Chapter Text
The icy wind whips my face as I run - faster, farther than ever before, trying to put distance between myself and my new reality.
The one I didn’t choose.
The landscape opens up in front of me as I reach the top of a hill, and the endless barren forest for miles makes my stomach drop. It’s beautiful , in a creepy aesthetic kind of way, but that beauty might be the death of me. I have no idea where I am, and winter is fast approaching. If I don’t find a town before snowfall, I’m not sure I’ll make it out there without proper prepwork. A winter pack full of dried meats. A fur-lined bedroll. My silver daggers.
My breath hitches as I think about my life before all of this, how simple it was. How much I miss the quiet. The stillness of a misty morning sunrise. If I close my eyes, I can almost pretend that I’m still there, tracking something sinister through the woods, earning my pay one contract at a time.
Things were simple, and I was alone.
I’m never alone anymore.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise as I sense a presence behind me. I know exactly who it is before I even turn around.
Dark eyes snare onto mine and my heart thumps loudly in my chest. They’re the same eyes I’ve been dreaming about since the moment I first saw them days ago.
Kane. Brother to the Alpha, but just as strong and twice as stubborn. Anyone with a lick of sense keeps their distance from him. Whispers tell of his cruel nature, how he treats women in the pack like playthings for his own pleasure and breaks his enemies’ bodies so badly that they beg for death. Some say he’s so twisted because he never found his mate, but I bet she saw him and ran. Ran so fast that he never knew she existed at all.
That was my first mistake - not running fast enough. He caught my scent the moment our eyes met on that first day, and now he won’t let me go no matter how many times I run from him. From the pack.
I can’t seem to escape his gaze, no matter where I turn or how many times I close my eyes to block his out. Here now, with him , I’m not alone.
It feels like I never will be again.
“What are you doing here?” My tone snaps like the naked branches rattling in the wind, but he doesn’t flinch. He keeps staring me down, a deep scowl marring his features.
Handsome. Brutal. Waves of emotion crash over me in the few seconds that pass, a sickening mixture of anxiety and arousal as adrenaline pumps through my veins. I don’t know what it is about him that makes me so wound up , but being around him always makes me want to run like hell. To him, from him - my heart can’t decide what it wants as it flutters beneath his gaze.
When he doesn’t respond to my question, I turn away and start descending the other side of the hill, slowly this time so that I don’t lose balance on the rain-slicked leaves.
He follows at a distance, but I can feel him like an itch on my back and a burn on my scalp. I can hear him breathing deep, feel him exhaling hotly across my neck despite the literal space between us.
As I reach the bottom slope, I spin on my heel and glare up at him, hands on my hips. “ What do you want?” I yell, my voice echoing into the stillness. Crows caw as they flee from my anger, leaving the two of us dreadfully alone. More so than before.
Fog rolls out behind him slowly, closing us in.
I feel claustrophobic. Sick. Anticipatory. Like I’m waiting for something.
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until he speaks.
“It’s not safe out here.”
Exhaling harshly, I shake my head at how obvious that is. We’re in the godforsaken woods - the same woods I’ve hunted monsters in for years. “And?”
His jaw clenches, and the hint of stubble lining his cheek sends a shiver down my spine. How I’ve dreamt of it scraping against my throat, his sharp canines burning my skin as he bites down—
My body heats at the mental image and I wish, desperately, for the cold air to overpower my desire and block it out.
Kane’s entire body stiffens, making him seem more statue than flesh and bone. “You should head back. It’ll be dark soon.”
I roll my eyes, tearing my gaze from him as I turn back around. “I’ll be fine . I won’t stay out long.”
I just need to memorize the best path out of here—
The low growl rumbling from his chest pulses straight between my thighs, my breath catching in my throat. Fuck.
I’ll dream about that tonight for sure.
Kane’s breath is on the back of my neck as he closes in. “Don’t fucking lie to me.” Like thunder, he snaps, waves of anger rolling off of him and onto me. They wash over me and threaten to weigh me down, stop me in my tracks, so I grit my teeth and pick up the pace. I’ve got to keep moving.
I don’t care to answer him.
He storms after me, close enough to grab me. Like a shadow at my back.
I won’t be able to truly run away if he knows my chosen path. Internally, I groan. If I have to mark fake trails before leaving, it’ll take me that much longer to escape this place.
“ Rya. ” My name is a warning on his lips, and I hate that I love how rough it sounds on his tongue. Goosebumps prickle my arms as the sick attraction I have to him turns sour in my mouth.
I hate how he makes me feel more than I hate being trapped here with his pack.
“ What? ” I hiss, throwing my hands up. “Why the hell do you care ? I’m going for a walk. I need some air.”
I need some space away from you.
“ Air doesn’t mean you need to leave our fucking territory,” he growls, leaning so close to me that I can feel the heat radiating off his skin. “ Air doesn’t mean you run for miles , making me fucking track you all the way out here.”
“I never asked you to!” I turn on a dime and shove his chest, but he doesn’t budge, doesn’t even topple a little, and my anger and frustration double. “I’m fine on my own!”
He exhales harshly, and his scent wafts over me. Cinnamon and citrus. My favorite combination.
My mind must be really fucking with me now.
Shaking my head, I shove him again, harder. “Go back home, Kane. I don’t need you.”
“ I don’t need you. ” His eyes flash dangerously, a glimmer of gold sparking in their depths. “I don’t need your bullshit. Running away. Plotting whatever the fuck you’re plotting. I don’t need it. ” He growls again, lower, deeper , and I hate how my toes curl and my thighs clench. If he notices my body’s reaction, he doesn’t let on, thank god.
Almost everyone in the pack fears this man. I hear the way they whisper about him, the way they flinch away as he approaches, the way they only look at him when he’s facing another direction. The only ones unaffected are the pack leaders - and even they don’t all like him.
But they have to respect him. He’s a leader just like them, for some unknown goddamn reason. He’s the least inspiring of them all. He doesn’t lead anyone as far as I can tell.
He’s only in leadership because of the Alpha blood in his veins, but it’s no wonder his brother took up the mantle after their father.
There’s no way Kane will ever be Alpha.
“Then let me go.” I shove myself off of him, palms against his chest, and take two steps back. “I never asked for you to follow me.”
If he walks away now, I’ll leave. No one will come looking for me if he tells them not to.
The power is in his hands right now. Not mine. No matter how much I want it to be mine.
His nostrils flare and his jaw ticks. He glares fire into my eyes, golden fire courtesy of his Alpha blood, and grunts out a harsh no. “No one leaves. Not you, not anyone.” His arms cross over his broad chest and he jerks his head to the side, wanting me to start moving in that direction towards home. “Turn your ass around and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“Is that an order?” I scoff, mirroring his posture with my arms crossed. “Are you giving the orders now, Kane?”
Not being able to give Alpha orders to loyal pack members like his brother can is a sore spot for him, I know it is , but he doesn’t give anything away. Slowly, his lips curve into a sinful smirk as his eyes travel down my body. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Someone to tell you what to do? Order you onto your knees?”
Heat lashes across my body like a whip, and I cover my burning desire with anger. “Fuck you,” I seethe, already walking away from him. “It’s no wonder everyone hates you, Kane. You’re a fucking asshole.”
“I call it like I see it,” he muses, clearly smiling behind me. “You like to act all independent, but I know you’d jump at the chance to get fucked. For someone to hold you down and break your stubborn streak. No one’s tempted you? Not even a little?”
I swallow hard and keep my eyes on the trees ahead of me. He’s the only one who’s even remotely turned me on for some reason, and I have a feeling he fucking knows it. Maybe it’s a wolf sense I haven’t tapped into yet since I haven’t had my first moon. I don’t know.
I just hate how naked I feel every time he walks into the room, like he can taste my soul every time he takes a breath around me. Like I can’t hide anything from him.
It’s unnatural. Everything about this is so fucked up.
Kane sighs when I don’t take the bait. “Look, Rya, you don’t have to like it, but you’re part of the pack now. The sooner you get with the program, the better. Stop trying to run away. You’ll die out here as soon as some feral wolf catches your scent. They’ll attack you, and you have no way to defend yourself.”
“I’m not weak.” I can hear the pain in my voice, and I rein it in. My anger quickly deflates as I think about how my life changed so suddenly a week ago. How I was human one moment and bitten the next.
Changed into something I don’t recognize.
“I can defend myself,” I continue stubbornly. “I’m not an idiot.”
“You are , Rya,” Kane growls, what little patience he has snapping, “you are if you think you’ll survive out here. But fine.” I can hear his boots dig into the soil as he starts walking back uphill, back towards pack grounds. “Get yourself killed. I don’t fucking care.”
I wait to see if he’s serious, if he’ll really leave me here. If he does, what was the point of him trekking out here in the first place? For amusement? Maybe he’s bored and wants to toy with me? To kill me himself for being such a pain in his ass?
After a minute passes and he doesn’t seem intent on turning around, annoyance prickles my skin. He’s wasted my time, and daylight is burning fast.
I know he’s close enough to hear me, so I call out to him. “You’re not going to try and stop me?”
He appears at the top of the hill, like he’s been perched up there waiting for me to turn around and follow him home. He stares me down for a few seconds before lifting one shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. “It’s your funeral. Do whatever the fuck you want. Get yourself killed. Like I said, I don’t care.”
I grate my teeth at the discomfort blossoming in my chest. He’s lying. I know it. I don’t know how I know, but I do.
I also don’t know why he cares.
“Why are you out here?” I ask again, circling back to my original question. “Did the Alpha give you an order?”
Kane’s eyes narrow. “I don’t take orders from anyone, especially not him.”
I roll my eyes. Right. Because pack wolves can ignore orders from their Alpha. I scoff aloud, and Kane’s expression darkens. He must not like my reaction.
But I don’t get the sense that he’s lying, and that can’t be possible. No one can ignore their Alpha’s orders. It’s monster logic 101.
“Whatever,” I grumble, clenching my eyes shut. His quirks are not my problem. They don’t impact me - or my goal - whatsoever. “I’m leaving now. Goodbye, Kane, and thank god for that.” I toss him a sarcastic half wave before picking a random direction to follow.
At this point, I don’t care where I go as long as I get away from him and his fucked up pack.
It only takes one second for him to catch up to me. I’m not sure if he leapt through the air or took three quick, long-legged strides to get to me - but the next thing I know, he’s got his arms wrapped around me from behind and his breath hot in my ear as he growls, sending sparks straight to my clit.
Fuck.
“You are the biggest fucking pain in my ass,” Kane growls, and I swear I feel him inhale deep, his chest expanding to its fullest as he drinks in my scent.
My traitorous body melts into him, and I let out a growl of my own. One I’m not sure where the hell it came from.
“ Get off me! ”
He barks a laugh, picking me up easily and hoisting me over his shoulder. Face first with his ass while mine is perched atop his shoulder, I curse him out. Loudly. Repeatedly.
He spanks me, the pain blossoming from the point of impact immediately turning to warmth in the cold dusk air, and my core clenches traitorously.
“Fight all you want,” he grunts, hauling my ass back to pack territory one solid step at a time. “I like it when a bitch can bite back.”
I fume silently as he laughs, the sound echoing through the misty woods and catching beneath my ribs, making my heart thump louder.
It’s the worst traitor of all.
I’ll never be alone again, not with Kane’s cruel, carefree power cutting into my heart and stitching itself a home.
With every beat, I can feel him in my veins.
And I fucking hate myself for it.