LOGINI lower Emily's hand to the bed. Stand. Walk downstairs.The basement level of the facility is where the pack keeps things the hospital board doesn't ask about. Concrete and cold and one guard at the stairwell who steps aside without a word. Alex is in the last room, cuffed to a pipe. His face is a map of what my fists did three days ago. Broken nose. Both eyes purple. Lip crusted dark.He looks up when I walk in and smiles, and the smile is red."Three days. Is she awake?"I crouch in front of him so we're eye level. I don't hit him. I want him listening."I've been thinking about what to do with you," I say. "I spent the first day planning your execution. The second day I realized killing you is a mercy, and I'm not feeling merciful. So here's what happens now. You're a wolf, Alex. You heal. Which means everything I break grows back, and everything that grows back can be broken again. This room is soundproofed and off every record in this building. You're not a prisoner here. Prison
NICKThe nurses change shifts at 7 AM and 7 PM. I know this because I've watched them do it six times.They come in and check Emily's vitals and adjust the IV and write things on her chart and look at me in the chair beside her bed. They don't ask me to leave anymore. The charge nurse tried on day one and I looked at her and she backed out of the room without finishing the sentence. The pack runs this facility. Every nurse on this floor answers to me before they answer to the hospital board, and they all know it.My clothes are the same ones I wore through the forest. Blood on the collar. Pine needles in the seams. The cut on my forearm from the lycan has closed but the scar is raised and pink, and my ribs ache when I breathe too deep. I haven't showered. I haven't eaten more than the crackers Sage brought me yesterday, still sitting on the windowsill in their wrapper.Emily's hand is in mine. It's been in mine for three days. Her fingers are warm and limp and her chest rises and fall
Alex spins and the needle tears out of my skin, and the roar that fills the room comes from the chest of an Alpha who has found his mate strapped to a table.Nick crosses the room in three strides, torn clothes, blood seeping through the bandages on his chest, the lead knife in his fist. Alex raises the syringe between them and Nick swats it out of his hand. It hits the wall and shatters, pale blue running down the white paint in thin lines.Nick drives the knife at his head and Alex ducks, faster than he looks, and the blade buries itself in the doorframe.Then the lycan is there.It hits Nick from the side and they go down into the instrument tray, scalpels ringing across the tile, the lead knife jarred loose and spinning away. I pull against the straps until the leather opens my wrists."NICK!"Its jaws drop open above his throat. His hand finds a scalpel on the floor and he buries it in the creature's forearm, and in the half second its grip loosens he rolls, snatches the lead kni
EMILYThe door opens and Mia runs through it.She hits me so hard the medical bed rocks. Her arms lock around my neck and she's shaking, shaking so hard her teeth chatter against my collarbone."Mama. Mama mama mama.""I'm here. Baby, I'm here."My wrists are still strapped. Her small ribs heave against my chest and her tears soak through my shirt and my arms are six inches from closing around her and the leather won't give."Alex. Take these off."He watches from the doorway with the same expression he wore whenever I burned dinner in our apartment. Mild disappointment. A little tired. Like I've inconvenienced him by existing.Then he crosses the room and unbuckles the left strap, then the right, and my arms close around Mia so fast she gasps. I curl my body around hers and press my face into her hair. Soap and tears and the fabric softener from Agnes's fur. Agnes is crushed in her fist between us."Are you hurt? Did anyone hurt you?""No. I watched cartoons. But I was scared, Mama."
NICKI wake up tasting blood.There are pine needles under my face and cold dirt against my cheek, and my ribs grind when I breathe. The claw wounds running from my shoulder to my hip are still open, and the blood pooling under my body is warm against the cold ground.Small fingers press against my wrist."Dad." Mason's voice comes out thin. "Dad, your heart is going really slow."I open my eyes. He's sitting beside me in his jacket with two fingers pressed against my pulse."Hey, buddy.""You got hurt.""Yeah.""Really bad.""Where's Mama?"His bottom lip pushes out. His eyes fill, and he shakes his head."Mia too?"He nods.I push myself up. My arms buckle, my face hits the dirt, my ribs grind against each other, and the sound that comes out of me makes Mason flinch."Dad, don't. Sage said don't move."Then Sage is above me, tear-streaked, my blood dried on her hands. "Nick, stay down. Your ribs are broken and the claw wounds haven't closed.""Where is she?""Alex has her. And Mia.
SAGECole's blood has dried into the lines of my palms. It's under my fingernails now, dark and stubborn, and I've stopped trying to wipe it off because there's nothing clean left to wipe it on. Forty minutes I've been sitting on this road with his head in my lap, watching his wolf work beneath the surface of his skin. The gash on his forehead has closed to a pink seam and the swelling around his eye is going down, but he hasn't opened his eyes, and his chest keeps catching mid-breath in a way that stops mine every single time.I should have screamed when the car hit. When the metal crumpled and the glass broke and his head snapped forward into the steering wheel, some sound should have come out of me, but Derek's hand was over my mouth before it could, and now the scream lives behind my ribs, building pressure with nowhere to go.A few feet away, Mason is curled against Nick's side. Nick's wolf hasn't moved since Derek and I dragged him out of the trees. His silver fur is matted dark
NICKCole is sitting across from me looking like a man who already knows how this ends.“Tell me again,” I say.“I set up the resort. Donated the trip through Reed Consulting. Structured it through the school competition.”“Without telling me.”“You wanted time with her outside the apartment. You s
NICKMason is finally asleep.It took forty minutes. He cried for the first twenty not loud, not the thrashing kind, just the kind that a five-year-old does when he’s too tired to sob but too upset to stop. He asked me three times if Mia was really his sister. I said yes three times. On the third o
I go downstairs.His door opens in three seconds. Sweats. T-shirt. Mason asleep on the couch behind him.“You knew I’d be at the gala.”He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t step back. He holds the door open wider and looks at me with the steady grey eyes of a man who’s been waiting for this.“Come in.”“I do
Nick and I stare at each other across the hallway. “We’ll use Alexander’s bond,” I say before Nick can speak. Dr. Harrison’s expression shifts to concern. “Ms. Winters, I need to be very clear about the risks—” “I understand the risks. Alexander will bond with her.” “Emily—” Nick starts.







