“It’s just coffee, Skylar. Not a declaration of eternal devotion.”
I take the mug because I’m exhausted, my head is pounding, and caffeine is the only thing that might help. The first sip burns my tongue, but I don’t care. At least the pain is something real, something I can understand.
Bryan gestures toward the small table near the window. Two plates sit waiting, each holding scrambled eggs and toast. My stomach growls despite my determination to refuse anything he offers.
“You should eat,” he says. “It was a long night.”
“I’m aware.”
But I sit down anyway, because he’s right. Starving myself won’t change anything. The eggs are decent, seasoned with something I can’t quite identify. I eat mechanically, staring at my plate rather than looking at the man across from me.
The silence between us is thick and uncomfortable. I can feel Bryan watching me and sense his presence through the bond like a second pulse beating alongside my own. It’s invasive and intimate in a way I never asked for.
“We need to talk about what happens next,” he finally says.
“What happens next is I go to work. People are depending on me at the medical center.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” I set down my fork and meet his eyes for the first time since I woke up. “But I don’t have anything to say to you that I didn’t already say last night.”
“The Cheslem threat isn’t going away just because you’re angry with me.”
“I’m not angry. I’m furious.”
He winces, but the flash of pain is there and gone so fast I almost miss it. Good. Let him hurt. Let him feel even a fraction of what I’ve been carrying for ten years.
“Rafe has resources,” Bryan continues, undeterred. “Money, wolves, connections to other cells we thought we’d eliminated. Last night was just the beginning. He’ll send more, and they’ll keep coming until he gets what he wants.”
“Which is what, exactly? You dead?”
“Eventually. But first, he wants me to suffer. He wants to take apart everything I care about, piece by piece, and make me watch. That includes you now. Whether you like it or not.”
I push my plate away, my appetite gone. “I thought the Cheslem were finished. Luna and Nic dealt with them years ago. The purification ritual, the integration of the survivors into thepack... Ruby’s mate, James, almost died while stopping them. Everyone said the threat was over.”
“The threat was contained,” Bryan corrects. “Not eliminated.”
“So what, they’ve just been hiding this whole time? Waiting?”
“Some of them scattered after the purification. The ones who were too far gone to be cleansed, or the ones who chose not to be. They went underground and regrouped in small cells across the region.”
He wraps both hands around his coffee mug, and I notice new scars on his knuckles that weren’t there ten years ago.
“My unit spent years tracking them down. We thought we got most of them. But Rafe... He’s smart. He stayed hidden, built his network slowly, and recruited wolves who had grudges against Silvercreek or other packs in the area. By the time we realized he was a threat, he’d already amassed a small army.”
“And you killed his brother.”
“Lance was organizing an attack on multiple pack territories simultaneously. If we didn’t stop him, hundreds of wolves would have died.” Bryan’s voice is flat, like he’s reciting facts like a mission report. “I was the one who found him. I was the one who put him down. Rafe has been hunting me ever since.”
“So you came back here.” I can’t keep the accusation out of my voice. “You brought this to Silvercreek. To me.”
“I didn’t know they’d followed me. I didn’t know they even knew where I was going. The agency dissolved my unit because we thought the threat was over, and I had nowhere elseto go. Silvercreek was the only home I ever knew, even after everything. I thought...”
“You thought what? That you could just waltz back in and pick up where you left off?”
“I thought I could disappear here. Lay low until Rafe lost interest or made a mistake that exposed him.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Turns out I was the one who made a mistake. I should have stayed away. Should have known that coming back would only put people in danger.”
“Yes. You should have.”
