“I am,” I interrupt. “I need to get back to my pack.”
He sighs, a quiet sound in the darkness. “I know. I just… I don’t want you pushing yourself too hard.”
“You don’t think I can do this?” The question slips out before I can stop it, blunter than I intended.
There’s a long silence, long enough that I wonder if he’ll answer at all. When he does, his voice is so quiet I have to strain to hear it.
“No. I know you can. But I don’t want to break the only good thing I’ve found after three years of hell.”
His simple honesty steals my breath. I don’t know how to respond, don’t have words equal to the weight of his confession.
Instead, I find his hand in the darkness, threading my fingers through his. It’s a small gesture, inadequate to express what I feel, but it’s all I can offer right now.
See?my she-wolf asks.He’s ours.
Kier squeezes my hand gently, accepting what I can give without demanding more. We lie there in silence, hands clasped between us, until sleep finally claims us both.
Chapter
Fourteen
Morning brings a flurry of activity as we prepare for our departure. Kier heads out early to hunt and forage while I transform what rags and blankets I can find into a makeshift pack. We’ll need to carry water, food, and what few weapons we’ve managed to cobble together.
By the time he returns with more rabbits and a handful of early spring greens, I’ve assembled a rough backpack torn from strips of cloth and hastily sewn together with a dull needle and some old thread.
“Impressive,” he says, eyeing my work.
“Thanks,” I say with a smile. “It’ll make do in a pinch.”
We spend the rest of the day in preparation—smoking meat over the fire, filling water containers, fashioning crude weapons from kitchen knives and broken furniture. By sunset, we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.
Our last night in the cabin is quiet, filled with anticipation and unspoken concerns. We go to bed early, resting before our big push.
Despite my tiredness, I drift between wakefulness andsleep, Kier’s arm draped over my waist. My mind is full of thoughts of what’s to come, what’s become of my pack, what we’ll have to face.
And somewhere in those thoughts rests a question I can’t quite silence. Where does Kier fit in?
My wolf has her answer, of course. But I’ve spent too many years building walls around my heart to allow someone to slip in so easily, even when the pull is this strong.
Everyone I love dies, a voice whispers in the back of my mind. It’s the fear that’s shaped my life since I watched my parents die. It’s the reason I’ve kept all potential mates at arm’s length.
Attachment is a luxury I’ve never allowed myself. A vulnerability I can’t afford. Even now, with Kier’s steady breathing beside me and his arm a comforting weight around me, I fight the pull.
Dawn breaks crisp and clear, the forest awakening around our small cabin. I rise before Kier, slipping from the warmth of his embrace to check our supplies one last time. Everything is ready—our crude pack filled with what food and water we can carry, our makeshift weapons secured.
When Kier joins me, his eyes still heavy with sleep, I’m already dressed in the cleanest clothes I could piece together from the cabin’s meager offerings.
“Ready?” he asks.
I nod, offering him cold meat. “Let’s go home.”
He shoulders our pack, eating the meat from the spit as we leave the cabin. The forest is quiet around us, the morning mist clinging to the trees with like ghost-fingers. Despite the silver restraints still burning against our skin, there’s a lightness to our steps.
We’re moving toward safety.
As we walk, I find myself stealing glances at Kier. He moves with a silent, confident grace through the underbrush,his golden eyes constantly scanning our surroundings. Three years of captivity haven’t diminished his instincts or his will.
I wonder what he was like before he entered that prison. Did he always seek to protect the people around him, or did the prison force him to make choices he otherwise would never have made?
