bChapter /b178

    JESSICA

    “Focus, Jessica.”

    verter Vauchers

    “Yes, alpha.” I inhale deeply and close my eyes. When I open them, I set my eyes on the target and pull bthe /barrow until itnds on it. “Bullseye!”

    Chuckling, I turn around to see Grayson’s reaction but he’s busy talking to Kade. Always busy. Ever since bthat /bday, he seems to be very upied. He told me they have to put off the marking for another week.

    I don’t know what to think about it.

    Grayson never asked me for my opinion. He just assumed I wanted to be marked by him which is partly btrue /bbut I also wanted him to consider me in every n that he got going around his head.

    I stalked toward them, boots crunching in the dirt. “Grayson.”

    He lifted a hand without looking, a silentmand to wait. My teeth ground together. My pulse throbbed in my throat. He couldmand a whole damn pack with that gesture, but I wasn’t one of his wolvesb–/bwas I?

    I don’t wait.

    If he thinks that hand is enough to leash me, he’s forgotten who I am.

    The distance between us closes in three strides, and before Kade can shift aside, I’m sliding my hand up the back of Grayson’s neck. I tilt my face into his, lips grazing the cut of his jaw before pressing ia /ikiss there.

    “So,” I purr, nails pricking the back of Grayson’s neck, “what’s worth your attention more than me?”

    Finally, I turn my gaze on Kade, my mouth still brushing Grayson’s jaw.

    “Well, well,” he drawls, tilting his head as if cataloguing every brush of my mouth against Grayson’s jaw. “Didn’t know I was interrupting something… intimate.”

    “Kade.”

    “What?” Kade smirks, spreading his hands. “I’m just appreciating the view. If you don’t want her tested, maybe don’t parade her in front of wolves who like a challenge.”

    “What did I do?”

    Grayson’s eyes darken, wolf–ck, hunger barely caged. For a heartbeat, I think he’ll take me right here in the dirt where anyone could see. But then he releases me so abruptly I stumble back.

    “Training’s over.” His voice is steel. “Everyone out.”

    Wolves scatter at the order, the field emptying fast. Only Kade lingers, arms folded, a smirk ying at his lips.

    “Touchy,” Kade murmurs, watching me, not him. “Almost like you’re hiding something, alpha.”

    Grayson’s snarl cuts the air, sharp enough to make the trees quake, but Kade just chuckles and drifts toward the tree line, hisugh curling back on the wind.

    I round on Grayson, heat and fury sparking off me. “What the hell was that?”

    His jaw ticks, eyes still rimmed in ck. “You shouldn’t provoke him.”

    “Provoke-?” I bark out augh, sharp and disbelieving. “You’re the one keeping secrets and I’m supposed to sit here and be your quiet little shadow?”

    Grayson closes the space between us in a blur, his hand mping my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. “I dyed the marking for a reason, Jessica. You think I don’t want you? You think I can’t smell what you’re doing to me right now?” His words scrape low, rough, vibrating through me. “But I will not bind you to me until I know you’re safe.”

    “Safe from what?”

    For the first time, he looks away. His chest heaves, breath unsteady. “There’s a traitor in the pack.”

    The way he said that, it almost felt like he’s been thinking about it for weeks now. I know Grayson and I know he thinks everything thoroughly before concluding everything. So him saying this to me means that he already has a name in mind.

    “Who?”

    His grip drops, fists balling at his sides. “I don’t know. But Kade’s watching everyone now. We’re all alphas here, Jess. I just don’t think…”

    A howl rips through the night before I can answer–raw, panicked, tearing across the valley. Both our heads snap toward iit/i.

    “That’s the eastern patrol,” Grayson growls, already moving. He whips his head back to me, eyes zing. “Stay here.”

    But the wolf in me is already awake, already wing to run. My blood sings with the sound of that cry, and there’s no universe where I stay behind.

    “Like hell,” I snarl, snatching my bow from the dirt. “If there’s blood in my pack, I’m not hiding in the shadows.”

    Grayson’s lips curl in something between pride and fury before he bolts toward the tre blur of muscle and rage. I chase, every step burning with the promise that whatever waits for us out there is about to change everything.

    The forest tears at me as I run, but I barely feel it. My wolf is awake, hot and ravenous, scraping at my bones like she wants to rip free and devour the night.

    Grayson’s voice is in my skull even though he doesn’t look back. Breathe through it. Don’t cage her. Own her.

    apter 178

    God, I used to hate the way he barked orders at me at dawn, the way he broke me down buntil /bbI /bbthought /bI’d shatter. But now–now I feel it. The power in the burn of my lungs, the way my wolf bsnarls /bbut bdoesn’t /bconsume me. She’s mine. I’m hers. And it’s because he shoved me into the fire and refused bto /blet me crawl back out.

    The forest bends around Grayson’s figure ahead of me, his shoulders broad, every motion bprecise/b, terrifyingly fluid. He doesn’t just move through the wild; he rules it. And part of me thrills at the bfact /bbthat /bbI’ve /bbeen learning–slowly, stubbornly–to keep up with him.

    Stay close to me. Feel the ground before it gives. Breathe through the rage. It’s yours, not hers.

    I drag air into my chest and snarl it back down. The shift doesn’t take me. I take it. My lips curl in bsomething /bferal.

    Grayson feels it. I know he does. He nces over his shoulder, eyes ck, burning–and the pride there punches through me harder than the run. For one heartbeat, the danger around us doesn’t matter. What matters is that he sees me. That I’m not just the hybrid that ruiend his pack, his burden–I’m bing the thing he’s been forging with blood and grit.

    “Jessica. Wait here.” Themand tears out of him, low and savage, the kind that snaps spines into obedience.

    Ligh

    My wolf shudders inside me, a traitorous pull to submit. My knees almost bend before I catch them, locking tight.

    “You forget,” I rasp, nails biting into my bow’s grip, “I don’t take orders. Not even yours.”

    Grayson’s snarl rakes the air, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of stopping. My boots chew up the forest floor as I push after him, matching stride for stride.

    He doesn’t slow. He knows I’m there. Maybe he wanted me to stay back. Maybe he wanted me to prove I wouldn’t but I didn’t until…I saw it.

    Bodies. Torn wolves littering the patrol line, fur matted dark with blood, throats shredded like meat. And beyond them, one still moves–crawling, whimpering–before another shape crashes down on it, teeth ripping, flesh tearing in wet, sickening bursts.

    My wolf ms against my chest, not in hunger but in panic. Her whimper tears through me, raw and primal, a memory stitched to the marrow of my bones.

    I know this ughter.

    I see it again—my body pinned, hot jaws snapping inches from my throat, the stink o. cath and blood choking me as teeth scraped across my skin. That helplessness.

    And she remembers too. My wolf shrinks, curls in on herself, tail between her legs, begging me to back down, to hide, to run before those same jaws turn on us.

    “Jessica.”

    My chest convulses like something is tearing me apart from the inside. I grip Grayson’s hands as if I’ll be ripped away without them, nails digging into his skin, anchoring myself ito /ithe only thing keeping me upright.

    b8:17 /bbSun/bb, /bbSep /bb14 /bbN /b

    :

    “It’s Riot,” I choke out. My wolf keens at the sound of it, a hollow cry inside my skull. “It’s him. I know it haw. this before…when he was chasing me.”.

    Grayson’s fingers mp around mine, hard, grounding–but his eyes are fire, huntingb, /balready bcalcting /bthe

    kill.

    I wish I could borrow his rage. Riot’s shadow has lived in my bones ever since, and I know we did all the forgiving in the past but this is making me terrified.

    The wolf inside me cowers lower. Whimpering. Shaking. She doesn’t want to fight him. She wants bto /bbcurl /bbup /band disappear. “Grayson…what happened to him? Where’s Pierce?”

    He doesn’t answer right away, just drags his gaze over the battlefield like he’s counting sins instead of bodies.

    “Riot was supposed to be alive,” I whisper, voice splintering. “You swore you’d keep him–and Pierceb–/bbsafe/b. You promised me.”

    “I did keep them alive, Jessica. That’s the problem.”

    “I don’t… I don’t understand-”

    Grayson pulls me closer, forcing me to look away. “Listen.” His hand strokes my cheek so gently and lovingly, I think he’s trying to hide something from me. “I need you to go and ask Kade toe here then I need you to hide.”

    What…is this?

    “Why do I need to hide? Grayson! What the hell?”

    His thumb lingers against my cheek, tender where everything else about him is ruthless. That softness terrifies me more than the blood soaking the ground. It means there’s something he doesn’t want me to see.

    “What aren’t you telling me?”

    Grayson releases a long breath and I’m sure I felt him tremble when he kissed my lips. ” Go. Trust me on this.”

    biAD /i/b