“Tony,” I said, pausing just long enough to meet his gaze. “Send everything to Cooper.”
“Already doing it,” Tony replied. “Don’t worry about Pampi. I’ll look after her.”
I bolted from the room, adrenaline burning through my veins like fire. The hallway blurred as I sprinted, my wolf snarling approval now, aligned with my purpose.
Hold on, I thought fiercely.Hold on, Jaime.
I burst out into the morning air, lungs filling with cold, clean oxygen, and headed straight for my car.
The cabin crouched at the edge of the woods. I cut the engine and sat there for half a heartbeat, hands locked around the steering wheel, breath coming too fast.
Pine sap and damp earth filled the air, sharp and clean, doing nothing to calm the wildfire roaring through my veins. I should have made a plan. I knew that.
Enforcer training drilled that into you until it lived in your bones: assess, observe, and prepare. But all I could think about was Jaime. I was out of the car before the engine fully died.
The shift slammed through me mid-stride, bones reshaping, skin rippling into fur as my wolf tore free with a feral snarl.
The world sharpened instantly. Every sound, every scent, every vibration through the ground lit up my senses.
Jaime was here. I could smell him. Pain. Fear. Anger. And underneath it all, stubborn, unyielding resolve. The cabin door stood ajar.
A warning bell rang somewhere deep in my skull, but momentum and instinct drowned it out. My wolf surged forward, shoulder lowered, ready to splinter wood and flesh alike.
I hit the doorway at full speed, and the world exploded. The crack of the gunshot was deafening. Fire tore through my shoulder, a white-hot lance that ripped a howl out of my throat.
My body slammed sideways, claws scrabbling uselessly against the dirt as I crashed to the ground. For one stunned second, I couldn’t think.
Pain pulsed outward from my shoulder, thick and nauseating. Blood flooded my mouth with the taste of copper as my vision tunneled.
“Chris!” Jaime’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp with terror.
That snapped me back. There was movement, fast and human. I twisted my head just in time to see Marion bolt past me, eyes wild, gun clutched in his hand as he ran for the trees.
Everything in me screamed to give chase, to tear him down right there and then and end this. But then Jaime cried out again, closer this time.
“Chris! Chris, are you alright?”
The world narrowed. Jaime came first. Always.
I forced myself upright, ignoring the way my shoulder screamed in protest. The pain didn’t matter. Not now. Not compared to him. I stumbled into the cabin.
Jaime lay on the floor near the far wall, hands cuffed to a thick metal pipe bolted into the concrete. His face was pale, jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth. Blood soaked through his pant leg, dark and ugly.
My heart shattered.
I shifted back, skin tearing into human form with a grunt of pain. I didn’t bother fully shifting my left hand.
“I’ve got you,” I said hoarsely, dropping to my knees beside him.
Jaime’s eyes flew over me, frantic. “You’re bleeding.”
“So are you,” I shot back. “Hold still.”
I brought my clawed hand down and sliced through the cuffs in a single, brutal motion. Metal clanged against concrete as the restraints fell away.
Jaime sagged forward immediately, and I caught him, hauling him against my chest despite the agony lancing through my shoulder. He was warm. Alive.
I buried my face briefly in his hair, breathing him in like I needed proof he was real.
