Page 6 of Never Tamed (Bad Wolves #3)

Noble

T he container groans in the wind, the metal walls cold even with our combined body heat.

It smells like rust, salt, and damp fur—like desperation.

I lean back against the corrugated steel, trying to keep pressure off my leg, which still burns and throbs as the bone knits together again. Every beat of agony makes my vision pulse with it. I can’t tell if my rib’s cracked too or if it just feels that way. Probably both.

My mate is still at my side, and I cling to her, clutching her close.

The others are quiet. Dax has been gone for an hour and who knows what trouble he’s getting into here in this crumbling concrete jungle.

Mathis paces the narrow aisle between me, Torin, and Ren like he’s trying not to crawl out of his skin.

He’s the same as Dax. His wolf doesn’t belong here in a steel coffin, away from trees and open sky.

He keeps glancing at me—at my leg—then away again like he’s trying to do something about it through sheer force of will.

The bond between us crackles faintly, like a dying radio signal. Broken, battered, but still alive.

First aid. A needle. A hope and an unheard prayer.

My mind snags on the word, and I jolt upright.

“I heard them—the Blood Moons,” I say suddenly, voice rough from disuse. Everyone freezes. I sit up straighter, jaw clenched. “When they took me, I was only half out of it, and I heard them talking.”

Torin’s head snaps toward me, full attention locked. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

I point to my leg and then to Ren. “A little fucking busy?”

Unease and nerves crackle between us and the tension strings tighter.

Mathis stills, a frown deepening the furrow between his brows.

“They’ve bribed a lot of the law enforcement in the city. It’s given them extra eyes in case we come back. Andras is already prepared. He’s been cornering our territory before you ever made the connection with Catarina,” I add.

“Bribed or threatened?” Mathis says with careful control.

Torin’s eyes narrow. “Does it matter?”

Guess not .

He curses under his breath in a string of low grumbled words. His hands curl into fists until his knuckles pop and go white.

“Anything else?” Mathis presses. “Come on, Noble. Did they say more?”

My head spins and aches. I clamp down on the inside of my lip and use the pain for clarity. As much as I hate admitting it, I’m with Dax. This place sucks. There’s a reason why we never came out this far. The bay is a stinkhole. It’s pure humanity and not in the orderly way of the city.

But we’re stuck here.

“They’re…underground now. Underneath the city. Literally, not metaphorically. They’ve gone into the tunnels beneath us.” Right under our noses, the entire time.

Guilt swamps me, and I tug Ren closer.

Why couldn’t I have figured it out? For all our tech, for all our cameras, we hadn’t found Andras.

Torin frowns. “The sewers?”

I nod. “It’s why it seemed like they disappeared out of thin air. They’ve built a whole fucking nest beneath the streets.”

“Like the rats they are,” Torin snaps, glancing between us before landing on Mathis. “This attack…This plan with the Briar Pack, it was supposed to wipe us out. They expected my people to be there. We threw off their plans when only Noble and I showed up.”

“With the Grey Valley and Steel Claws alphas out of the way, it’d be easier for Andras to take over our packs.” Mathis growls, his spine curling forward. “Absorb them into his—”

“Or kill them all if they refuse to accept a change in leadership, yeah,” I add. “But we’re still breathing, which means he’s going to try again. But this time, we know where he’s hiding. We have the upperhand.”

Exhaustion settles harder on my shoulders, and I sink back down. My eyes flutter shut.

“Do we?” Mathis asks, his tone grim. “Even working together and even with Dax mauling down half a church full of those bastards, our pack numbers are still low. And Andras will come harder next time.”

The unspoken realization settles between us like poison gas in the air.

The next time he attacks will be the last.

He’ll hit hard and we won’t survive it.

“Then let him,” Torin mutters. He shifts slightly, and I catch sight of something red clutched in his hands. Ren’s jacket? “We need a plan. A real one. We hit him first. Above or below ground—I don’t care. We finish this together.”

“You’re starting to sound like Dax.” Mathis curls his lip and turns away.

“He’s been making more and more sense lately,” Torin says.

The bond linking the four of us together snaps with awareness. We’re mostly on the same page. For the first time in what feels like hours, there’s a flicker of heat in my chest. Hope, maybe. Or vengeance. It’s getting harder to tell the difference.

We sit in uneasy silence, broken only by the whine of distant cranes and the whistle of wind off the sea threading through the stacks of shipping containers. It’s a strange kind of understanding, of peace, haunted by the very real possibility of losing our mate.

The mate that belongs to all of us.

“What we need right now is time,” Mathis says eventually. “Ren can’t be moved again. Not like this. The wounds are too deep, and it’ll take a long time to heal. If we try to move her again, we’ll lose her.”

I close my eyes again and memorize the flutter of her heartbeat through our bond. It’s faint and fragile but still there.

“She’s strong,” I whisper. “She always has been. And the Moonstone gave her an extra boost. We just have to hope it’s enough to help her pull out of this and keep her alive.”

Torin glances down at his hands, then at the bloodstained jacket in his arms again. His fingers clench around the fabric like it might anchor him to something solid. “Did…Did you all feel it when I did? When the mate bond snapped into place?”

My eyes pop open.

Mathis snaps stiff, his gaze volleying between us. “The mate bond, yes.” He scratches his scalp. “It was like another piece of a puzzle clicking into place.”

I’d wanted to be angry with it, at first. But I have the most practice with it. I understand how it feels to make room for something inside of you that always felt inevitable. I hadn’t realized the pieces were missing until they were finally in place.

I nod. “That’s how it felt when she formed a bond with Mathis, too. I wanted to be upset that she wasn’t just mine, but instead it felt right. I’m stronger being connected to him, and now you.”

When my alpha lifts his head, there’s something new in his gaze. Guilt, perhaps. Regret. He’s still coming to terms with what this all means—he’s one of us now, bound to her, despite how hard he tried to fight it.

It only goes to prove there’s no way to fight fate and what is meant to be. It will always find a way.

I drag the fingers of my opposite hand along my face and wince when I get to my swollen and bruised eye. “There’s no way to deny she’s like us. Bound to us all.”

“Trust me. I know we can’t ignore what it means.” Torin casts a punishing gaze at me and then at Mathis. “Our packs are joined by more than just tragedy. Their alphas share a mate.”

The statement lands with the weight of an anchor.

There’s a long silence. Then Mathis exhales slowly and leans back. “It means we stop fighting over who leads, and start figuring out how to lead together.”

Our Goddess has a sick sense of humor. There’s no mistaking her hand in this and the irony has me wanting to smile despite the circumstances.

“That’s not how pack hierarchy works,” Torin mutters. “Two alphas? It’s unheard of.”

His blond hair is askew and pulled loose from the neat knot he always keeps at the nape of his neck. He’s wild-eyed and tense. If his hair were a sunnier shade and his back turned, I’d almost mistake him for Dax.

Almost.

“All of this is unheard of. The stone, a human turning into a wolf, multiple bonds—” I count them off. “It’s not normal, but maybe this is what it needs to be to beat Andras.”

Mathis has gotten himself under control. Composed and ready for the next step. Torin is all sharp edges and buried, uncovered guilt. Dax, wherever the fuck he is, is unpredictable and volatile.

And me. Where do I fit in?

How do I play into this mess?

I’m broken and still healing, but clear-eyed now. More than I’ve been in years.

“Ren chose us,” I remind them, treading lightly. “And we chose her. We can’t keep fighting each other and expect to win this war. We need to work together as one pack.”

A few weeks ago, if I’d said as much to Torin, he would’ve snapped my head off without thinking twice.

Now his jaw tightens. He turns away with the red hoodie crushed to his heart.

He’s fighting something, some ingrained instinct that doesn’t want to give.

“I spent weeks trying not to feel the bond, or give into it. I told myself how love was a weakness and true mates only existed in fairytales. I told myself that loving Ren was… dangerous, and if I let her in, it would tear me apart,” Torin says.

“And now?” Mathis asks softly.

We all feel the truth even if he never finds the words to explain it.

The bond strings tighter. Torin’s gaze flicks over to Ren lying still in my lap. We wrapped her in every blanket we could find, but her breath barely stirs the air.

He doesn’t answer right away.

“I was wrong,” he says at last. “I admit it. So incredibly wrong.”

The mighty alpha of the Steel Claws admitting he was wrong wasn’t on my Bingo card of bullshit. And any other day I’d have called you a liar if you said it was possible.

“Well, it’s about fucking time you got your head out of your ass.”

The door squeals open with a metallic groan, and Dax ducks inside. He’s soaked head to toe with water dripping off him in rivulets. Two dead seagulls hang in one hand, dangling by their necks, both fully plucked of their feathers.

“What the hell are those? ” Torin grunts in disgust.

Dax grins and shows blood-streaked canines. “Dinner.”

“I take back what I said about Dax making sense.” Torin shudders and flops down on my other side. “He’s out of his fucking mind.”

“What? They’re a little small, not much meat, but I’m sure they taste like chicken. Or close to it.”

Dax shakes the dangling seagulls and their webbed feet beat together.

Mathis ducks to hide his small laugh.

“There’s no way in hell I’m eating that,” Torin says, lip curled in disgust. “Do you know how many diseases those birds have?”

“Would you prefer a rat?” Dax asks, deadpan. “I can probably go back out and catch one if you prefer it, mister prissy-pants.”

Torin refuses to dignify him with a response. He just tips his head back against the wall and sighs, rubbing his temples in oscillating circles. “God. This is my life now? Off brand sweat pants and eating raw pigeon?”

“Seagulls,” Dax corrects in a monotone. “Pigeons are way too small. Little bones. They get stuck in your teeth.”

He speaks like he’s had experience. And knowing him, he probably has. I want to give in to the bile rising up the back of my throat, but I won’t give Torin the satisfaction of commiserating.

Dax shrugs, unbothered. “At least I’m doing something helpful instead of sitting here, slowly shrinking away into madness.”

“You’re already there,” I mutter. “It’s not a far drop.”

He grunts in agreement. “I like to think of it as being a trailblazer.” Dax takes one of the birds and sinks his teeth into the meat. Blood and guts and who knows what else spray across his face, but he doesn’t care. He just chews away, like a happy dog given a treat.

“Come on. I’m really not the only one who’s going to eat, am I?” he says between chews.

No one joins him, but the corner of Mathis’s mouth twitches upward. Torin exhales slowly, his face looking a little green. I shake my head in a definite no.

“More for me.” Dax shrugs again.

A rustle sounds, a shift of fabric, a barely-there sound, and every head whips toward it.

Ren moves at my side.

She doesn’t wake. Not fully. But her fingers curl slightly where they rest near her ribs, and her brow furrows like she’s fighting something in a dream.

The bond pulses—soft, but certain.

We all freeze.

Torin moves first, moving to crouch beside her with careful hands on her chin. He doesn’t speak. None of us do. We just watch as her breathing evens, the tension in her face fading away.

“This is a good sign,” Mathis murmurs, like if he says it too loud, he’ll jinx it. “She’s coming back to us.”

Torin movements are slow and stiff. “She has to. I…I need her. She has to come back.”

“We all do.” I feel the bond pulse again, faint but undeniable, a single thread pulling tight in my chest, connecting me to her. To them.

Ren is the center of us. Unconscious, yes, but here and still fighting, and her heartbeat echoes inside mine. Every single one of us gravitates toward her until our pulse is a single unified beat.

Pushing my voice through the bond, I hope she will be able to hear it and somehow follow it back to consciousness.

Come on, baby. We need you.