Page 65 of His Claim

I pressed my forehead to the ground, fists curling into the dirt.

I should go back. God, I should go back. I need to do something. Anything.

His command still rang in my head, echoing down my spine. It had dragged me forward whether I wanted it to or not, and part of me hated him for it. Hated that he could push me away when all I wanted was to cling tighter.

And yet… he’d done it to save me.

My throat tightened until I could barely breathe as I realized a truly terrifying thing.

I was falling in love with him.

Not just the bond, not just the wolf inside me that howled every time his eyes met mine. But forhim.The man who tucked me into bed in that bunker. The broken wolf who had lost someone he loved, and still, somehow, had enough left to want me, to protect me, care for me.

I didn’t know when it had started. Maybe when he called melittle wolf. Maybe when his bite cut through the madness and pulled me back from the brink. Maybe when his lips crashed into mine in the tunnels, hard and desperate, and I realized I didn’t want to fight him anymore.

All I knew was that the thought of losing him was unbearable.

The ground shook again, pebbles bouncing down from the cliff above, birds scattering into the sky with panicked cries. I clutched at the earth, my entire body trembling.

He’s gone, a cold, cruel voice whispered in my head.He stayed behind so you could run, and now he’s gone. Just like everyone else you’ve ever loved.

“No,” I rasped, my voice breaking. “No, I can’t?—”

Images swarmed me: his steady gaze, the way he’d pressed his forehead to mine, the fierce promise in his voice when he said I would live. The feel of his mouth on mine. The heat of his hands on my skin. His body filling mine.

I hadn’t wanted to give myself to anyone, not after everything the wolves had taken, but God help me, I had given myself to Varek.

I dug my nails into the dirt, rocking forward, my tears soaking into the ground. The sky was too blue, the air too cold, mocking me with freedom I didn’t want without him.

My wolf howled inside me, pacing, snarling, begging me to turn back, to throw myself into the dark beside him. To fight with him, to die with him if I had to.

But my human side was paralyzed, trapped between fear and grief, between survival and love.

What if I go back and I lose him anyway?

What if I don’t go back and I lose him for sure?

My whole body shook with the weight of the choice, the sound of the mountain splitting open behind me, the certainty that whatever monster was rising from the deep was stronger and more terrible than anything I’d ever seen.

And yet, my thoughts were consumed by him.

Varek.

My mate.

CHAPTER 15

Mariah

Every instinct screamed at me to turn back. To claw my way through the rock fall and find him. To throw myself at whatever nightmare was coming out of the deep and fight beside him, even if it killed me, but another voice rose in me.

The memory of Lia’s smile. Kendra’s laugh. The whispers in the cages, girls clutching each other’s hands in the dark, praying to see another sunrise.

All of them.

All the women who hadn’t made it this far. All the ones still trapped, waiting and hoping for rescue that might never come.

If I faltered now—if I threw myself back into the dark and let myself die beside Varek—then what had it all been for?