Stone dust and cold sweat fill the air. And underneath—smoke and winter pine. Dragon. My wolf takes it in automatically. Marks it. Files it away as data.
Enemy signature.
My pulse kicks harder.
That sensation flares again—hotter this time, flooding through my skin before I can stop it. Fast and wrong and impossible to explain.
I crush it down. Bury it beneath rage and grief and too many years of loss. A combat response. My body preparing for violence.
Nothing else.
“You know why I’m here,” I say. Not a question.
“No,” he says quietly. “But I can guess it’s personal.”
“Do you want to know?”
“Would it make a difference?”
“No.”
“Then I won’t waste my breath asking,” he says. There isn’t a flicker of sarcasm in his tone. Just acceptance. “I’m guessing I don’t have many breaths left.”
The pragmatism should make this easier.
It doesn’t.
Because there’s something in the way he stands there—controlled, competent, ready—that my wolf recognizes.Something that registers as worthy… The kind of hunt that matters. The kind that proves you’re the better killer.
My hands flex. My breathing quickens despite my attempts to control it.
“You should be resisting this,” I say.
“Would it help?”
“No.”
“Then why consume the energy?”
“Most people would at least try.”
“I’m not most people.” He shifts his weight slightly. Testing his balance. Preparing. “And you’re not most people either.”
The observation lands strangely. Like he’s seeing something I’m not showing.
I ignore it.
“You have something to say to me,” he continues quietly. “Say it.”
For a second—just a second—I want to tell him. Want to make him understand whose life he took. What he destroyed. Who I lost. The future he stole from me.
But words won’t bring Chance back.
And this man doesn’t deserve to know. He can go to the grave without that satisfaction.
“No,” I say. “There’s nothing to say.”
His jaw tightens fractionally. The only sign he’s not as calm as he appears.
