The sound slices through me like a knife.My control snaps.I tear toward the warehouse, Marc shouting my name behind me, but there is no stopping me right now.
I crash through a half-broken door, splinters flying in all directions.The scent slams into me full force now.Raw.Terrified.Drug-coated.Four cages line the far wall.I scan them so fast my eyes burn.Then, I see her.
A woman curled into herself, thin but unbroken, wrapped in shadows like armor.Her wrists are bruised and her pulse too faint.Her hair falls around her face in a dirty, tangled curtain, but the moment she lifts her head, my world stops.
Golden eyes.Wide and wild.Glowing faintly in the dark like a predator’s.She’s not a wolf or a dire wolf.She isn’t even canine.I clear my mind and scent the air trying to figure it out.She’s a leopard.
My breath leaves my lungs.
A leopard shifter.A species so rare even the Katu pack believes them nearly extinct.Most of us have never seen one and those that have are far and few between, the clans a myth wrapped in silence.
But this woman, this secret the Hunters clearly uncovered before we did, she’s mine.Or she would be, if she had the strength to reach for the bond.Because when our eyes meet, something in her flinches.Something trapped.Something drugged and terrified that tries to rise ...and fails.
The bond sparks, flares, and cuts out.
My chest twists painfully.I lean forward, gripping the bars.“Hey, I’ve got you.”
She doesn’t move.Doesn’t speak.Doesn’t even seem sure I’m real.
Behind me, footsteps pound closer.Marc, Godrick, and Raleigh.Another Hunter charges in with a shock baton.I don’t bother shifting, I simply snap his neck with my bare hands.
He drops to the floor with a thud.The woman’s pupils dilate, fear spiking.Shit.I’m scaring her.
I force myself to soften my shoulders, lower my voice.“You’re safe.I swear it.”
But the lie tastes bitter.We’re in a war zone.No one is safe, especially not her.
The lock isn’t simple.It’s reinforced, Hunter-tech.I slam my shoulder against it once, twice, the metal groaning.
Marc arrives beside me.“Silas, we need to fall back—”
“I’m not leaving her,” I cut him off.
He hesitates, then nods and covers my flank.One more hit and the lock snaps with a scream of metal.When I pull the door open, she flinches away so violently she hits the cage wall behind her.Her breath shudders, too fast and too shallow.
My dire wolf falls silent with worry.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I say softly.“I’m getting you out.That’s all.”
Slowly, painfully slowly, she uncoils enough to crawl toward me.Not because she trusts me.But because she has no other choice.When my hands finally slide under her, lifting her weight, the bond sparks again, warm, bright, and alive, then breaks apart like smoke in the wind.
She gasps in pain and I nearly drop to my knees.Fated mates aren’t supposed to feelwrong.Not unless she’s too hurt for her animal to answer.Not unless she’s been pushed so close to death the Goddess can barely reach her.
I hold her tighter, careful not to crush her trembling frame.“I’ve got you,” I whisper.
A lie again, because I don’t have anything under control.But I will.I will tear the world apart to make this true.
