Rowan watched us both. Then he leaned in again, voice barely louder than a friend's exhale, and said to Nora, "They'll use anything they can to take the child. Be ready."
The words lingered between us like a storm front.
7
NORA HAYES
The bus wheeze-screeches, then lurches to a stop. Jamie's hand curls in mine like he's terrified I'll let go. My fingers are cramped but steady. I tell him, low and flat, "Look at me. Count to three with me." He breathes. I breathe with him.
The white truck rolls up too slow. Too deliberate. Two men in the cab. One leans his head out and smiles with the wrong teeth.
My skin pricks the way it did the night Ethan's scent hit me—an old, impossible flame under my ribs. Fated mate—that word still surprises me when it rises—but there is no room for that now. There is a child and a truck and men who have gone too far.
"Excuse me, miss," the taller one says, voice butter-smooth. "Is this Jamie Hayes? We got a call—supposedly your—friend said he could come by."
He glances at Jamie with that light that measures children. My stomach twists.
"No." I crouch and slide between the truck and Jamie. "He's fine. Sit—stay." I put myself in the line like a shield. "Bus. Come on, Jamie. We gotta go."
Maybe it's the way I move. Or the way my voice holds—stubborn, exhausted, refusing to break. Maybe the men expectedan easy mark. The shorter man steps out, hands in his pockets like he's casual. He moves fast.
The taller reaches over the hood. A hand goes for Jamie.
I react before my mind does. I shove the man's chest. My heel catches on gravel. He grabs me instead and laughs like a man who owns too much and fears nothing.
"Let him go!" I bark, sharper than I mean. The bus driver freezes, eyes wide. Mothers look up, clutching grocery bags. Somewhere a small kid starts to cry.
A low, animal sound answers me. It isn't the bus; it's under everything—a howl the ground remembers. The truck's radio clicks off. Both men freeze like someone cut the air.
The first wolf I've heard in full fury comes out of the pines. Then another. Then five. Then Ethan's voice, close and cold as winter: "Easy."
He doesn't run. He steps. No fanfare—just the pack, a wall moving with human faces, a dozen hard shoulders in jeans and boots. The men back up against the truck like prey pressed into a corner.
Ethan is a shadow apart from the group. Up close his scent is a tide that pins my lungs—protective, dangerous. It anchors me to the place I've not allowed myself to be anchored: that farmhouse, the child, him.
"Hands off," he says. Two syllables with a promise buried in them.
The taller man tries to grin. "Look, we?—"
"You stop talking," Ethan says. His voice is ice and a blade. A pack member jerks the man by the collar; his partner sees the teeth bared and drops to his knees, suddenly smaller than his boots.
They were clumsy—their plan leaking in the way they fumbled names and used the wrong pronouns, too certain about routes. That carelessness is a gift once muscle and scent and oldhabit set in motion. Miguel and Rowan flank them. Lena ties them with rope like she used to string hay bales. Nobody makes a show. The kids on the bus whisper and point, then frown and look away.
I shake as I pull Jamie to my chest. He clings, and for the first time since the funeral his body unfurls against me like a thirsty plant drinking. "It's okay," I murmur. "I'm right here."
Ethan's eyes find mine. No warming smile—only gravity and the kind of hunger that used to terrify me. He steps close, too close; the warmth of him seeps into my gloves. He smells like wood smoke and rain and something that says home. My heart jumps. My hands press harder into Jamie's back until he breathes against my throat and the sound steadies me.
"We saw them." Miguel's voice is blunt. He holds up a mud-streaked phone. The taller man had dropped it when Lena cuffed him. "Phone's busted, but—" He hands it to Ethan.
Ethan thumbs it open. My name and the child's photograph blink on the cracked screen. Messages: short, businesslike. Arrangements. Money. A line that sends cold through my bones: "Make it uncomfortable. Let them think county will step in. He'll sell."
"Who?" Ethan asks. Not angry—anger comes later.
"Agent called," the man on the truck says, voice small. "Suit. Said he wanted the place. Told us to make Jamie a liability. Said a rough night would get 'em to sign."
The smaller man keeps trying to pull yarn out of a knot, names tripping from his mouth—Rivers. "Kane Rivers. Paid good. Said he'd handle loose ends."
Kane. I swallow. The name had been a rumor at the diner—a man who smells like money and brings services that come with broken promises. Kane Rivers and his developer crew have been circling landowners, offering 'fair' buyouts and drifting like vultures. Ethan turned one down earlier; I remember his flat,tired laugh when he told me. "I don't sell the ground my hands know," he'd said.
