Luna. And I need you to take back what they stole from me.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “You think I’m going to leave my life, my work, my hospital, to be Luna of a rogue-blooded pack full of traitors?”

His eyes flared gold. “You already are. The second I scented you, the bond snapped into place. You feel it too. I know you do.”

Mira turned away.

He was right.

That pull; constant, magnetic, like gravity in her chest, it wouldn’t let up.

But she’d spent ten years building a life that had nothing to do with the wolf world. She wasn’t going to burn it down over a pair of golden eyes and a broken crown.

Grey leaned back on the couch, wincing. “You were born for this. Whether you admit it or not.”

“I was born for nothing,” she said flatly. “I survived. That’s it.”

“Not anymore.”

A crash sounded from the hallway outside.

Mira’s head snapped toward the door.

Grey growled low. “He found us.”

She grabbed the silver-bladed scalpel from her coat and tossed a knife from the kitchen counter to Grey.

He caught it, still weak, but his eyes burning now.

They both turned toward the door.

And then….

BOOM.

The lock exploded inward in a shower of splinters.

A figure stepped into the doorway.

Tall. Armored. Hooded. Masked.

And then Mira saw what he was holding.

Not a gun.

A collar.

Silver, laced with wolfsbane. Built to subdue and control.

And it was aimed directly at her.

End of Chapter Four

…………………..

Who is the hunter, and why is Mira the target now? Will Grey be strong enough to fight back or is Mira about to lose the control she’s fought so hard to keep?