Page 49

Because he’s bigger than me.

Not just in size. In presence. In something more instinctual than language. He’s not a wild creature. He’s not a man twisted into something else.

He’s balanced.

And I… I am not.

I growl again, unsure, defensive, torn between the creature in me and the girl who still remembers chains and needles and faces that never blinked.

The wolf doesn’t flinch.

He stares straight into me, unmoving.

Like he sees everything—the fury, the bloodlust, the parts of me that don’t know where the line is between vengeance and murder.

The man behind me is whimpering now. I glance over my shoulder. He’s trying to crawl again, but slower this time. Pathetic. Broken.

The creature inside me growls low, eager to finish it.

But the wolf steps forward—and growls once more.

Not a threat.

A command.

Enough.

My chest heaves. My limbs shake. I lower my head, just slightly.

The rage still burns, but it flickers. Wavers.

Because something in this wolf’s presence makes me feel like I’m not the only thing that escaped the dark.

I take one last look at the man, but I don’t move.

I back away, step by grudging step, until the taste of blood fades from the roof of my mouth and I can breathe without trembling.

The grey wolf holds my gaze until I stop growling.

My chest heaves. The bloodlust simmers just beneath my skin, but his stare is heavier than the firelight. It presses down until my breath slows, my limbs loosen, and the need to kill shrinks into something quieter. Not gone. Just waiting.

Then he moves.

His head lifts slightly. He sniffs the air.

And then turns—to the man still gasping behind me.

I almost forgot he was alive.

The wolf doesn’t hesitate.

He strides forward, effortless and certain, and before the man can even scream, his throat is in the grey wolf’s jaws. There's a wet crunch, a gurgle, and then nothing.

The clearing falls still.

I watch in silence, breath caught between pride and something colder. The wolf lets the body drop and turns back to me. His mouth, dark and dripping, is calm. Composed.

This isn’t his first kill.

He begins to circle me.

Slowly. Deliberately.

I rise slightly onto all fours, a snarl curling through my chest. My muscles are tight again, rigid. Defensive. I bare my teeth, warning him back.

He doesn't stop.

I lunge.

It’s instinct—mine, not the creature’s. I’m still caught somewhere between fear and rage, and I snap at him before I know what I’m doing.

But he’s faster.

He dodges, shoves me sideways, and slams his full weight onto me. My body crashes to the dirt. One massive paw press into my shoulder. His muzzle is beside my ear, and he growls—not loud, but deep. Resounding.

A command I feel in my bones.

I thrash. Snarl. Claw at the ground.

He doesn’t budge.

And then something shifts.

It’s not physical.

It’s in the way my wolf stills beneath him—not out of fear, but recognition. There’s something in this creature—this male—that my instincts know. Something ancient. Powerful. Unyielding.

Something safe.

But Freya—me—is still wary. Still bristling.

Still caged in memory.

He leans closer, nose against my throat, and growls again—louder this time. Demanding. Dominant.

And then the pull begins.

It starts at my core, deep and painful, like I’m being unraveled from the inside. My spine curls, cracks. My breath stutters. My limbs spasm and twist.

He’s forcing me to shift.

Not with violence. With presence.

I try to resist.

I fail.

The change overtakes me.

The fur recedes. Bones snap back into place. Claws become fingers. My breath comes in gasps. The ground burns against my bare, bruised skin. I lie in the dirt, covered in blood—mine, theirs. Cold. Exposed.

Human again.

The grey wolf stands over me, watching.

Silent. Still.

I stare up at him through tangled hair and tear-streaked dirt, chest rising and falling, rage and fear warring in every corner of my broken mind.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t need to. Because whatever he is—whoever—I know this much: He’s not here to hurt me.

But he’s not going to let me run, either.

I don’t know how long I lie there—naked, blood-soaked, and trembling—pressed into the forest floor like I might disappear into it if I stay still enough, the ache in my limbs a dull echo to the frenzy that just burned through me.

The night air brushes over my skin, chilled and damp, but none of it matters.

All I can feel is his presence. Heavy. Still. Unmoving.

The grey wolf is watching me.

And then, he isn’t a wolf anymore.

The shift is smooth, too smooth, like muscle and bone folding over themselves in silence, the magic of it humming through the ground and into my spine. I force myself to lift my head, blinking past the blur in my vision, past the sting of sweat and blood in my eyes—and then I see him.

He’s standing tall in the flickering firelight, and unlike me he’s fully clothed.

His hair is thick and dark, and short, tousled and damp like he ran through a storm. And his eyes—a piercing green—are even more intense now, too human to be beast and too wild to be man.

Something stirs inside me.

It’s not fear. Or maybe it is, but not the kind I’ve known. It’s hot and coiled and unfamiliar, spreading low in my belly like a thread tugged too tight. I’ve never felt anything like this—this buzzing awareness of another body, of how near he is, how much space he takes up just by breathing.

I pull my arms tighter across my chest, suddenly hyper-aware of the way I’m curled on the ground, exposed in more ways than I understand, my heartbeat loud in my ears. My breath trembles through my lips, but I can't look away.

He steps forward, just one pace, but it’s enough to make my stomach twist.

“Who are you?” he asks, his voice deep and sharp-edged, loud enough to crack the silence between us like a whip.

I flinch instinctively.

I hate that I do.

My body reacts before I can think—shoulders curling in, chin ducking down, every nerve bracing like I’ve done a thousand times before. It’s a reflex I can’t kill, born of too many days in too small a space where the wrong answer meant bruises, and silence meant worse.

He notices.

His nostrils flare slightly as he takes in the air, his gaze cutting sideways toward the shredded bodies behind me. His jaw tenses.

“Did they try to attack you?” he asks, voice rough but lower now, less of a command and more of a demand.

I can’t make my voice work. My throat feels closed, my tongue too heavy. I simply nod once.

He watches me closely, like he’s cataloging every twitch, every breath. “Are you mute?” he asks, and though the words are blunt, his tone is calmer—controlled.

I shake my head.

Something shifts in his posture—only slightly—but it’s enough. He kneels, not close enough to touch, but enough that I feel it: the warmth coming off his skin, the tether of his attention tightening between us.

He sees it now. The way I keep my head tilted downward, the way I don't meet his eyes for long, how my body remains curled in on itself like I expect the world to lash out at me again.

His next words are softer. Measured. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I nod again.

He opens his mouth to say more, but he never gets the chance.

The stillness breaks all at once.

The forest behind us explodes with sound—footsteps crashing through underbrush, men shouting orders, branches snapping under boots. The flickering light from the fire throws their shadows forward first, long and jagged and too many to count.

I recognize their voices instantly.

Even after all that’s happened—even after what I’ve become—I feel my blood go cold.

They’ve found me.

I scramble to my feet—or try to. My legs almost buckle, but I force myself upright. My heart slams against my ribs, and I stumble forward without thinking, pure instinct driving my movements now.

I reach for the only thing that feels remotely safe.

Him.

The man—the wolf—steps in front of me without a word, his body solid and still, like he’s been waiting for this. One of his arms stretches slightly to the side, as if to keep me behind him, and the way he does it—without hesitation, without fear—roots something deep in my chest.

I press into his back, my hands clutching his arm before I even realize what I’m doing. I don’t understand why I trust him, why I move toward him when all I’ve ever known is to run or hide or freeze.

But I do.

And he lets me.

The shouting grows louder. They’re almost here.

He shifts his stance but doesn’t look back. Doesn’t ask me who they are.

And then I see them.

Shifters.

Not partial, not wild like I was—these men are composed, clean, cold. They wear no uniforms, no armor, nothing to announce their presence but the chilling weight of their silence and the way the clearing bends around them as they step forward into the flickering ring of firelight.

There is at least a dozen of them, maybe more. It’s hard to count. My vision is narrowing again, not from pain, but from memory—from the familiar grip of recognition tightening around my ribs.

And then I see him.

The one who leads them.

He doesn’t move like a soldier.

He moves like a surgeon.

Deliberate. Methodical. Controlled.

His eyes meet mine, and he doesn’t smile—not quite—but his mouth twitches with something worse. Familiarity.

I know him.

The scientist.

The one who used to stand behind the glass and speak into microphones while others held me down. The one whose calm voice always preceded pain.

“Well,” he says, his tone too casual for a place filled with blood and broken bodies. “You’ve wasted enough of my time today.”

“Subject Twenty-Three,” he says with that detached sort of clarity that him and others like him seem to have mastered when referring to us, the kind that strips skin from bone with nothing but syllables, “you know the rules. Come back.”