Page 46

Silence falls as they end him.

Smoke drifts through the room. The red light flickers. The metallic stench of blood, burnt powder, and something primal fills my nose. It's a war zone in miniature—our own private apocalypse.

I drop into a crouch, my back to the wall, gun still in hand. My fingers ache from how tightly I’m gripping it. I glance down. My knuckles are white. The barrel’s warm. My arms feel like dead weight, trembling with aftershock and adrenaline.

The wolves turn to me. For a heartbeat, I feel like the outsider again—the only human in a room full of predators—but the sensation doesn’t settle. Instead, there's an eerie familiarity. My gut tightens, not in fear, but in recognition. Kari’s eyes meet mine—intelligent, steady. She nods once, then turns toward the door. Maggie moves to the side, ears twitching. Cassidy growls low, a warning that makes my scalp prickle. They're ready for more. And so am I.

I stare at the man I shot. He can’t be much older than me—late twenties, maybe. Blond hair darkened by sweat and blood clings to his forehead. His chest rises once, then stills. A patch on his vest catches the low red light—something military, maybe paramilitary, but I don’t recognize the symbol. The blood spreads out in a sickening bloom beneath him, seeping across the concrete floor like a dark, grasping shadow. It brushes against my boots, and I can’t tell if it’s colder in the room now, or if it’s just me.

“Focus,” I whisper to myself, voice cracking.

Maggie brushes her head against my knee. A soft rumble rises from her chest—not a growl. Comfort. Support. Like she knows the battlefield inside my head is just as real as the one outside this room.

I nod once. Grip the Glock tighter. And rise.

We’re not safe yet—not while Deacon’s still out there, fighting God knows how many enemies in the dark. Every second that ticks by without him feels like a splinter in my chest, sharp and impossible to ignore. My hands tighten around the Glock. We’ve survived this long, but it’s not over. Not yet.

A sharp clatter draws all our attention, the sound sharp and metallic as if something heavy and lethal has been dropped or kicked aside just beyond the threshold. Cassidy instantly adjusts her stance, prowling toward the door with her nose lifted. Kari stiffens beside her, hackles raised, her gaze locked and alert.Every breath I take tastes like blood and smoke. My grip tightens on the Glock, pulse thundering. Whatever’s coming—whatever made that sound—it isn’t finished with us yet. And neither are we. Cassidy moves to the door, nose lifted. Kari subtly repositions herself. Something is coming.

And whatever it is, we’ll be ready—predator and prey blurred, teeth bared, triggers tight, and not a single one of us giving an inch.

CHAPTER 19

DEACON

The gunfire fades, but my pulse doesn’t. My lungs seize against the scorched air, coughing as acrid smoke stings my throat. My vision blurs for a heartbeat before I force it back into focus, the world narrowing into shapes and shadows through the haze.

The stench of blood and cordite clings to the back of my throat, thick and choking, igniting a cough that burns all the way down. It sears the lining of my nose and coils in my gut like bile, leaving behind a phantom heat, like breathing fire in a closed room. metallic and hot, like the air right before a lightning strike. I step over a mangled body, rifle raised, eyes sweeping the terrain for movement. Shadows twitch in the corners of my vision, but they belong to the dying. What’s left of the Reaper’s men are either retreating or bleeding out. We’ve won. For now.

Gage moves past me with a nod, jaw clenched and face grim as he secures the perimeter. Dalton hauls a groaning bastard up by the vest and slams him into a tree, barking questions. Gideon stalks the edge of the clearing like a wraith, watching, waiting for any straggler dumb enough to breathe wrong. It should feel like victory. But it doesn’t.

And it won’t. Not until I see her—until I’ve touched her, smelled her,felther alive and breathing. Until I’ve confirmed with my own two hands that she’s still mine.

The reinforced door to the ranch house bursts open and I spin, rifle up, breath frozen—but it’s her. Sutton. Streaked in blood, chest heaving, eyes wide with battle-shock and fury. Her hair is tangled, her cheeks smeared, and she looks like a woman who’s just fought her way out of hell. And won.

Too much blood for just one wound—none of it looks like hers. The coppery scent doesn’t just hang in the air—it hits like a punch to the gut, conjuring the moment I thought I’d never see her alive again. My jaw tightens, the memory searing through me even as I step forward, driven by the instinct to shield, to claim, to never let go again. I know she isn’t really mine. But that doesn’t stop the roar in my chest or the heat that surges through my limbs like wildfire. She’s alive. On her feet. And I damn near drop to my knees.

I close the distance in three long strides, my rifle slipping from my hands and hitting the ground with a dull thud. Her eyes lock on mine—wild, searching—and the world blurs at the edges. Adrenaline crashes into me like a breaker slamming against the shore. Then she's in my arms, crashing into me like a live wire, her body trembling, slick with sweat and adrenaline. The scent of blood clings to her, sharp and metallic, mixing with the scorched smoke that still lingers in the air. Her breath comes in ragged bursts against my throat, her heart pounding a staccato rhythm that mirrors my own. In that moment, nothing else matters—not the screams, not the fire, not the carnage left behind. Just her. Just this.

Her arms wrap around my neck, fierce and unrelenting, and I stagger back a step under the force of her impact. The rawness in her touch—the desperation, the relief—hits me like a hammerto the chest, and I lock my arms around her as if I could fuse us together and never let go again.

I grip the back of her neck, fingers curling hard enough to feel her pulse thrumming beneath my palm and yank her to me. Our mouths collide—no grace, no warning. Just raw heat and the taste of blood and smoke. I devour her like I’ve been starved, like this kiss is the only thing keeping me from unraveling. There’s no finesse, no gentleness. Only hunger. Desperation. Fury. And the unrelenting relief of knowing she’s still mine.

"Don’t ever scare me like that again," I growl against her mouth, voice raw and shaking. "I thought I’d lost you."

Her hands fist in my shirt, the tremble in her fingers betraying the storm still churning beneath her steel exterior. Her grip is fierce, desperate—clutching like she’s trying to anchor herself to something solid after surviving a maelstrom. I feel the scrape of her nails through the cotton, a silent scream of everything she can’t yet say. She yanks me closer, our bodies colliding, breath intermingling, heat flaring. Her mouth crashes against mine—biting, bruising, raw. It’s not a kiss; it’s a demand, a battle, a claim.

Her lips break from mine only long enough to rasp, voice shredded by fury and need, "You think I wasn’t scared? You left me."

"To protect you."

"I protected myself. I shot a man in the chest. Twice. He was going to kill me. My father's a cop, remember? He made sure I never had to wait for someone else to save me."

The pride that swells in me is almost unbearable, flooding my chest with a heat that rivals the fire still licking the edges of the horizon. My Sutton—fierce, untamed, and still trembling with the shock of survival—meets my gaze like a battle-scarred warrior who refuses to fall. Her strength stuns me. Her defianceburns through me. And all I can do is hold on, struck dumb with gratitude and need.

"You did good, baby," I whisper hoarsely, thumb swiping a smear of blood from her cheek. "But I’m not letting you go again."

Something in her shatters then. Her breath hitches, lashes trembling, and a strangled sound escapes her throat as she buries her face in my shoulder. I feel the tremor that runs through her entire body, the way her fingers dig into my back like she’s trying to hold herself together. For a heartbeat, time suspends—no gunfire, no growls, no smoke. Just her. Just this. Then I bend, arm hooking under her thighs, lifting her effortlessly. She clings to me, face hidden against my neck, and I carry her into the shadows behind the house, away from the carnage, the chaos, the memory of blood still steaming on the ground.