Page 3 of Conall (The Sunburst Pack #3)

It was why they were so effective as enforcers. And why they would have been effective as assassins.

Had her father felt it when they came for him? Had he fought back? Or had it been quick, at least?

The grief hit her anew, a physical pain that doubled her over, stealing her breath. She pressed her forehead against the cool stone, fighting for control.

No witnesses. No body. Just blood and scent .

Not enough to prove anything to a pack council. Not enough for justice.

The connection—mate bond, her wolf insisted—popped and fizzed between them, a practically electric connection that seemed to tug her toward Sunburst territory.

Toward Conall.

Her wolf whined beneath her skin. Mate .

Shut up, she growled at herself, digging her nails into her palms until pain silenced the inner whine.

She leaned against the boulder, suddenly dizzy. The silver wound throbbed, radiating unnatural heat up her side. She needed to clean it, extract any silver residue before it spread further into her system. Without treatment, even a graze could incapacitate a shifter within days.

Nadine stared at the injury with detached clinical interest. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d taken a silver bullet—voluntarily put herself in harm’s way—to lead hunters away from the very man she’d been hunting herself.

What kind of twisted logic was that?

I need him alive for questioning .

But that wasn’t the whole truth.

She pushed off from the rock, testing her weight on the injured leg. It held, barely. She needed supplies. Medical attention.

She made it two miles before her wounded leg buckled beneath her.

She collapsed behind a wind-carved sandstone formation, sides heaving with exertion.

The silver wound refused to close. The desert air felt cool against her fevered skin.

Silver fever—the first sign of systemic poisoning.

She needed to treat the wound soon, or she’d be too weak to travel by morning.

And all for what? To protect a man who might have killed your father?

She needed to get back to her supplies. She had extraction tools, purified water, healing herbs—everything required to treat silver exposure.

All of it back at her temporary base, five miles away.

Five miles that suddenly seemed like fifty with her injured leg and the silver fever spreading through her system.

I will not die for Conall Stewart, she growled through clenched teeth. I will not die for a mate bond I never asked for.

But she had already risked death for him, hadn’t she? Taken a bullet meant for him or herself. Led armed hunters away from his unconscious form.

Protected him, despite everything she believed about his guilt.

And somewhere beneath the pain and fever, a terrible question took root: What if she was wrong about him?

What if the mate bond was trying to tell her something her grief-clouded judgment couldn’t see?

She pushed the thought away. She couldn’t afford doubt. Not now.

Nadine forced herself back to her feet, swaying slightly as the silver fever sent chills racing across her skin despite the desert heat.

One step. Then another.

She would survive this. Find the truth. Avenge her father.

And if that path led her back to Conall Stewart—as her traitorous wolf seemed to insist it would—she would face that reckoning when it came.

With clear eyes, unclouded by fever or mate bond or misplaced instinct.

Justice demanded nothing less.

Her father deserved justice. And Nadine would have it, no matter the cost to herself.

Even if that cost was her fated mate.

Especially if that cost was her fated mate.

Oh, she hurt. She had to distract herself, to focus her spinning head.

She needed a new plan.

The direct approach had failed. Time for subterfuge.

The Sunburst Pack thought they were so clever with their new leadership, their talk of reform and alliance building. They’d spread the story that Gregory Torrance had simply been exiled, not killed.

Trying to clean up their image after Vincent’s brutal regime.

But Nadine knew the truth.

Her father would never have abandoned her. Would never have gone silent.

Not unless he was dead.

And the evidence all pointed to the Sunburst Pack. To the Stewart twins, specifically.

She gathered her thoughts, assembling a new strategy. The Stewart twins would be on alert now, which meant her original surveillance plan was compromised. She needed a different approach.

Infiltration, maybe? The Sunburst Pack was actively seeking alliances with other packs. She could pose as an envoy, gain access to their territory under diplomatic protection.

The tactical team was another variable. Who were they? Why target both her and Conall?

And what did it mean that Conall had instinctively protected her from them?

Too many questions. Not enough answers.

She would fall back to her secondary position, review her intelligence, create a new approach.

The mate bond complicated things, but it was just another obstacle to overcome.

She refused to believe the universe would pair her with her father’s killer. The very idea was obscene.

More than that, she refused to be swayed by animal instinct, by the treacherous warmth that had flooded her system when she’d first scented Conall Stewart. By the electric shock of recognition when their eyes met.

It meant nothing.

Chemistry is not destiny .

Her mission remained unchanged: find her father’s killers and make them pay.

If the universe thought pairing her with one of those killers was some cosmic joke, she wasn’t laughing.

A coyote howled in the distance, and Nadine tensed, scanning her surroundings with dilated pupils. Normally, no desert predator would challenge a wolf shifter, but in her weakened state, she presented an opportunity too tempting to ignore.

Fuck. After hunting the men she believed had killed her father, she might die here in the desert—from a wound taken while protecting one of those very men.

He moved to shield me first .

The memory of Conall’s body instinctively pressing her behind him as the first dart fired replayed in her mind. He hadn’t hesitated. Hadn’t calculated. Just acted to protect.

Not the behavior of a cold-blooded killer.

Nadine shook her head, trying to clear the doubt.

Silver fever playing tricks on her mind. Nothing more.

But with each painful step, the question burned hotter than the silver in her blood: Why had she risked herself to protect Conall Stewart?

And what would it mean if he wasn’t what she’d believed him to be?