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CHAPTER 13

C alla

T here’s plenty of space in the bunker.

A den for five wolves.

But there’s nowhere to run.

I made a deal with the wolves in order to save the other girls. My friends. It feels strange calling them that. We didn’t know each other before the cage. Still, I consider them as close as the ones I had in Haven North. I’d do anything to protect them, even if it means this is where my path ends.

Or is it just beginning? My fingers trace the vine braided around my wrist. No clasp. No give. Just a constant pulse, matching the rhythm inside me.

My skin is pricked with anticipation. Nervousness. A little fear. A traitorous trickle, threatening my trembling thighs. The bunker is big enough that we all have our own rooms. Sleeping on cots with pelts from kills that make up a thick mattress that look more comfortable than the beds in Haven North. Mine, at least. The ones in the Upper District are supposed to be much better.

The one I’m standing in front of is where I’ll sleep tonight, if I get any. The other girls closed their doors before going to bed for the night. I didn’t bother closing mine. Part of me wants to slam it shut. Maybe even block it with the spare cot.

But it wouldn’t matter. Even if I locked it, I’m sure it would be torn off the hinges. Not by the wolves who backed off after the deal was made. Not by Vance. Maybe not by Gideon. But Jace… Jace isn’t letting anything stand between him and what is burning in his intense, hungry, purple-gold stare.

No. I made the deal. I will honor it. The others go home and I… I don’t even know what I am. What I will become. Why this piece of The Tangle that burned Nara’s skin is using me like a conduit. Giving assistance when I need it. But it’s unreliable. I ripped it off when it didn’t respond—yet it came crawling back and did what I asked.

And the tree. It apologized… Things have been so chaotic I haven’t dwelled on that much. Haven’t had time to think it through. If I demanded help now, would The Tangle respond? Save me from… the footsteps echoing behind me?

They’re not hurried. Not aggressive. Just steady. I brace myself. But the voice that slides into the room isn’t Jace’s.

“You left the door open,” Gideon rumbles.

I tense up a little and turn, unable to hide the surprise in my voice. “I thought it would be Jace.”

His hair is damp, curls brushing his jaw. He’s naked now, but he’s calm. Not throbbing, like Jace was. I can see the need in his eyes, but it’s quieter. More controlled. It still casts a shadow of fear, but I swallow it down.

“It will be,” Gideon says. “It’ll be both of us tonight, tomorrow, and the night after that, until our brothers get your scent.”

I process it with a gasp and swallow hard. I didn’t think through the technical details of how this would work. I guess I thought it would be like the Brides who get two Grooms, when there aren’t enough fertile women. Alternating nights. Different residences. Not—at the same time.

They have a goal.

“Until I’m pregnant?” I whisper. “That’s how I save your pack? By giving birth to your child?”

“ My child,” he murmurs, his golden stare flickering. “Yes, the first of a stronger generation. A generation that will not fear the things we fear, and their children. Their children will not even fear a Gen-Lion.”

“Survival of the fittest,” I say. “But how is this any different from what those scientists were doing? You’re still in a military bunker. Still trying to breed something new. Still trying to create hybrids .”

“This isn’t a lab,” he growls, his intensity flourishing. “We’ve spent two hundred years lost in The Tangle. Forgotten, except when it wanted another soul. No purpose. No pleasure. Just damnation and death. Then I got your scent, and I realized we didn’t bury so many bodies for nothing.”

“I don’t know what makes me different, Gideon, but it isn’t because I can save your pack. Not by having your children,” I sigh, looking down. “I’m not fertile. I was tested in Haven North. If I was able to have children, I would have become a Bride, not a nurse.”

It was one of the things I’d made peace with. That I’d never carry life. The supplements helped, of course.

“There was a mistake. It happens,” he says. “Happened before the Great War, too.”

“Or you’re wrong. Sure, maybe I’m not entirely… human, as strange as that is to say, but it doesn’t mean I’m your mate.” I tense up a little.

I don’t know why I’m fighting this. I haven’t forgotten my dream. What Silas said to me in The Aether. But maybe he’s wrong, too. He’s their brother, after all.

“You are,” he insists, taking a step closer. “And I want to hear you say it.”

“I’m here because we made a deal.” I swallow hard, but stand my ground.

“No, not good enough. You’re our mate, and we’re not just going to claim you, Calla. We’re going to breed you.” He leans toward me, his hair falling around his face. “Say it. If you don’t, you’re going to be punished.”

“Punished?” My eyes get wide. A tremble of fear and traitorous arousal both sweep through me. “I’m not saying it, and you’re not going to punish me!”

Gideon smirks, like I just walked into a trap and glances over his shoulder. “You’re right. I’m not going to punish you. Jace, I think Calla needs a spanking.”

Jace’s frame darkens the doorway. He’s so wound up he’s almost shaking. His cock is thick and hard, a drop of pre-cum resting on the tip. He moves toward me with a purpose, tilting his head slightly as he gets close enough for me to hear the growl in his chest before it rises in his throat.

Gideon closes the door, and I feel trapped. Still, my body is reacting.

“Well, since you didn’t want to say it,” Jace growls, grabbing my arm. “I’ll let you scream it.”

Jace pulls me toward the mattress of pelts. His heavy frame sinks into the fur and leather as he yanks me across his muscular thighs. They’re like steel beneath me, and his cock pushes into my stomach, twitching with a need that makes my core clench. Jace’s fingers wrap around the tattered pants I’m wearing, stripping them off me so fast I cry out when I feel the cool air between my legs.

That distracts me from what is happening for a moment. Until Jace’s palm lands hard across my ass, making me gasp as the sharp smack echoes across the bunker walls like a warning shot. Then another follows, and another—each one firm, stinging, and deliberate. I squirm on his lap, reaching back to block him, but he grabs my wrist and pins it to my lower back without saying a word. I get a harder slap across both cheeks for my efforts.

“Let me go!” I snap, my breathing heavy. “I’m not saying it!”

Another scorching slap. Then a lighter one, but my bottom is still stinging from the last two. The next makes me cry out. My skin is burning, heat blooming across both cheeks. I’m sure they’re pink by now. Maybe even red. Tears try to form in the corners of my eyes, but I blink them away. They’re not going to make me cry.

I pull against Jace’s grip, trying to squirm away, but all I manage to do is tease his cock. I feel it throb harder against me, more insistently than before.

“She’s got spirit,” Jace chuckles, a raspy need in his voice. “But she’ll give in if she knows what is good for her.”

“All you have to do is say the words like a good mate, Calla,” Gideon murmurs, watching while his brother spanks me. “Well, now you have to scream them to make Jace happy.”

Another slap across both cheeks. My hips jerk. I’m breathing harder now, not just from the pain, but from the heat building between my legs. And the worst thing I know they can smell it. My arousal—I can smell the muskiness of theirs. It’s made the air heavier, like I can’t get a full breath, no matter how hard I try.

The slaps ring out and I close my eyes to keep the tears from running down my face. I’m getting spanked like a naughty little girl who forgot her place. A grown woman, getting punished like a child. But I’m powerless to stop it. The stinging pain makes it difficult to think straight. And my bracelet isn’t helping at all. It may get ripped off and thrown into The Tangle when this is over.

Maybe it’s done with me, now that I’ve been delivered to my supposed mates.

“This ends as soon as you say what you’re supposed to, Calla,” Jace says, like I need a reminder, and the slaps start coming faster. “I’d much rather fuck you than spank you, trust me. But the longer you make me wait, the harder that part is going to be too.”

“We made a deal. Time to accept what you actually agreed to,” Gideon says. “You’re not our slave. You’re not our prisoner. You’re our mate. And you will have our child.”

I thrash and kick against the pelts, unable to stop the tears. Jace’s cock twitches against my stomach with each whimpering squall. I’m in agony, both from the spanking and the ache pulsating from my core.

Gideon steps closer and kneels in front of my face. His hand slides through my messy blonde hair, moving it away from my eyes, so I have to look at him. There’s no anger. No frustration. Just a burning need beneath his calm, golden radiance.

“You’re strong,” Gideon says softly. “We’re not trying to break you. We just want to make you ours in every way. No other girl from Haven North can say she has a pack of wolves who will rip the throat out of anyone who does so much as look at her the wrong way.”

Not trying to break me doesn’t ring as true as it would if Jace wasn’t still spanking me. But then his hand slows, like he can already sense the surrender that is building up inside me. I meet Gideon’s gaze. It’s not pain stoking the fire inside me. It’s something deeper—something primal.

This is my future now. It’s what I chose.

“I-I’m yours,” I whisper. “I’m your mate.”

“Good enough,” Gideon says, stroking my hair and looking at his brother, who rubs the last spot he spanked. “Jace, I think we can find better ways to make her scream it. Don’t you?”

Jace’s cock throbs his response before he speaks. “Absolutely,” he murmurs.

I go limp across Jace’s lap.

I’d like to believe the worst is over, but I’m still scared of what’s next. Both of them. Claiming me. Marking me. Doing everything in their power to breed a girl the smartest people in Haven North said is infertile.

I guess I’m about to learn what it’s like to be a Bride—except there will be no wedding or life of luxury.

Just two hungry wolves.

And this isn’t even half of the pack.