The jagged tear in the denim reveals the damage, and a low, dangerous growl vibrates in my chest—a sound I don’t recognize as my own. Her skin, usually pale and soft like the underbelly of a fawn, is marred by violent blooms of purple and blue just above the ankle. The leg is twisted. Wrong.
She whimpers, a sharp, broken sound cutting through the silence of my loft.
"Easy," I rumble. My voice sounds like gravel grinding together. I don't look at her face. I can't. If I look at her eyes, at the pain swimming in those dilated pupils, I might lose the cold, clinical detachment I need to fix this.
I am the Road Captain. I am the tracker. I find things. I fix things. I keep the pack moving. But this… this is different. This woman is not a broken bike or a lost trail. She is something precious I found broken in the mud, something that belongs to me now simply by right of discovery.
The storm hammers against the tin roof of the garage below, the wind howling through the pines of Grizzly Peak. Up here, theair is thick, still, smelling of rain, copper blood, and her. The scent hit me when I knelt beside her in the ravine—wildflowers crushed under heavy boots. It triggered something primal in the base of my skull, a lizard-brain snap that rewrote my entire existence instantly.
Mine.
The word echoes in the cavern of my mind, drowning out reason.
My hands, scarred and calloused from years of working steel and gripping throttles, look impossibly large against the delicate curve of her calf. I slide my palm underneath her knee, supporting the joint. Her muscle spasms, a ripple of tension under my fingertips.
"Don't move," I command. I'm not asking.
"Tristan," she gasps. Her voice is wet. Trembling. "It hurts. God, it hurts."
"I know." I reach for the heavy duffel bag I kicked across the floor. I unzip it with one hand, not letting go of her leg. I pull out a syrette of morphine—club supplies. I’m going to put her under, make her body go limp and heavy for me. We don't go to hospitals for things I can handle in my own bed. I am keeping her in-house. No one else gets to lay a finger on her skin. No doctor, no nurse, no other man. She’s mine to fix, mine to drug, and mine to keep.
"This will sting."
I don't wait for permission. I uncap the needle and drive it into her thigh, right through the remaining scrap of denim I haven't cut away yet. She cries out, her body arching off the mattress. Iuse my weight to pin her down, my forearm pressing gently but immovably across her hips.
"Shh. Take it. Let it work," I murmur.
The tension slowly bleeds out of her frame as the drug hits her system. Her head falls back against my pillows—dark gray sheets that smell like me, now cradling her golden-brown hair. The contrast makes my teeth ache.
I turn my attention back to the injury. A clean break, tib-fib by the looks of it, but the swelling is coming on fast. I need to stabilize it before I can even think about cleaning the rest of her up.
I work with efficient, brutal movements. I’ve splinted broken bones on the side of the highway with nothing but duct tape and tire irons. Here, I have padded aluminum splints and compression bandages. I align the leg, feeling the bone grate slightly. She hisses through her teeth, her hands gripping my sheets into fists, the skin pulled tight over her knuckles.
"Almost done, Alexandria. Breathe."
I say her name like a prayer. Alexandria. It tastes heavy on my tongue.
I wrap the bandage tight, securing the limb. My fingers linger on her skin above the wrap. She’s cold. Hypothermia was setting in when I found her, the rain soaking through her hiking gear. I need to get her warm. I need to get her naked.
The thought sends a spike of lust straight to my groin, hard and unforgiving. Wrong timing. She’s injured, drugged, helpless. But the predator in me doesn't care about ethics. It sees a mate in the nest, needing heat. Needing claiming.
I stand up, boots heavy on the wooden floorboards. The loft is a fortress—open plan, exposed beams, walls lined with gun racks and maps of the mountain. A man’s space, utilitarian and stark. Seeing her softness in the middle of it jars me. It changes the room. It changes everything.
I walk to the kitchenette and fill a basin with hot water. I grab a stack of clean white towels and a bottle of antiseptic. When I return to the bed, her eyes are half-lidded, the morphine dragging her under.
"Hospital," she mumbles, the word thick. "Need… x-rays."
"No hospital," I say flatly. I set the basin on the nightstand. "I’ve got you."
"Tristan…" She tries to lift her head, fighting the fog. "My insurance… protocol…"
I lean over her, placing a hand on the side of her face. My thumb strokes her cheekbone, smearing a streak of mud. "You aren't listening, darling. You aren't going down the mountain. The roads are washed out."
A lie. I could get a truck down there if I wanted to. I don't want to.
"You’re staying here."
She blinks up at me. Confusion wars with the drugs. "Why?"
