10 Claimed by a Stranger

Nyra’s POV

I forced myself to scramble backwards, slipping on damp stone, heart racing.

I couldn’t do this again.

I couldn’t survive another bond, another promise, another waiting, another public shame.

I turned, ready to run deeper into the cave, ready to disappear into darkness,

The black wolf shifted.

The transformation happened in a blur of bone and breath, fur folding into skin, power compressing into human form. One heartbeat he was a beast; the next he was a man, tall, broad, naked, and impossibly calm.

He stepped towards me and caught my wrist before I could bolt.

“Not so fast,” he said.

His voice was rough, amused, like fear was something he’d never had to negotiate with.

I froze.

Because when I turned and looked at him properly, my breath left my body.

He was… devastating.

Grey eyes that looked like winter storms. Dark hair falling in messy strands around sharp features, cheekbones and jaw carved as if someone had cut him out of stone and decided perfection wasn’t enough, so they added danger too.

He looked older than me. Not by a year or two.

By enough that it showed in the way he held himself, like he’d seen things, survived things, killed things, and none of it had made him softer.

I tried, tried, to ignore the fact that he was naked. Tried to focus on the way his hand held my wrist, firm but not crushing. Tried to focus on the way that strange new bond was tightening in my chest like a noose.

The ginger wolf shifted too, turning into a handsome man with fiery hair and sharp eyes. The brown-gold wolf followed, taller, leaner, quieter but gorgeous still.

They didn’t look like anyone from my pack.

The ginger man huffed, eyeing me with something like concern. “Let her go,” he said, voice stern. “She’s frightened.”

The dark-haired man didn’t release me. Instead his mouth curved into a slow, infuriating smile.

“Don’t bolt on me, miss,” he drawled, playful, as if we were meeting in a market and not in a cave with dead rogues at our feet. “Haven’t gotten to know you yet.”

My pulse hammered in my throat.

I swallowed hard. “I’m not… I’m not running.”

The lie came out shaky.

But I needed him to let go.

His grey eyes searched mine for a long moment, as if he could read every bruise inside me.

Then he loosened his grip slightly. “Good.”

He finally let me go and turned his head. The ginger man tossed a pair of shorts across the cave like he’d done it a hundred times. The brown-gold man did the same.

They caught and pulled them on quickly, matter-of-fact, as if nakedness in a life like theirs was just another detail. I wondered where the shorts had come from. I guess it was the gingered haired secret.

The dark-haired man, though, didn’t hurry.

He held the shorts in his hand for a moment, still watching me, still wearing that faint, maddening amusement.

Then he tugged them on.

Only then did he speak again, voice lighter. “So,” he said, tilting his head. “Why were you in the woods all by yourself? I heard this is rogue territory.”

I nodded because words were stuck behind my teeth. My throat felt swollen with everything I’d been carrying.

“I got lost,” I managed.

He studied the blood on my arm, the way I was favouring my leg. His expression shifted, like a door closing.

The playfulness faded.

He stepped closer. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing,” I said automatically, because that was what I always said.

His eyes narrowed. “It’s not nothing.”

He didn’t ask permission.

He moved in one swift motion and swept me up into his arms.

I gasped, instinctively clutching his shoulders, and pain lanced through my ribs so sharp it made me see black.

I flinched.

A sound slipped out of me, small and broken.

He froze instantly, gaze snapping to my face. “Where?”

“My side,” I whispered, shaking. “My leg too.”

His jaw tightened. The air around him turned colder.

“We’re taking you home,” he said.

“I, ” I tried to protest, panic flaring. “No. Don’t. I can, ”

He didn’t listen.

He carried me out of the cave like I weighed nothing, his arms steady, his steps sure even as the forest tried to swallow us again.

The two other men followed, silent now, alert, scanning the trees like shadows belonged to them.

I clung to the dark-haired man despite myself, my body trembling, because the alternative was falling.

“Where is home?” he asked, voice clipped.

“My cabin,” I whispered. “Outskirts. I… I’m not welcome anywhere else.”

He glanced down at me, eyes hard. “You’re bleeding.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. I am taking you to the hospital.”

I swallowed, forcing the shame up past my throat. “Take me home,” I pleaded. “I’m not welcome in the pack hospital.”

He didn’t even slow. “We’ll see.”

“No,” I whispered, panic rising. “Please. They won’t help me. They’ll, ”

He kept walking.

He carried me straight over the boundary stones like he owned the land. Like rules didn’t apply to him. Like the pack’s hatred couldn’t touch him.

By the time the pack lights came into view, my vision was blurring again. My body felt heavy. My injuries pulsed in time with my heartbeat.

Wolves on patrol turned, startled by the sight of an unfamiliar man carrying a bleeding girl. Their eyes widened. Whispers sparked like fire.

The dark-haired man didn’t care.

He pushed through the hospital doors like a storm.

The pack doctors rushed forward at first, alarmed by blood and scent and urgency,

Then they saw me.

And something ugly changed.

Their hands stopped mid-motion. Their eyes flicked away. Their bodies tightened as if touching me would stain them.

One of them, an older doctor with grey at his temples, stepped back.

“She’s, ” he started, then shut his mouth like saying it out loud was distasteful.

The dark-haired man’s voice cut through the room like a blade. “Help her.”

The doctor swallowed. “She is an outcast.”

The words landed like a verdict.

The doctor’s gaze flicked to my injuries with mild irritation, not concern. “It would be best if you left her to her fate.”

My chest tightened.

Even now.

Even bleeding.

Even nearly fainting.

Still they wanted me to disappear quietly.

Anger snapped through the dark-haired man so fast it made the air feel charged.

He stepped forward, towering, eyes flashing like a storm breaking.

“If you don’t save my mate,” he said, voice low and lethal, “I will make sure you all pay for it!”