Page 8

CHAPTER 8

L ia

The cabin door clicked shut behind Silas, leaving me alone with nothing but the sound of water—hot, steaming water, rising higher in the tub.

I stared at it for a long moment, feeling the warmth of the room sink into my skin, loosening the knots in my muscles.

I exhaled slowly, then reached for the hem of my shirt. It was stiff with dried blood, torn in places from the fight. I peeled it off, wincing as the movement pulled at the sore spots along my ribs. My pants followed, leaving me naked since Silas had torn through my underthings. The cool air rushed over my bare skin before I quickly stepped into the bath.

The second the hot water touched me, I let out a groan and sank in, my body practically melting into the decadent heat.

Fuck , I needed this.

The ache in my limbs dulled as I let myself relax, the water rising higher, lapping at my collarbones. I tipped my head back against the edge of the tub, eyes fluttering shut, listening to the crackle of the fire in the other room.

After a few long, soothing minutes, I opened my eyes and reached for the bar of soap resting on the tub’s edge, lifting it to my nose. A faint, woodsy scent lingered on it—pine and cedar, like the mountains themselves. I rubbed it between my palms, working it into a lather before dragging it over my arms and legs, hair and body, washing away the blood, the sweat, the dirt of the fight, and everything lingering from my time alone with Silas earlier.

After a while, my mind started to settle. The heat of the water seeped into my muscles, loosening the tension, dulling the soreness that had settled deep in my bones after days of travel and fighting.

I should have been relaxing, should have been grateful for the hot bath, and the rare moment of peace.

But my mind wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

Silas had called me his mate.

I huffed, dragging my hands down my face, sinking lower into the water until it reached my chin. It wasn’t just something he had said, it was the way he had said it, like it was a fact. Like it was inevitable. Like he already knew that I was his and he was just waiting for me to catch up.

And that infuriated me.

I didn’t belong to anyone. I never had, and I never would.

Right?

I frowned, trailing my fingers through the water.

It wasn’t just that he had claimed me; it was the way he did it, the way he had touched me, taken care of me, punished me like I was already his. And what was worse? Some small, treacherous part of me hadn’t hated it.

I groaned, tipping my head back against the edge of the tub, glaring up at the ceiling as if the answers would be carved into the wooden beams.

All this mate business aside, I needed Silas. He was why I had come here in the first place.

I had heard rumors—whispers, really—of a wolf leading a rebel pack in the mountains. A shifter fighting against his own kind. I hadn’t believed it at first. I had thought it was just another desperate story, the kind people told themselves when they needed hope.

But then I’d started to think, and the more I thought about it, the more I wondered: could it be him? Could it be the same wolf who had turned on his own kind and saved my life all those years ago?

I had taken a chance, heading toward the Rockies, hoping and praying that the rumors were true. Somehow, by sheer luck, or fate, or whatever the hell ruled this world, I had found him. Now I just had to convince him to help me, to help the humans in the city before it was too late.

It had started small: whispers in the underground, murmurs passed between those desperate enough to cling to hope. A cure, they called it. A way to fix the wolves’ infertility problem—so that they would finally stop taking human women, stop breeding us like cattle.

At first, it sounded too good to be true.

Then we saw proof.

Glass vials smuggled through the Resistance network, each one filled with a clear, shimmering liquid. The drug was supposed to make our babies fertile for them. For a moment, we believed it. For a moment, I thought maybe—just maybe—our time as the wolves’ breeders had come to an end.

Then came the warning.

I had been in the warehouse when it happened, Mariah at my side, watching as one of the human traders pulled out a shipment of the drug. The room was dim, sputtering oil lamps barely cutting through the darkness. Boxes lined the walls, filled with stolen supplies, medical goods, whatever could be scavenged or traded.

Then he walked in. A wolf, but not one of theirs. His coat was torn, his face gaunt, exhaustion etched on every inch of him. He stumbled into the room, gasping for breath, his wide amber eyes wild with panic. He should have been the enemy, but instead, he begged us to listen.

“They’re lying to you.” His voice had been hoarse, ragged, like he had run miles just to get here. “This drug—it works, but not the way you think. It won’t save you. It’ll kill you.”

A cold chill had crept down my spine. No one moved. No one breathed.

“You’re full of shit,” I’d ventured.

The wolf shook his head vehemently. “I saw the research. I worked in the labs—I know what they’re doing.” He stepped forward, gripping the edge of the table for balance. “The drug makes human women carry fertile female shifter babies, yes, but the cost is your lives. If a human woman carries a shifter child to term, she’ll likely die. If she survives childbirth, the drug will still kill her—it will strip years off her life. Decades.”

Silence. Pure, suffocating silence.

Then Mariah spoke. “How do we know you’re telling the truth?”

The wolf’s face twisted, his body shaking as he reached into his coat. For a second, I thought he was reaching for a weapon. Instead, he pulled out something small and fragile: a data chip.

“Because I stole this from the labs before I ran.”

We plugged the chip into a stolen console and then we saw everything.

Charts. Research logs. Pages and pages of medical reports, warnings about how the drug was never meant to be released in its current state. Notes about human test subjects—women who had been forced to take the drug. None of them had lived past the first pregnancy. Some died during childbirth.

I had felt Mariah go rigid beside me. Someone cursed under their breath. They weren’t saving us. They were exterminating us.

I sank deeper into the water, my breath shuddering as I let the memory settle over me.

I had barely escaped. The moment the wolves found out that someone had stolen the research, they had come for us. The warehouse was burned to the ground. The traitors were executed.

I had barely made it out alive. In the chaos, Mariah, my closest friend, had been taken, and I’d been forced to go looking for help on my own.

I needed Silas.

I had risked everything to find him, to bring him back into this fight. He was the only one who could stop what was coming; the only wolf strong enough to fight his own kind and win. No matter what it took, no matter what I had to say, what I had to do, I would make him see that.

The warm water lapped gently against my skin, the heat sinking deep into my sore muscles, coaxing them into a rare, loose softness.

I let out a slow breath, dragging the soap over my body again, working it into the aches and bruises. The bar was smooth against my skin, perfuming the air with the faint scent of the deep parts of the forest after a storm.

I closed my eyes, sinking a little deeper, letting the steam curl around me.

My body felt light, floating in the warmth, tension finally starting to unravel after days—weeks—of running, of fighting, of barely sleeping at all.

For the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn’t cold, I wasn’t starving, I wasn’t running, and I wasn’t bleeding.

I ran my fingers through my hair, rinsing away the sweat and grime, feeling clean for the first time in far too long. My lashes fluttered, my breaths deepening as I dragged the soap down the length of my thigh, over the curve of my calf.

The wet heat soaked into my bones, unwinding me.

I leaned my head back against the edge of the tub, exhaling slowly. My mind drifted, the crackling of the fire in the other room a steady, soothing sound. The fight felt distant now, the blood and the howling and the chaos nothing more than a memory pressing at the edges of my mind.

I didn’t have to run. Didn’t have to be on alert.

Not here.

Not right now.

Not in this moment.

My body sagged, the water rising and falling with my breaths caressing my skin, lulling me into a slow, foggy, deeply relaxed state of mind. The warmth wrapped around me like a cocoon, my limbs growing heavier, my heartbeat a steady, even rhythm in my chest. I shifted slightly, sighing as I let my arms float at my sides, the heat surrounding every inch of me.

This bath was so damn comfortable. So warm. So safe.

My thoughts blurred at the edges, slipping into hazy weightlessness. I was floating. Drifting. Sinking into nothing.

I didn’t even realize when I stopped fighting it; didn’t even feel it when sleep took me under. I didn’t wake until morning and when I did, I was in Silas’s bed with him beside me, his arms around me, holding me close.

Like I was already his.