Page 1 of Snarl First, Kiss Later (Alpha’s Prophecy #2)

ONE

AVA

T he western timberline of Shadowfall in the Borderlands had never been shy about its secrets, especially since it was outside the unified territory of the Lycan King and Queen once they defeated Roman, but tonight it acted downright cagey.

No chirp, no rustle, just a hush thick enough to muffle the crunch of Ava Monroe’s boots while she picked her way between moss-slick trunks.

Lantern light from the human settlement glimmered half a mile behind her; ahead lay nothing but pine pitch and questions.

Missing convoys left questions, too.

Three days earlier a PEACE truck with one medic, two guards, a driver had rolled north with antibiotics and baby formula.

It should’ve bounced back down the gravel by dawn of the following morning.

Instead, folk in the Borderlands woke to radio static and an empty road.

PEACE shrugged from their comfy comms hub in New Haven; “probably a flat,” they’d said.

Ava hadn’t waited for a second shrug. She packed supplies, slung her father’s scarred leather jacket over her shoulders, and followed the ruts into the green wild.

Now, under the gloom of moon-gnawed clouds, she smelled the wrong kind of iron.

Blood.

Ava dropped to one knee, braid sliding over her collarbone, storm-green eyes flicking across the forest floor.

Broken branches. Parallel drag marks scuffed into the mud like something heavy had been hauled off the road and buried under brush.

Half a PEACE insignia lay shredded beside a boot print twice as wide as her fist.

“Hell,” she breathed, rubbing the small jagged scar under her right eye. “Not bandits.”

Shifters.

The might distrust claws and fangs, but they weren’t stupid: since the fall of Roman the Tyrant, a name spoken like a rattlesnake warning, rogue packs had scattered into the hills.

Most stayed clear of human towns now loyal to King Landon.

Some didn’t. Ava still remembered the night her father disappeared chasing off a rogue wolf.

The Hollow had whispered hero, yet somehow the badge of grief pinned heavier on her mother and kid-sister than praise ever could.

Ava never called it heroism. She called it going alone.

And here she was, alone anyway. Apparently the habit was hereditary.

She swung her rifle from her shoulder, thumb brushing the safety. Silver-tipped rounds, which were illegal under PEACE jurisdiction, but she’d bartered hard for them after the uprising. “Insurance,” she muttered, stepping deeper.

The scent thickened, leading her toward a clearing choked by ferns. A charred PEACE truck sat on its side, wheels still slowly spinning like a toy knocked over by a petulant child. Bullets had torn the frame, but claw grooves marred the hood. No bodies, likely taken. Or eaten.

She swallowed. “Focus, Monroe.”

Past the wreck, the ground sloped toward a rocky creek. Water burbled low, masking the faint sound of ragged breathing. Ava paused, head tilting. Another breath, gasping and wet, carried on the night air.

She crept downhill.

That’s when she saw him.

A man lay half-submerged beneath a tangle of pine boughs, torso slick with blood that wasn’t all his own.

Six-foot-plus of ruined muscle, tan skin streaked by mud, one boot missing, the other sole hanging by a thread.

His black hair—long on top, shorn close on the sides—clumped over his forehead, hiding closed lids.

But even unconscious, the set of his jaw looked carved from granite.

A vicious scar ran down his back, bisecting muscle like lightning frozen in flesh.

Shifter, every instinct whispered. Wolf. Adult. Danger on a good day and this wasn’t one.

Ava’s pulse hammered. Did she hate wolves? No. Feared them? Maybe. Distrusted? Definitely. But leaving him to bleed out felt wrong in her bones, the way desertion of a patient always did. Wilderness medics kept a creed: life first, questions second.

She skimmed the perimeter. No ambush scent, no other sounds her human ears could pick up. Whatever pack ambushed the convoy had left their own behind.

“Lot of gratitude in that,” she muttered, slinging her rifle, edging closer. “Okay, big guy, you better not wake up biting.”

The man’s lips trembled. No answer.

Ava crouched beside him, leather jacket creaking.

She pressed two gloved fingers to his neck.

Pulse erratic. Feverish heat radiated through chilled night.

He needed antiseptic, stitches, water. He needed a safe roof.

The town of Shadowfall would never open its gates to a wounded wolf; the infirmary there still smelled of silver nitrate from war casualties.

That left her hideout.

“Dad would call this suicidal.” She sighed, sliding her arms beneath his armpits.

He groaned a low, feral sound that sent gooseflesh crawling over her arms but didn’t wake.

She braced, lifted, and bore half his weight, boots slipping on damp loam.

“You’re damn heavy for a near-corpse, you know that? ”

She staggered uphill in starts and stops, muscles straining. The trek to her cave took forty agonizing minutes as she made her way up switchbacks cut by deer, across moss-slick stones, through a curtain of ivy. The cave yawned open, shallow but dry, fire ring still cold from last night’s watch.

Ava lowered him onto her bedroll with a gasp, shoulders screaming.

She flicked her headlamp on, bathing stone walls in dim yellow.

He looked deader under light, lips blue, breath shallow.

She peeled soggy jeans from one thigh that held deep claw slashes, edges black with infection.

Silver shards glittered inside the wounds.

Her stomach clenched. Rogues used silver to deter pack healing.

Whoever left him wanted him to die slow.

“Sadistic bastards,” she growled.

From her satchel she drew disinfectant, gauze, tweezers. She cut away ruined fabric, cleaned until pink flesh bled clean. He twitched. His grey-gold eyes fluttered open just a sliver and fixed on her face in hazy confusion.

“Easy,” she soothed, lifting a brow. “You’re safe—for now.”

“Who…?” His voice rasped like gravel dragged across steel.

“Name’s Ava. Medic. You’re welcome.” She didn’t mention human, didn’t mention silver bullets. Truths could wait until he wasn’t dying.

His gaze flicked to the rifle leaning against the wall, then to her hands working stitches. Surprise or maybe resignation, danced in those eyes before lids slid shut again. A silent surrender.

She swallowed a strange pang of admiration.

An hour later the worst wounds were cleaned and stitched. She wrapped his ribs, bandaged his thigh, forced half a canteen of water down his throat in slow sips. He never fully woke, but murmured once, just one word, rough, trembling:

“Lena.”

Ava frowned. A lover? Enemy? She filed it away.

At last, fire crackled. She draped her spare blanket over his torso, then collapsed against the cave wall, exhaustion settling like lead.

Outside, the forest exhaled a tentative breeze. Somewhere an owl hooted indicating life returning after violence.

Ava brushed dirt from her scarred cheek, eyes lingering on the man. He looked softer in firelight, lashes resting against sharp cheekbones, mouth relaxed. Human, almost. Not a monster. Just broken.

“Figures,” she murmured. “I came looking for a PEACE convoy, found a wolf instead.”

She considered the truck wreck, the missing guards, the nailed insignia.

Someone had orchestrated that ambush with military precision.

Not random rogues. Could be Gideon’s Torch, the human extremists, or some splintered pack resisting Landon’s rule.

Either way, the Borderlands had bigger problems than distrust.

And her patient, whoever he was, might hold answers.

She pulled her father’s jacket tighter around her shoulders, inhaling faint cedar and old smoke. If Dad were here, he’d scowl but nod: help first, interrogate later. Then he’d pat her shoulder and say Proud of you, kid and vanish back into the night like he always did in her dreams.

Ava’s throat tightened. “Gonna be a long night,” she whispered, rubbing tired eyes.

She checked the man’s pulse one last time. It was steadier now, though weak, so she settled onto a flat rock a few feet away, rifle across her lap.

Gritty, resilient, her sister once teased. Ava added another word tonight, reckless . But in a world still bleeding from war, maybe reckless compassion was exactly what kept the heart beating.

“Sleep, wolf,” she muttered, letting lids droop. “Tomorrow we figure out if you’re worth all this trouble.”

Behind her half-closed eyes, images drifted: a convoy burning, the wolf’s golden-flecked gaze, a future where humans shook hands with shifters instead of aiming rifles. She didn’t dare hope.

But she didn’t stop, either.

Ava leaned back against the stone, finally letting herself rest. Her ribs ached from the haul. Her thighs burned. But her mind kept circling one simple truth:

She’d just brought a predator into her den.

And she didn’t know if he’d thank her or tear her apart when he woke.