Then the building groaned, the fire eating through the roof. We ran.
Outside, the night was chaos. Bikers everywhere, hauling bodies, shouting orders. Some had buckets, trying to douse the fire, but it was hopeless. The main rickhouse was already an inferno.
We made it to the grass, dropped to the ground, and watched as a hundred years of bourbon history went up in smoke.
Carrie didn’t cry. Not even a tear. She just stared at the flames, jaw clenched, hands balled into fists so tight her knuckles went white.
Bennet sobbed, low and broken, but she didn’t comfort him. She just looked at me, the bond sparking between us, and nodded once.
“We save what’s left,” she said. “And then we hunt the bastard who did this.”
I nodded, wiping blood from my face with a shaky hand.
“Yeah,” I said. “We fucking will.”
We picked our way past the wreckage, stepping over bodies—some of them still twitching, but most not. The main production floor was a disaster: fire-blackened pipes, a slurry of bourbon and blood pooling in the low spots. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed; the local volunteers would be here soon, but not soon enough to save much. If we didn’t get the aging warehouse valves shut, the fire would reach the old stock, and there wouldn’t be a drop left to carry the Stillwater name.
Carrie knew it before I did. She took my wrist—her grip a live wire of desperation—and pulled me through a maze of toppled barrels toward the back wing. The heat was worse here, the floor sticky with spilled white dog and the walls weeping sap from the old oak supports. I coughed, tried to say her name, but she didn’t slow down.
The bond between us wasn’t a metaphor anymore. I felt every thought she had, every heartbeat, every nerve that told her to keep running. I felt her fear of losing it all, but under that, a hunger that didn’t come from the wolf. It came from her.
We reached the fire doors, but the control panel was gone, shot out by one of the mercs in the first volley. The only way through was to pry, so I did—bare hands, fingers slick, feeling the skin tear but not caring. I got the seam open wide enough for Carrie to slip through, then followed, bracing my back against the door to keep it from closing behind us.
Inside, the heat was blinding, the air boiling with vaporized bourbon and smoke. Carrie coughed, doubled over, then looked up at the catwalk above. “Up there,” she choked. “Emergency shut-off.”
I didn’t ask if she was sure. I just threw her over my shoulder and made for the stairs, two at a time. The metal burned my feet, but I kept going, the bond screaming at me to hurry, hurry, she needs this, she needs you.
We reached the top. The valve was huge, wheel-type, painted red, and ringed with old brass. Carrie lunged for it, hands on the rim, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Move,” I said, then set my hands on top of hers. Even with the wolf beaten back, I was still strong enough to break men in half. The valve shrieked as it turned, then gave with a shudder. Steam hissed from the pipes overhead.
Below, the fire door finally caved, a wave of smoke and heat chasing up the stairs. We had seconds, maybe less.
Carrie looked at me, eyes wild, and I saw her thinking—saw the memory of her father, of every ancestor who’d ever stood on this catwalk and claimed the Stillwater legacy for their own. She smiled, blood on her teeth.
“We did it,” she said.
The wave of fire roared up the stairwell, punching us flat against the catwalk. I grabbed Carrie, wrapped her in my arms, and let the blast wash over us. For a second, I thought we’d both go up like two sticks of dynamite. But the fire skirted around us, hungry for the barrels, and when it passed, we were still breathing. Barely.
The alarms were dying now. The fire, too. Below, the bourbon pooled in lakes, glinting gold in the ruined light.
Carrie staggered. I caught her before she could fall, and together we climbed down, moving slow. Every step, the bond grew heavier. I could feel her thinking of me, the way her body wanted to curl around mine, the way her hands trembled not just from shock, but from need.
We reached the bottling office, a bunker of glass and steel that had survived the worst of the heat. I slammed the door, and for a second, it was just the two of us, in the only quiet place for a hundred miles.
I tried to talk, but she grabbed my face and kissed me—hard, teeth and blood and all. Her hands slid into my hair, yanked, and I let her. She didn’t want gentle. Neither did I.
She shoved me back onto her father’s desk, sending papers and old awards crashing to the floor. I hit the wood, hard, and she was on me, straddling my waist, pinning me in place. The look in her eyes was pure challenge: prove you’re mine, or get the fuck out of my bloodline.
I took her challenge.
I grabbed her by the hips, feeling the bruises already blooming there, and rolled her under me, slamming her back onto the desk. She laughed, a raw, broken sound, her nails leaving tracks up my chest.
I bit her neck, right on the mark I’d left two nights before. She moaned, then bit me back, drawing blood.
We tore at each other, tearing off what was left of our clothes, fucking like the last two animals on earth. I rammed into her, hard enough to rock the desk, and she took every inch, nails digging into my back, her thighs clamping around my ribs. The bond lit up every nerve, every hair on my body.
She pulled me in, biting my lip, dragging my hand to her throat. I squeezed, just a little, and her eyes rolled back, a smile on her lips even as her whole body shuddered.
