Trying to scream, no sound leaves my lips, but my heart hammers in my chest, throat constricting around what should have been a terrified scream.
I’m in the forest, panic flowing through me like the blood in my veins, hot, chaotic, desperate to survive. It’s my fight or flight instincts kicking in, but I don’t know which side I’mleaning toward when a loud, treacherous screech rips through the forest, bouncing off the pines and firs.
A cloud of smoky, dark mass wisps through the trees, soaring toward me, when a large hand grabs my wrist and spins me around in the opposite direction, pulling me deeper into the woods, but away from the dark matter in the air.
In the chaos of running forward, the blur of my vision clears for a split second, just long enough to catch a glimpse of the person pulling me forward, their hand clasped protectively around my wrist.
Blue eyes meet mine, and my frantic breath catches in my throat, stopping my feet and tugging on the hand that holds my wrist.
“Damian…?” I whisper in disbelief, brows furrowing into the tightest frown.
He turns to me fully, grabbing my shoulders with both hands as blue eyes plead with mine.
“We have to keep running, Soph,” he warns, his voice crystal clear, stunning me with how much I missed hearing it.
“Are…are you real…?” I ask, blinking fervently as I glance down at his hand still clasped around my wrist. It feels warm, human, and real, and I lift my eyes back to his face to find his crystalline blue eyes staring at me with a softness I’d been missing.
“I am as real as that thing chasing us,” he says just as another thunderous screech pounds through the woods. “We need to run. Now!”
“Wait!” I call out, stopping him from turning just as the darkness begins to creep up on us, the light from the full moon dimming out.
I take a step closer, reaching up on my tiptoes, and without a thought, I press my lips to his. The impact is explosive, sending awareness coursing through every nerve ending in my body, and it jolts me…
…And snaps me out of the dream and into reality, where my alarm is blaring through the confines of my bedroom.
I groan as I smack the button at the top of the alarm clock, my heart racing inside my chest while beads of sweat run from my brow down my temples. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand, disgruntled, irritated, and feeling like my sleep was stolen by the man who broke my heart.
No.
I don’t give his memory that much power. I can’t afford to crumble when I am the foundation and structure of my own life. No one is coming to save me if I need saving, not even Damian Hans from my dreams.
He walked out of my life, proving that I only had myself to rely on. I can’t be consumed by my emotions again, so I pull myself together at the dawn of a new day, even if it’s one I hate, because I have a double shift to get to, and a much-needed distraction to look forward to.
Chapter 3 - Damian
“I really wish you could be there tonight,” I murmur, staring at my interlaced fingers as I wring them on my lap, listening to the sound of the beeping machine instead of my beta’s voice.
I look up to see him slurping in breaths through a tube, most of his body covered in bandages as if he’s been mummified. Taking a deep breath, my resolve is strengthened, as if coming to visit him in the secluded clinic was what I needed to confirm that I’m doing the right thing by going through with this fated mate bond thing.
While the others are wary and mistrusting that this could be the answer to our troubles, I am slightly hopeful, even if it’s just for James’s sake. While he lies in this cabin, receiving only as much treatment as available to us since we can’t take him to a human hospital, his slow-progressing healing is just another reminder that the valley wolves are failing, falling, at risk of being wiped out if we’re not careful.
Red Moon alone has lost eight soldiers, and the attack James survived was a close call, narrowly escaping death and avoiding adding to the tally to make it nine.
But he’s still here, lying comatose in this bed, and he’ll probably only wake up with a miracle.
A miracle I’m hoping happens tonight. It has to. I’m done losing my friends, my people, watching the rest shivering with fear at every meeting when I'm the bearer of bad news, or when I'm carrying another casket at a funeral.
***
With determination to save my people fueling my every step, I head to the Red Moon Pack's sacred site near the edge of the Bitterroot River, a holy place nestled between the mountains, where the ashes of the first alpha of the pack were scattered more than a century ago. The Valley Wolf Council members are waiting there for me, forming a circle around an already burning fire beneath the glowing silver full moon. I slow down my steps, gulping as I feel the intensity in the air, like invisible talons reaching out toward me, chains that speak of binding me to a fated mate bond with someone I don’t know.
Maybe I’m escaping again. That’s the only personal reason I’d have for going through with this. I’m escaping from the memories of Sophie, determined to put the past behind me because there’s nothing I can do to salvage it. There’s no going back after what I did to her, how I hurt her when we’d been on the brink of…more.
The weight of it is still heavy in my pocket, as if I’m still carrying the ring I once did while I was with Sophie. It was my mother’s ring, and I had every intention of giving it to her with the promise of a happily-ever-after that wasn’t mine to give her at all.
How could there be a future for us—for a werewolf and a human woman—when I can hardly keep my own pack members safe?
That day when I broke up with her, on a Sunday two years ago, I’d just lost my first soldier to a demon attack. A few months after the first attack that sent us to the Bitterroot Health-Daly Hospital, we weren’t even sure about what we were facing, and the next attack came unexpectedly, taking a life with it.
