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She stepped from behind the couch, moving toward him with careful steps. "The apex predator hiding in human skin." Her voice held wonder rather than terror. "You're magnificent."

His legs finally gave out. Kieran crashed to his knees, the room spinning around him as blood loss took its toll. His hand pressed against the deep wound in his thigh, but it was useless—too much blood was trying to escape.

"Worth it," he growled to himself, a primal satisfaction warming him despite the growing cold in his limbs. He'd protected what was his. Three enemies dead at his feet. His sanctuary defended. His mate safe.

Maya rushed to him, kneeling in the blood without hesitation. Her hands—those delicate, scientific hands that had so meticulously set up cameras to study wolves—now pressed firmly against his wounds.

"Stay with me," she commanded, her voice stronger than he'd expected. "Focus on my voice."

His eyes locked onto her face—those copper-flecked green eyes, those freckles scattered across her nose, and that determined set to her jaw. Even covered in his blood, she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"Never thought..." he murmured, reaching up to brush a strand of hair from her face, leaving a smear of blood across her cheek. "Never thought I'd find you."

"Find me? What do you mean?" She tore strips from her shirt, pressing them against his wounds.

The room darkened at the edges of his vision. His wolf howled inside him fighting against the growing weakness, desperate to stay conscious, to protect and to claim what was his.

"Should've known," he whispered, a ghost of a smile touching his bloodied lips. "Red hair. Like fire. Like you."

Maya cradled his head in her lap as he slipped sideways, no longer able to stay upright. Her scent enveloped him—wildflowers, vanilla, and something wild that called to his wolf. Something that had always been there, waiting for him to find it.

"Kieran, stay with me. You're healing somehow. I can see it and I can sense it." Her voice trembled now, her scientific detachment cracking.

His eyes fluttered. The darkness pressed closer. As consciousness slipped away, his wolf released the one truth that mattered.

"Mate," he breathed, his final conscious word both a revelation and a promise to her.

NINE

MAYA

Maya's hands trembled as she tore another strip from her thermal shirt, now reduced to barely more than a crop top. Blood—so much blood—saturated the makeshift bandages she'd already applied to Kieran's wounds. The metallic scent filled her nostrils, mingling with the lingering smell of damp fur and something wild that permeated the cabin.

"Don't you dare die on me," she whispered, pressing the fresh fabric against his thigh wound. The laceration was deep, but before her eyes, the edges seemed to crawl toward each other in microscopic increments. "That's... impossible."

Her scientific brain rebelled against everything she'd witnessed in the past thirty minutes. Men transforming into massive wolves. Kieran—this frustrating, commanding, impossibly attractive man—tearing through three attackers with fangs and claws. The blood-soaked battlefield that had once been a cabin floor.

And that word. That single, breathed word before he lost consciousness.

Mate.

The moment he'd said it, something deep within her had resonated like a struck tuning fork. A primal recognition that bypassed all rational thought. Her body had understood before her mind could process it, sending heat spiraling through her despite the horror of the situation.

"What the hell does that even mean?" she muttered, checking his pulse at his neck. Strong but erratic. "I'm a biologist, not a supernatural heroine."

Yet the word echoed in her mind, awakening something dormant she'd never acknowledged until that exact moment he uttered it. The strange pull she'd felt toward him from the moment they met. The electricity when they touched. The way her body instinctively leaned toward him even when her mind screamed to run.

Kieran stirred slightly, his massive chest rising with a labored breath. Even wounded and unconscious, his body radiated power—lean muscle carved from years of running as both man and wolf, and skin marked with old scars that told stories of battles she couldn't imagine.

"Fascinating," she whispered, her scientific curiosity momentarily overriding her panic as she watched blood clot faster than humanly possible. "Your cellular regeneration rate must be exponentially higher than a human's."

She applied pressure to his shoulder wound, wincing as her fingers slipped in the warm blood. Three dead wolf-men lay scattered around them, their bodies already reverting to human form in death. Men who had come for her, and who would have killed her if Kieran hadn't intervened.

"This isn't peer-reviewed research anymore," she said, anger rising through her fear. "This is actual wolf pack politics. And I stepped right into the middle of it."

Her grandmother's warning echoed in her memory.Never go into the deep woods, Maya. Some things there remember what humans have forgotten.

The blood flow from Kieran's thigh finally slowed to a trickle. Maya exhaled shakily, brushing her copper hair from her face with the back of her wrist to avoid smearing more blood on herself.