Tether

Mara

“You’re mine until I decide you’re safe.”

He said it like it was policy, not a threat—like he’d stamped my forehead and filed me under “handled.”

I stared up at him, pinned against the cold metal of my car, his hand locked around my wrist. Close enough to feel his heat. Close enough to hate that my body noticed it.

“Mine,” I repeated. “Do you hear yourself?”

His eyes didn’t blink. “Yes.”

“Cool. Love the confidence. Hate the part where you trap women in parking lots.”

“This isn’t kidnapping.”

“Right,” I snapped. “Because you gave it a different label.”

His jaw tightened like my sarcasm was a delay he hadn’t scheduled. “If you keep talking, you’ll attract attention.”

“We’re behind a bar,” I shot back. “Attention is the business model.”

He shifted his stance, blocking the alley exit without even looking. Not dramatic—automatic. Like he’d done this before and didn’t need to think.

“Okay,” I said, forcing my voice steadier. “Explain what’s happening.”

“You witnessed something you weren’t supposed to see.”

“A crime,” I said. “Several, by the sound of it.”

His gaze slid over my face, assessing. “Not that.”

I swallowed down the memory of a human hand becoming something else. “Then tell me what you think I saw.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The gold in his eyes was answer enough.

I lifted my chin. “Let me call someone.”

“No.”

“One person,” I insisted. “A check-in. If I disappear, people notice. That’s leverage for both of us.”

His stare went flat. “Your phone will be traced.”

“By who? The cops?”

“By anyone who’s looking,” he said. “Humans bring law. Law brings hunters.”

My stomach tightened. “Hunters?”

He didn’t clarify, which made the word worse.

“Fine,” I said, scrambling for another angle. “Then you call. Call your... your.. your people. Your pack. Whoever decides what you’re allowed to do to me.”

He didn’t release my wrist. “Not from here.”

“Why not?”

I tried to lift my phone anyway, just to see, just to prove I wasn’t powerless. One bar. Then none. Of course. The back lot was a dead spot—the kind of place you couldn’t get help even if you wanted it.

He watched my screen like he could read it from a foot away. “You see?”

“I see I need a new carrier,” I said, because if I didn’t make a joke I might start shaking.

His gaze flicked to the back door of the bar. “They’ll come out soon.”

“Your friends?” I asked.

“Not mine,” he said, and that answer felt deliberate. Like there were lines inside his world and I’d stepped over one.

“What are they to you?” I pushed.

“Noise,” he said. “And leverage for Crowe.”

The name again. The knot in my stomach tightened.

“Because you’re not the only one listening.”

The air felt different after that. The music out front still thumped, but back here the night went too quiet, like the lot was holding its breath.

I kept my eyes on him while my peripheral vision slid toward the treeline behind the dumpsters. Dark woods. No light. Plenty of places to stand without being seen.

“Is this the part where you tell me there are more of you?” I asked, keeping my voice sharp so it wouldn’t shake.

“There are always more of us,” he said.

Great. Fantastic.

I forced my shoulders to loosen. “So what’s your plan, Alpha?”

His eyes narrowed at the title. Not confusion. Annoyance.

“Don’t,” he warned.

“Don’t call you what you are?” I said. “Hard to miss.”

“You don’t know what I am.”

“I know what I saw.”

He leaned closer, voice dropping. “Then you know enough to be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” I lied, because fear is a door and I wasn’t opening it.

His gaze didn’t move. “You should be afraid of the ones who’ll come for you if you leave here alive.”

My pulse tripped. “Because I saw you shift?”

“Because you heard Crowe’s name in that room,” he said. “And Crowe pays people who don’t like loose ends.”

The words landed like a weight. Crowe Construction. The fires. The missing kid. Suddenly the backroom deal wasn’t just shady—it was connected, protected, old.

“Then take me to the police,” I said. “Put me in front of cameras and paperwork.”

“Police can’t protect you.”

“That’s literally their job.”

“Not from what’s coming,” he said, and his tone made it sound inevitable.

I stared at him, trying to keep my breathing even. Hunters. Pack law. Council. This wasn’t just crime. This was a whole system living inside my town, and I’d stepped on it with boots and a recorder.

“Listen,” I said, switching tactics again. “I’m not getting in a vehicle with a stranger who breaks windows to make a point. But I will stand here and talk until you give me one thing: your last name.”

His jaw flexed. “Names aren’t for outsiders.”

“Lucky for me, you already decided I’m yours,” I said. “So pick one. Last name, badge number, whatever you people use.”

His gaze flicked toward the woods—quick, sharp. “We’re out of time.”

“Then let go,” I snapped. “I’ll run. You can watch me do it.”

His grip tightened. “If you run, they’ll hunt you.”

“Who?” I demanded.

He didn’t answer. He just looked past me, over my shoulder.

I broke eye contact, just for a second, and my stomach turned to ice.

Near the edge of the lot, half hidden by the shadow of a parked truck, someone stood watching. Still as a post. Too still. Like they’d been there for minutes, waiting for the moment I made noise.

I lowered my voice. “Is that one of yours?”

“No,” he said, and the single word was tight.

The watcher shifted slightly, and I caught a tiny glint—maybe a phone screen, maybe metal. My mouth went dry.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Now I’m listening.”

I didn’t move my feet. If I ran, the watcher would see it. If I screamed, the whole bar would hear—and then what? Another “accident,” another headline that blamed bad wiring. Gage’s body angled slightly, shielding me without admitting he was doing it, like he was placing himself between me and a bullet. The gesture pissed me off, because it worked. It also told me something I didn’t want to know: he wasn’t playing tough. He was calculating threats. In the hills, alphas didn’t ask twice; they decided, and everyone else either obeyed or bled.

He released my wrist so abruptly I almost stumbled, then caught my chin between his fingers, forcing me to look at him instead of the shadow.

“Listen carefully,” he said. “You are going to do exactly what I say, and you are going to do it quietly.”

I swallowed. “Are you going to kill me?”

His stare didn’t waver. “No.”

“Then what?”

He hesitated—just a fraction—and I felt it like a crack in all that control.

“I need you tethered,” he said.

“Tethered how?”

His eyes dipped to my mouth, and my stomach flipped in a way I refused to name.

“By blood,” he said.

Then, like arguing would waste time, he lifted his own hand to his mouth and bit down hard.