Chapter 4 – “He Started Watching Me”

SIENNA

Kieran had assigned his Beta to follow me two days ago. 

Damien was good at his job—quiet, efficient, always three steps behind. But somewhere along the way, the Alpha decided the Beta wasn’t enough. Now it was Kieran himself who appeared in the hallway when I walked past the armory. 

Kieran who stood on the upper walkway when I crossed the courtyard. Kieran whose gaze stayed fixed on me even when he pretended to speak with his officers.

He was watching.

And I hated how much I noticed.

I kept my steps light, my shoulders slightly hunched, the perfect picture of a human girl who still flinched at loud noises. Inside, I mapped every weak point of the stronghold the way I used to map enemy lines. 

The eastern wall still had that cracked support beam. The southern gate locks were old and slow. The water storage tanks sat too close to the generator room. One well-placed explosion and half the Northern Pack would be drinking poisoned air.

Ronan met me near the supply sheds, exactly where I told him to wait. He gave a short nod, nothing more. No bowing, no loud respect. Just quiet loyalty. That alone was enough to draw attention.

“You’re too obvious,” I murmured as I passed him.

“He’s been staring at you since sunrise,” Ronan answered under his breath. “Want me to create a distraction?”

“Not yet.”

I moved on before Kieran could decide the conversation looked too familiar.

The supply run was announced an hour later. Three trucks, twelve wolves, and me. Kieran insisted I come. “You have good eyes for useful things,” he said, like it was a compliment instead of an order. I didn’t argue. 

Being outside the walls meant more chances to see who was still alive from my past life—and who needed to die next.

We left through the western gate under a sky the color of old bruises. The air smelled of smoke and rotting flesh. Zombies moved in slow clusters between the abandoned buildings, their moans rising and falling like a broken song. 

I stayed close to the second truck, scanning rooftops the way General Ravenna once scanned battlefields.

The ambush came fast.

They dropped from the upper floors of a half-collapsed mall—faster, stronger, smarter than the usual dead. Someone had been feeding them. Or training them. 

A thick arm slammed into the side of the lead truck and sent it skidding. Gunfire cracked. Wolves shifted mid-run. The smell of blood hit the air like a switch.

I moved without thinking.

My body remembered what my new human muscles shouldn’t. I ducked under a swinging claw, rolled, and drove a broken metal pipe straight through a zombie’s eye socket with a precision that made two nearby wolves stare. For one second I was Ravenna again—cold, efficient, deadly.

Then Kieran was in front of me.

A massive zombie lunged from the side. He shoved me back hard enough that my shoulder hit concrete. His arm took the full force of the attack. Claws ripped through his jacket and into muscle. Blood sprayed across my face—hot, metallic, his.

“Stay behind me,” he snarled.

I should have let him bleed. I should have watched the man who once left me to die finally feel what it was like. Instead my hands were already pressing against the wound, tearing a strip from my own shirt to bind it. The old instincts were still fighting the new hatred.

“You’re an idiot,” I said through clenched teeth.

He laughed once, low and rough, even as more dead closed in. “You’re welcome.”

We fought our way back to the trucks. By the time the engines roared and the stronghold gates slammed shut behind us, Kieran’s face had gone pale under the blood. Damien tried to take him to the medical wing. Kieran refused. His eyes found me across the courtyard and stayed there.

That night he sent for me.

I walked into his private quarters expecting another interrogation. The room was dim, lit only by a single lamp near the desk. Kieran stood with his back to me, shirt discarded, fresh bandages wrapped tight around his upper arm. The air smelled of antiseptic and something darker—anger, restraint, the kind of tension that made the hair on my arms rise.

He turned when the door clicked shut.

“Who the hell are you really?”

No greeting. No soft approach. Just the question that had been building behind his eyes for days.

I didn’t step back. I walked closer instead, stopping only when I could see the flecks of gold still burning in his irises.

“Someone who should have stayed dead.”

The words left my mouth quiet and steady. For a heartbeat neither of us moved. Then he closed the distance in two long strides. His hand caught the side of my neck, not gentle, not careful. His mouth crashed against mine like he was trying to punish the answer out of me.

I bit his lower lip hard enough to taste blood.

He made a sound low in his throat—half growl, half something hungrier—and kissed me deeper, like the copper taste only made him want more. My back hit the wall. His injured arm braced beside my head, the other hand gripping my waist hard enough to leave marks. I could feel every line of tension in his body, the same way I used to feel it when we stood on opposite sides of a war table.

I hated him.

I hated the way my pulse jumped when his teeth scraped my bottom lip. I hated the heat that spread low in my stomach when he pressed closer. I hated that part of me—the part that still remembered being Ravenna—wanted to drag him down with me.

He pulled back just enough to speak against my mouth.

“You’re not human.”

“Does it matter?”

His forehead rested against mine. Both of us were breathing hard. Neither of us stepped away. The silence stretched, thick and dangerous, filled with everything we weren’t saying.

Outside, the distant moans of the dead rose again on the night wind. Inside this room, the real fight had only just begun.

I looked up into the eyes of the man who once ordered my death and let the truth settle between us like a blade.

He still didn’t know my name.

But he was starting to understand that the girl he claimed was never going to be easy to keep.