“Don’t move, Raine. He’s watching you.”

Mara’s whisper shot like ice down my spine. Her grip tightened on my wrist, nails digging into my skin.

I swallowed hard, trying to slow my pulse, but it was useless. The growl that had been following us since the ridge rattled the night air again low, primal, a sound no human throat could ever make.

“Mara,” I whispered back, “tell me you didn’t drag me into their territory.”

“It wasn’t their territory last week.” Her breath came in sharp, panicked bursts. “Something’s changed.”

The underbrush cracked behind us. Not clumsy like a deer or a bear. Controlled. Deliberate.

Every nerve in my body screamed.

Mara yanked me forward, but then

A voice.

“Too late.”

It wasn’t hers. It was smooth, masculine, but threaded with something feral.

We both froze.

A man stepped from the shadows. No, not a man. His eyes caught the moonlight and burned molten gold. His smile was sharp, wrong. His presence coiled around us like smoke.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, though his gaze locked on me and only me. “This forest belongs to the Bloodfang Pack.”

Mara’s hand trembled against mine. “Bloodfang’s extinct. Everyone knows that.”

The man chuckled, low and cold. “Do I look extinct?”

His stare was unbearable, like he could peel my skin away and read what pulsed underneath. Something in my chest reacted to the heat blooming where there should have been only terror.

“Run,” he told Mara.

“No way ”

The growl that left his throat wasn’t a sound. It was a force. Mara staggered back, face white as ash, then bolted into the trees.

I should’ve run with her. My legs wouldn’t move.

The stranger stepped closer. He didn’t walk like a predator. He glided, smooth, sure. His voice dropped to a murmur.

“You smell wrong.”

“Excuse me?” My voice cracked.

“Not fully human. Not fully wolf. Something in between.” His nostrils flared as he breathed me in. “Your blood sings too loud.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I stammered, but my body betrayed me. My pulse pounded against my throat.

“Yes, you do,” he whispered, so close his breath brushed my cheek. “And I want it.”

Then he moved lightning fast. His hand caught my jaw, pressing me against the rough bark of a pine. The world spun with his strength, the heat of him overwhelming.

I opened my mouth to scream.

He didn’t give me the chance.

“You’ll belong to me.”

His teeth sank into my neck.

Pain exploded. White-hot, searing, ripping through every nerve in my body. I gasped, the sound strangled, the forest whirling into a blur. My knees buckled.

And then

Darkness.

When I opened my eyes, the world was different.

Every sound screamed louder. The rustle of a mouse under the leaves. The whisper of Mara’s distant sobbing. The hammering of my own heart.

But he, the golden-eyed stranger, was gone.

Someone else crouched before me.

This one wasn't a shadow. He was a storm. Broad-shouldered, taller, dressed in black that clung to his frame like armor. His eyes weren’t gold, they were steel-grey, sharp and unyielding.

“You’re alive,” he muttered, voice gravel against the silence. His jaw was tight, every word forced out like he’d rather not be saying it.

“Barely.” My throat burned. My whole body burned, like fire lived under my skin now.

His gaze cut over me, not lingering, but searching. Assessing. Like I was a weapon he wasn’t sure belonged in the world.

“What did he say to you?”

“What?”

“The one who bit you.” His tone sharpened. “What. Did. He. Say.”

I blinked at him. “I don’t even know who he was.”

Something flickered in his eyes, recognition, maybe anger but he masked it quickly.

“He was supposed to be dead,” the man muttered, more to himself than to me. His hand flexed against his knee, knuckles cracking. “If Luka’s alive ”

“Who?”

He looked at me then. Fully. Grey eyes pinning me with a weight that stole the air from my lungs.

“Listen to me carefully.” His voice dropped, every syllable a command. “From this moment, you’re not safe. Not from him. Not from anyone. If you want to survive, you stay with me.”

I forced myself to sit up, glaring even though my body trembled. “And you are?”

“Killian Voss,” he said. His jaw clenched like the name was both a shield and a curse. “Beta of the Nightfang Pack.”

I swallowed. Pack. Beta.

And then he added, voice lower, sharper, cutting through the night:

“And whether you like it or not, you’re mine now.”

The word echoed.

Mine.

The golden-eyed stranger had said it too.

Two different voices. One human. One monster. Both burning the same claim into my skin.

And the terrifying part?

Every nerve in my body responded like it wasn’t a warning…

but a promise.

“Yours?” My voice cracked, half disbelief, half fury. “I don’t even know you.”

Killian didn’t flinch. His storm-grey eyes pinned me to the ground more effectively than the golden-eyed stranger’s claws had.

“You will.”

“I don’t take orders from strangers in the woods.”

His mouth twitched not quite a smile, not quite a sneer. “You think you’re in a position to argue? You were bitten. You’re changing. You don’t have the luxury of choices anymore.”

My stomach lurched. “Changing into what?”

His silence was worse than any answer. He studied me, scanning my face like he was trying to read whether I could handle the truth or whether it would break me.

Finally, he said, low and deliberate, “Into one of us.”

The words slid into the night air and settled like a weight I couldn’t shove off.

I shook my head. “No. That’s impossible. I’m not ”

“Not what?” Killian cut me off, stepping closer. His scent hit me: clean, sharp like pine smoke and rain-soaked earth. “Not human? You already know that. Not wolf? Your blood disagrees. Luka smelled it the second he saw you. And now he’s marked you.”

I stumbled back until my shoulders pressed against a tree trunk. “Who the hell is Luka?”

His jaw flexed, muscles ticking. For the first time, a flash of something like unease crossed his face. “The wolf who bit you. The one I thought was buried six years ago. The one who should never have crawled out of his grave.”

The name slithered into me like venom. Luka. The golden-eyed stranger. His voice, his claim, still burned in my ears.

“You’re lying,” I whispered.

Killian stepped closer, too close, until his shadow swallowed mine. His voice dropped, barely more than a growl.

“Look me in the eye and tell me your skin isn’t burning. Tell me your senses aren’t sharper. Tell me you don’t feel the shift beginning.”

I opened my mouth to argue but stopped. Because I did.

Every rustle, every snap of a branch, every flicker of wind carried new meaning. My blood was too loud. My skin too hot. The world too bright.

“No…” The word came out broken.

Killian’s gaze softened for the first time. Just a flicker, quickly buried under steel. “It’s already started. And if you fight it, it’ll kill you.”

A bitter laugh tore out of me. “Great. So I just…what? Roll over and accept that some psycho bit me, and now I’m a ”

“Not some psycho,” Killian cut in sharply. “Luka. And he’s not finished with you.”

The night thickened with his words.

A chill crawled up my spine. “What do you mean?”

Killian leaned in, his breath brushing my ear. “The first bite is never the last. If Luka marked you, he’ll come back for you. He’ll hunt you until you’re his.”

I stiffened, pulse thundering.

Mine. Luka’s voice.

Mine. Killian’s voice.

Both echoing, clashing inside me until I couldn’t tell which terrified me more.

I shoved at his chest. “Then I’ll run. Leave this town. He won’t find me if I’m gone.”

Killian caught my wrists, holding me still. His grip was firm but not crushing, his eyes blazing with something fierce and unyielding.

“You don’t get it,” he said. “There’s nowhere you can go that he won’t find you. Wolves don’t lose their scent once they’ve claimed it. And you ” His gaze dipped to the puncture wounds on my neck. “You reek of him.”

My breath caught. The weight of his stare pressed against my skin harder than his hands did.

“And you?” I asked, forcing defiance into my voice. “What do you want with me?”

His silence stretched. For a heartbeat, I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then

“I want to keep you alive.”

The rawness in his tone made me falter.

Before I could speak, a howl shattered the night. Long. Piercing. Echoing through the forest like a promise of death.

Killian’s head snapped toward the sound, every muscle in his body tensing. He released my wrists and growled a sound so deep it vibrated in my bones.

“Too late,” he muttered. His eyes cut back to me, sharp, urgent. “They’re already here.”

The howl split the air again, closer this time. My bones rattled with it.

Killian’s eyes snapped back to me. “Move.”

“What?”

He didn’t wait for me to argue. His hand clamped around my wrist, tugging me into motion. My feet scrambled over roots and rocks as he half-dragged, half-guided me through the trees with terrifying precision.

“Wait Mara ”

“She’s gone. If she’s smart, she’s already out of the forest.”

“And if she’s not?”

“Then pray she runs faster than Luka.”

The casual way he said it made my blood freeze.

We broke through a thicket, branches clawing at my arms. The forest pressed in tighter the deeper we ran, shadows shifting in ways they shouldn’t, like the dark itself was alive.

Another howl split the night. Answered by a second. Then a third.

I stumbled. “They’re surrounding us.”

“No,” Killian said, scanning the trees. His voice had dropped to a lethal calm. “They’re herding us.”

“Toward what?”

His jaw clenched. “Toward him.”

The earth seemed to tilt under me. Luka.

I dug my heels into the dirt, forcing Killian to halt. “I’m not going any farther.”

He turned on me, grey eyes burning. “You don’t get to decide that right now.”

“I’m not your prisoner!” My voice cracked with both rage and terror. “You think you can just ”

He grabbed my shoulders, holding me still. “I don’t think. I know. If Luka touches you again tonight, you’re his. Entirely. You won’t come back from it.”

The words hit harder than his grip.

Before I could respond, the forest erupted with movement. Shadows lunged between the trees massive shapes, too fast, too silent. Golden eyes flared in the dark.

Killian shoved me behind him, dropping into a crouch so fluid, so primal it wasn’t human. His teeth bared in a snarl that didn’t belong to any man I’d ever met.

The pack closed in. Five. No six of them. Wolves, but wrong. Larger, darker, their bodies stretched and twisted with something monstrous. Their eyes locked on me.

And then he stepped through them.

Luka.

Tall. Smiling. His golden eyes gleamed like fire.

“Raine,” he said smoothly, like we were old friends instead of predator and prey. “You didn’t run.”

My pulse thundered in my ears.

Killian growled, the sound vibrating through the air. “You’re supposed to be dead, Luka.”

“Supposed to be,” Luka repeated, tilting his head. “But here I am.” His gaze slid past Killian, locking on me. “And here she is.”

Every instinct screamed at me to run. But my body betrayed me again. Heat rippled under my skin at his stare, the bite on my neck throbbing in time with his voice.

Luka smiled wider. “She’s perfect. My little secret half-blood. You feel it, don’t you, Raine? The fire in your veins. The hunger.”

I wanted to scream no. To deny it. But my hands shook, my throat tight, because a part of me did feel it.

Killian’s voice snapped like a whip. “She’s not yours.”

“Not yet,” Luka agreed, his tone maddeningly calm. “But the bond is there. I’ve tasted her. She’ll come to me.”

“Over my dead body,” Killian snarled.

“That,” Luka said, smile sharpening, “can be arranged.”

The wolves lunged.