His smile spread slowly across his handsome features, transforming his face into something cold and calculating.
“Well, that’s a shame,” he said conversationally, his tone light despite the menace radiating from his frame. “Two can play this game you’ve been playing.”
His free hand disappeared into his jacket pocket, his fingers working at something she couldn’t see. The small electronic device emerged like a black spider, its red button glowing ominously in the harsh lighting.
Time crystallized into perfect, horrible clarity. She knew what it was. Knew what it meant. Knew she was about to watch everything she cared about turn to ash.
“No—“
The button depressed with a soft click.
Then the world exploded.
The blast wave hit the warehouse like the fist of an angry god, buckling the concrete floor beneath her feet and turning the windows into deadly rain. Glass shards glittered as they fell, catching the fluorescent light like malevolent stars. The sound was beyond hearing—a physical force that drove the air from her lungs and left her ears ringing with white noise.
Fire bloomed beyond the shattered windows, orange and hungry and wrong against the pristine Arctic landscape. Smoke poured through the broken glass in thick, choking clouds that turned the air toxic.
Screams and shouts pierced the chaos—voices raised in pain and panic. Clan members caught in the blast radius. Her family, possibly. Korrak, maybe.
“What did you just do?” she screamed, the words tearing from her throat.
Through the mate bond, she felt Korrak’s presence spike with panic and fury—alive, thank God—but dealing with injured clan members and burning territory exactly where he’d positioned his forces. The connection thrummed with his impossible choice. Save his people or save her.
Bracken’s arm clamped around her waist like a steel band, hauling her backward as flames began licking through the broken windows. His breath was hot against her ear, carrying satisfaction and dark amusement.
“I always plan for betrayal, sweetheart,” he said, his voice cutting through the chaos with deadly calm. “Did you really think I’d fall for such an obvious manipulation? You’re good, but I’m better.”
Smoke filled her lungs as he dragged her toward the warehouse’s rear exit, her feet stumbling over debris and broken glass. The acrid air burned her throat, but not as much as the realization that she’d failed—that her family might be dead, that Korrak’s clan was under attack, that she was trapped once again in the arms of the man she’d tried so desperately to escape.
And suddenly, Winslet found herself exactly where she’d started—helpless and watching everything she’d built burn around her.
TWENTY-TWO
KORRAK
Korrak’s lungs burned as he dragged himself from the frozen ground, the world pitching violently as his equilibrium struggled to catch up. The explosion still screamed through his skull while the aftermath came into brutal focus. The clearing he’d so meticulously surrounded now resembled a battlefield from hell. Flames crawled up the warehouse’s metal siding with hungry persistence. Debris scattered like deadly confetti—twisted metal, shattered glass, and chunks of concrete that had been hurled hundreds of feet by the blast’s force.
His ribs screamed protest as he forced himself forward. But nothing felt broken or injured. Nothing that would stop him from fighting or killing if necessary.
Bracken planned this. All of it.
The realization sharpened his fury into something lethal and precise.
The grizzly hadn’t just anticipated betrayal—he’d orchestrated it. He’d wanted Winslet to walk straight into that warehouse with her manipulation tactics. Wanted Korrak to position his forces exactly where the bomb could do maximumdamage. Wanted chaos and carnage to provide perfect cover for snatching his mate.
“Son of a bitch,” Korrak snarled, spitting blood onto the blackened snow.
His gaze swept the devastation with clinical precision, cataloging injuries and threats with the efficiency of a born predator. Three clan members down but moving—Finn clutching a bloodied arm, Niko dragging himself clear of burning debris, and Axel already struggling to his feet with murder in his eyes.
But it was the overturned SUV that made his chest constrict with panic.
The black vehicle lay on its side within the blast radius, steam rising from its crumpled hood. Winslet’s family. The people she’d risked everything to save were trapped inside twisted metal and broken glass.
No.
Through their mate bond, he felt Winslet’s terror spike against his consciousness. She was alive but trapped—exactly where Bracken had always wanted her. In his grasp. Under his control.
Around him, his clan fought through pain and disorientation to engage the enemy. The sound of shifting bone and muscle filled the air as several warriors abandoned human form for the more effective fury of their polar bear selves. Roars and snarls echoed across the frozen landscape as the battle truly began.
