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EVE

I sat stiffly on a wooden stool, gritting my teeth as Anwen dabbed a bitter-smelling ointment on the wounds along my arm. Branches had torn at me as I ran, but putting distance between myself and the man before the sun fully rose had been my only thought.

What I’d felt had been too much . It didn’t make sense, and I had enough in my life that was out of control already.

The rash spreading across my arm was anything but comfortable and I once again faced the fact that my wolf was too deeply suppressed to help me. Thank goodness I had Anwen.

The first rays of dawn filtered through the window of Anwen’s small home, casting a faint, golden light across the cramped space.

Kenza leaned against the wall, observing me like an overbearing mama wolf. “Care to explain why you’re here at the crack of dawn looking like you got into a fight with the forest? ”

I shrugged, keeping my eyes on the floorboards. “Just needed a run after that vision.”

“A run is one thing,” Kenza scoffed, “but you look like you went sprinting into enemy territory. You’d better be careful, or Grayson will start sending his lapdogs after you.”

Enemy territory. She doesn’t know how close that is to the truth.

I’d been right up against the Heraclid borders when I’d seen him.

Why didn’t I say anything? That had been my chance! I’d been kicking myself ever since that moment, but what else was I supposed to do? When a dream is suddenly a flesh-and-blood man in front of you, all reason flies out the window and I could only bear to do what I had always done. Run.

Anwen glanced up, wisdom etched into her wrinkles as she worked. “Sometimes running does what words can’t,” she murmured as she dabbed at another scrape. “You should be careful all the same, child. These wounds say you weren’t just running. You were running from something.”

From someone . I tensed, resisting the urge to flinch. “I was trying to clear my head,” I said, as composed as I could manage. “These visions are getting harder to manage. Alpha Grayson’s demands are so specific…” I stopped there, not wanting to reveal too much. Anwen and Kenza were my friends, and all the more reason not to let them get sucked into the ordeal I faced with Grayson and Damian.

Besides, Grayson and Damian were the least of my issues.

That man.

I could still see him—the man from my visions, right there. He was massive, with shoulders broad enough to nearly brush the trees around him, and eyes that seemed to strip me bare in a single glance. His nakedness, like a man sculpted from the first stone on earth, only proved what I already knew to be true. Even though I couldn’t get a read on his energy or the pack he might belong to, his scent was as clear as day—he smelled like a wolf.

A wolf of evergreen and ocean, so vast was his scent.

I couldn’t ignore the pull he had on me, a draw that had nothing to do with what I wanted and everything to do with instinct. He had a power that radiated so fiercely it nearly forced me to my knees.

I knew one thing for certain—I had to find him again.

There was something he could do for me, something that could change my situation, though I didn’t know how. Maybe he had the power to free me, to give me a way out. My spirit itched at the thought, knowing I needed him more than I wanted to admit.

“Clear your head.” Kenza let out a long sigh. “You could clear your head by doing the obvious thing, you know.” She leaned in. “Just say the curse , Eve. Wipe the Orion pack off the map. They’re a bunch of baby killers and feral brutes anyway. Then maybe Grayson and Damian will finally get off your back.”

I snorted, though my stomach twisted at the idea of baby killers. “You really think it would be that easy?” I knew she was saying it because she wanted what was best for me, but my frustration slipped out anyhow. “Even if I could do what they wanted, they’d only find more ways to control me. I’d be trading one cage for another.”

Kenza shrugged, raising her eyebrows. “It doesn’t have to be this way. I know there are rumors swirling about who you are and how you operate, but that’s because the pack is scared of you. Maybe your future is about making the best of what you’ve got. And you’ve got us, always. You’re engaged to Damian, and I know the Heraclid pack will fall in line behind you one day. They will see what we see. Maybe the solution’s simpler than you’re making it.”

Her words stung, echoing my own doubts, questions that had crept in ever since that last vision.

But the man I’d seen was real —he existed somewhere beyond my mind—and I had to believe he held the key.

He was my way out. If I could get to him.

If I told them, even hinted at it, they’d think I’d lost it. Or worse, that I was going rogue.

Anwen broke through my thoughts. “Every oracle has a path, and sometimes, it’s not the easy one that fulfills her destiny.”

I exhaled, trying to absorb her words without letting my frustration show. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, but how long was I supposed to continue like this? My every instinct screamed at me to find that man, to draw closer to the power he carried and use it to finally be free.

The door to Anwen’s small home swung open with a force that rattled the jars on her shelves. The three of us turned, and there he stood—Damian, his figure filling the doorway, his eyes dark and predatory as they swept over the room.

His gave me a slow, unsettling smile.

“Eve,” he drawled, his voice as smooth as oil, that familiar edge making my skin crawl. He looked at the scratches Anwen was tending to, a flicker of amusement lighting his face. “What have you done to yourself? I’d hate for my father’s precious oracle to be too damaged for her duties.”

He stepped further into the room, his eyes narrowing as they passed over Anwen and Kenza.

“And it seems you’ve gathered quite the audience for your follies,” he sneered. “Still hanging around with my fiancée, Kenza? You know, friendship with an oracle can be a dangerous thing. I’d hate for it to get you in trouble.”

Kenza’s jaw clenched. “My loyalty to the Heraclid pack is more solid than titanium and we both know it,” she said coolly.

I forced myself to stand, ignoring the warning looks from Kenza and Anwen. There was no way around it. Damian was here, and he wanted me. There was no point trying to stay.

He tilted his head, eyeing the scrapes on my arm with pursed lips. “I’d tell you to be more careful, but it seems that’s a lesson you never learn.” He reached out, a hand settling around my wrist with practiced ease, his fingers pressing just hard enough to make his grip hurt. “Come with me. I’d hate for you to embarrass yourself any more than you already have. I will wrap your wound, my darling .”

I nearly choked on my saliva at the sound of his false worry, but I didn’t resist when he pulled me out of the small, comforting space of Anwen’s home and into the open air. Every muscle in my body tensed as he settled his hand on the small of my back. To the members of the pack waking and walking about, we looked like any other couple. They couldn’t tell he was pushing me forward, his prisoner held without chains .

“You know, it’s funny,” he whispered into my ear. “Seeing you like this, scratched up like a common mutt… It reminds me so much of her .”

I stiffened, the chill of his words settling against my skin.

“Ah, so you know who I mean.” He gave a quiet, mocking laugh. “Yes, your mother. The way she looked that last time I saw her.” He angled his head to glance down at me, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Weak, skittish… tired, really. As if you’d already sucked the life right out of her.”

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to keep my eyes on the path ahead, willing his words to fade like the morning mist. I didn’t want to believe him— couldn’t believe him—but his voice seeped into my thoughts, twisting reality with every word.

“She barely even looked at me when I saw her,” he continued, his tone light, as if recalling a distant memory. “Just a shadow of a woman, worn to the bone. I suppose she didn’t have much choice, though. She must’ve realized how much easier life would be without a dead weight of an oracle child dragging her down.”

I clenched my teeth, focusing on my breaths, counting each one to steady myself. I wouldn’t let him see the doubt creeping in, the splintering pain his words brought. But he noticed. He always did.

“You know what she said to me, Eve?” he whispered, leaning close, his hot, acrid breath on my neck. “She said, ‘She’s better off staying with you.’” He laughed softly, as if sharing a private joke. “And she turned to the human world. Last I heard, she was offering her saggy tits on a street corner near Seattle. Rumor was she tried to take her own life. Such a waste, in the end.”

Bile rose in my throat. I forced myself to stay silent. He wanted a reaction, a flicker of pain he could sink his teeth into, and I wouldn’t give him that.

As if sensing my resistance, he tightened his grip around my waist and hissed. “No one’s ever coming back for you, Eve. And the pack?” His smirk sharpened. “They keep you because they have to. Because my father has some twisted notion of your usefulness. Nothing more. You’re alone here. I’m all you’ve got, and you’re mine . Don’t you forget it.”

Each word wrapped around my thoughts, suffocating, insidious. I bit down and locked the hurt away, burying it somewhere deep.

I swallowed hard, refusing to let him see how the words pierced through me, each one like a needle burrowing deep. “You don’t know anything about my mother,” I said, barely more than a whisper.

“I know if she cared, she’d have come back by now.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that my heart plummeted. Every reminder of my mother was a barb, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the image he’d planted. The woman who had brought me to this pack so young I could barely remember, claiming it was our only chance at survival, a refuge from a world that didn’t understand us.

She’d convinced me. And back then, I’d believed her every word. Why wouldn’t I? She was all I had. At least we were together. Until we weren’t.

Grayson and Damian were the only ones who met my mother. They were my only connection to her now, the people who’d heard the promises she made for me and the deal that sealed my fate. I remember standing by her side, gripping her hand and feeling fear pulse from her like a second heartbeat. She’d spoken with such conviction, so sure that joining the Heraclid pack was our only path to safety. She had looked me in the eye and told me this pack was home.

I’d believed her, right up until the moment she left.

I remembered the day she walked away, clear as if it were yesterday. We’d only been in the Heraclid pack for two days when she woke up and walked out of our small quarters. I’d watched her back, feeling a coldness settle in the pit of my stomach as she hadn’t said goodbye. She’d always said goodbye, whether she was leaving for an errand or for a two-day run. I told myself she’d be back, that she couldn’t possibly leave me here with strangers who barely looked at me, let alone treated me as if I were one of them.

Days turned into weeks, then months, and I’d finally understood the truth of my situation.

My mother wasn’t coming back.

I wasn’t family to the Heraclids. I was a resource handed over like a rare specimen. The pack wouldn’t accept me, and Grayson didn’t need them to—not as long as I served his purpose.

Worse than anything was the thought that Damian’s words might hold some truth. That no matter what I did, I would always be left in the dust, the cast-off my mother had made me.

Once Damian finished parading me across the city to the estate where the alpha family lived, he dropped his hand from my back and picked up his pace. I ran to keep up with him, knowing that any other response would have consequences. I could feel his anger growing; the bitterness he had for me was beyond understanding. He yanked me to an unused servants’ quarters, shoving me through the door.

“You’ll stay here until father’s call for dinner. I don’t want to see or hear of you around town until then.” He moved to close the door behind him.

“Damian!” I called, surprising myself.

He closed his eyes, annoyed. “What do you want?”

“I don’t get it.”

“Get what ?”

I prayed to the Shadow Moon Goddess I wouldn’t regret this. “Ever since I came here, ever since I was promised to you, you’ve tried to undo me.”

He sneered. “I haven’t succeeded, have I?”

I blinked back my bitterness. “But why ?”

He moved in close, standing in front of me. I only reached the middle of his chest, and he looked down at me with disgust. “I never wanted you. I can’t stand you. You reek of a power-hungry, gold-digging witch wolf. My father should have swatted you down, strung you up at the first sign you wouldn’t utter the curses he demanded of you. But he didn’t. And I can’t. I must remain my father’s son. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do everything in my power so that you suffer like the undeserving street bitch you are.”

He stepped back and I didn’t have a word left in my body.

“Now shut up and wait for dearest dad to call for you.” He slammed the door and I heard the lock turn. This wasn’t the first time he’d put me in here.

I slumped against the door, the cold seeping into my bones as Damian’s words echoed in my mind. So much hatred, and all because of his father. It had nothing to do with me. But that didn’t help my situation. It was a matter of time before he found a way to end me. I knew it. It wasn’t a question of if, but when.

If I stayed here, he would kill me. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not this year, but someday he’d make sure I paid with my life.

Unless I found him —the man from my visions, the one I’d seen in the woods. He was my only chance to escape, my only shot at freedom. If he was what I’d seen, then he was the answer.

And he was my last hope to survive.