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“That’s the best you’ve got? Not very original for someone with oh-so-great alpha authority,” she said, smirking as she rose to stand. Her bare feet grazed against the stone with grace—as though the rough terrain meant nothing to her.

I stayed silent for a moment, watching. No matter how sharp her words, her body language betrayed the exhaustion she didn’t dare show, the faint tremor in her fingers as she gripped the cot behind her.

“How noble of you to play the silent protector. What... saved my life after all that bloodshed? Guilt? Pity?” She gritted her teeth before biting out the last venomous question. “Or is it leverage, pure and simple? What were you doing in Silver Ridge, anyway?”

I stepped closer, closing the gap until only the cold and illusion of the iron bars separated us. My grip firmed against the cold rungs as I leveled my voice low.

“You’re still breathing because you bear the same mark I do,” I said evenly.

This time, her reaction wasn’t immediately biting. Her carefully guarded smirk faltered, and I caught the flicker of frustration—or maybe fear—that bridged her silence.

I leaned forward just slightly, enough to seize my advantage. “I’m keeping you alive because whatever ties you to this prophecy isn’t something I can ignore, no matter the body count from your pack,” I said, my voice dangerously quiet.

Her breathing hitched just slightly, though she mastered her face quickly enough to retort. “So I’m... what, then? Fate’s little experiment? Tied to your life now?” Her chin jutted up defiantly, even as her body tensed.

“Perhaps,” I admitted almost lazily. “But that doesn’t make you safe.”

That struck personal.

Despite myself, an amused exhale slipped from my lips. “Do you ever stop talking long enough to think?”

“I think just fine,” she shot back. “And I think you’re an arrogant wolf with too much time on his hands. What exactly do you want from me?”

I leaned against the bars, broad shoulders barely fitting between them as I folded my arms. “Answers.”

“Well, too bad.” She crossed her arms, raising a brow in mock defiance. “Because I don’t have any.”

I tilted my head, letting the faintest trace of a smirk curl the edge of my lips. “Don’t you?”

The tension between us thickened, her silence sharpening the air around us like an unsheathed blade.

She broke eye contact first, glancing briefly at her wrist. I didn’t need to see it to know what she was thinking.

She didn’t understand the mark any better than I did, and that fact seemed to unsettle her deeply.

Good.

“It’s nothing,” she said finally, her voice feigned indifference.

“That’s twice tonight you’ve lied to me,” I replied simply, though the steadiness of my voice carried far more weight than the words themselves. “Do you want to try again?”

Her eyes snapped back to mine, fire sparking somewhere deep within their hazel depths.

“What do you want me to say? That I don’t know why I have this stupid mark?

Or what it means?” Her voice was rising now, her frustration overriding her calculated defiance.

“Do you think I asked to be some cursed wolf that doesn’t belong anywhere? ”

I paused, the rawness of her words cutting deeper than I expected. Of all the things I anticipated from her, this—vulnerability buried beneath fiery bravado—was not one of them.

“This mark,” I said, tilting my head toward my shoulder, “it means something. To both of us. And until we figure out exactly what, you’ll stay here under my protection.”

“Protection?” She laughed bitterly, though it sounded more like a warning than humor.

“Don’t pretend this is about my safety.” She took a step closer, her chin tilting up defiantly despite the bars between us.

“You talk about protection like it’s a favor.

But I’ve seen that look in your eyes before—on alphas who lost control.

You’re not afraid for me. You’re afraid of me. ”

My wolf snarled in my chest, but I held myself steady, unwilling to give her the satisfaction of seeing me react. “I’m afraid of nothing.”

She lifted her chin as she smiled slightly, the muscles in her jaw flexing. It was sharp, feral, her exhaustion only making it more dangerous. “That’s exactly what someone who’s afraid would say.”

My grip on the bars tightened, the cold iron creaking faintly beneath my hands. “Careful, little wolf,” I growled, my voice dropping low enough to rumble against the stone walls. “You’re running out of room to push me.”

She met my gaze head-on, unflinching despite the obvious disparity in power between us. Damn her defiance. It shouldn’t interest me. Shouldn’t make my chest tighten the way it did now.

I pushed away from the bars, breaking the charged silence between us. Turning sharply on my heel, I left her standing there in the torchlight, her glare burning into my back.

The mountain wind howled outside my quarters, rattling the narrow window set high in the stone wall. I stared at the world beyond it—vast stretches of darkness interrupted by jagged peaks dusted with silvery snow. The moon hung heavy in the sky, bathing everything in an eerie, pale light.

She was right about one thing.

I was afraid.

Not of her, or of what she might do to my pack.

What scared me was infinitely worse—how she was changing me.

How one defiant prisoner could unearth questions I thought I’d buried long ago.

Questions about destiny, about sacrifice…

about what it meant to truly choose instead of simply follow duty’s path.

Her voice echoed in my head, sharp and fiery, but beneath it, the faintest tremor of something softer.

It wasn’t coincidence that our paths had crossed. That much, I was sure of. What I wasn’t sure of was whether I’d survive whatever fate had chained us to.