GRAYSON
She’s here. She’s down here. And she’s shifted.
:
64
55 vouchers
I drop to the floor hard, clawed fingers biting the dirt, knees cracking stone, chest heaving with every inhale like the wolf’s already tearing through my sternum.
The tunnel’s too tight for two, but I crawl anyway, hunched and snarling, bent wrong around the walls, scraping bone against cement because I can’t slow down, not now, not when the air’s this thick with her- burnt fur and blood and the kind of heat that shouldn’t be this fucking strong if she wasn’t in pain.
She’s bleeding. She’s running. She’s not okay.
My elbow slams the edge of the tunnel wall, tears straight through the fabric. Doesn’t register. The wolf howls under my skin and I bite my own tongue to keep from losing form. Every inch I crawl forward feels like the wrong direction, the wrong shape. I need to run. I need to shift. I need to take the fucking tunnel apart with my teeth.
“Grayson!” Pierce shouts behind me, voice catching.
I don’t look back. Don’t answer. I growl low in my throat and keep going, faster now, faster than my body was built for, back bowed, jaw clenched so tight I feel the pressure behind my eyes.
The tunnel dips. The scent hits harder.
Her. All of her. Wild, raw, broken open.
My vision whites out. I nearly eat shit on the drop but catch myself with my knuckles. Slam the weight into my wrists and shove off the wall hard enough to bounce. The tunnel’s not real anymore. Just noise. Just heat. Just the ghost of her pawprints dragging me under.
She’s not in control. I can smell it.
She’s caught between bodies. Bones half–split. Still in heat. Still fighting it.
The shame in her scent is thick as blood, coating my tongue, choking my lungs. Every inhale slides through my ribs like knives, makes my whole body curl in on itself. The wolf wants it. Wants her. Wants the wreck of her, the humiliated twist of her limbs as she runs from herself.
And I want to find her before anyone else does.
I slam shoulder–first into the trapdoor. Wood cracks. I hit it again. It doesn’t give, so I dig my fingers under the lip and rip. Metal tears loose. I won’t stop. I drag the whole thing off the hinges, fling it behind me like I’ll skin the next obstacle alive.
I drop down into blackness and land on all fours.
Heat. Right here.
9:36 Thu, Sep 4
Chapter 144
Right fucking here.
Pierce’s boots hit the ground behind me.
“She was here,” he pants.
“She still is.”
Because her scent’s fresh.
(64)
55 vouchers
“She was fighting,” I say, teeth bared, chest heaving, breath shaking with how close the wolf is now. “Clawed someone. Hard.”
“She got away?” Pierce breathes, hopeful.
“No.”
I crouch low. Run my fingers across the smear of fur on the wall. It’s thick. Tangled with someone else’s scent.
Alpha.
Male.
Twice her size.
I don’t just see red–I taste it.
A howl claws its way up my spine but I lock my jaw and force it down, swallow the snarl before it rips open my throat. My head’s too hot. My hands are shaking.
“She’s with someone,” I say low. ” Riot?”
“I think so…” His voice cuts, breath sharp. “Grayson… you should see this…”
“What?” I snap my head.
I stalk up behind him, shoulders hunched, breath short, fingers curling as my wolf drags claws through the lining of my throat. Pierce steps aside.
And there he is.
What’s left of him.
Theo
Split open at the ribcage, spine twisted so far back I can see the inside of his throat. One arm gone. One leg barely hanging by a tendon. His jaw is broken–snapped sideways like something got tired of his voice halfway through a scream.
His eyes are wide.
9:37 Thu, Sep 4
Chapter 144
Frozen.
Terrified.
Fresh.
Not more than ten minutes dead.
:
64
55 vouchers
The wolf takes a step forward before I do. My foot slams the ground harder than I mean to. My claws are out. They weren’t a second ago. My teeth ache. My whole back cracks with how fast the bones want to go full shift. I shake, once, hard, like the tremor could break this room open and pull her out of it.
I crouch.
Touch the edge of Theo’s torn shoulder and fuck it, what am I going to do to you, Jess?
“She did this,” I say low.
“Grayson—”
“Grayson, she could be hurt-”
“She’s alive.” My voice cuts through stone. “Or I’d feel it.”
“She shifted and killed him?” Pierce’s shaking his head. “No omega should’ve been able—”
“She’s not just omega.”
I rise slowly, dragging claws against my palm until I bleed, until the wolf backs off just enough to let me breathe again.
“She did this,” I say again, lower. “And she’s still running.”
I start forward. Step over Theo’s body.
There’s another tunnel behind the blood.
Narrower, Clawed wide.
Fresh fur on the edge of the stone–hers.
I brace a hand on the wall and lower my head, sucking a full breath of her trail. I’m going to find her. And if anything else touches her before I do, I’ll rip their spine out through their throat.
“I can smell another scent…” Pierce’s voice is behind me again, unsteady. “I think she’s with someone. I think
she’s with Riot.”
I start walking. One shoulder brushing the cave wall, fingers trailing the rock for balance, left hand out to catch scent again. The dirt’s loose here. Packed wrong. Someone tunneled this fast–barely stable. A rat hole. A trap. I don’t care.
9:37 Thu, Sep 4
Chapter 144
“Yeah?” My voice is flat. “Whose fault is that?”
:
64
55 vouchers
Pierce stumbles a little behind me, the wet crunch of rock shifting under his boots.” Come on. Are we still not okay with that?”
“You sold your sister to a monster.”
Damn it.
I move, fast, past the ridge, past the trees, bleeding heat and moonlight, breath burning. I can’t get her scent anymore. Jessica’s smart. She’ll block it. She’ll block me.
She doesn’t want to be found.
I don’t care.
–
I drop to all fours, claws digging through mulch, shoulder scraping stone, head down, mouth open – nothing. No blood. No heat. No trail. I snarl low, deep, guttural, half–human, half–wolf, half–male who can’t fucking take it. I smell him.
Riot.
She’s covering herself in him.
I want to howl but it’ll give me away. I want to shift but I’ll lose ground. I want to kill Pierce for making me stop, for slowing me down, for breathing while she’s out here taking another male into her body like I never fucking mattered.
“You gonna bleed all over the forest?” Pierce mutters, trailing again.
“I’ll bleed on you if you speak again.”
He shuts up.
I don’t have time for pack. I don’t have time for logic. I don’t have time for shame. I want her back and I want her back filthy, slick, trembling, wrecked with guilt so deep she can’t look me in the eye without falling on her knees.
Damn it, Jess! Where are you?
My eyes scanned the area but all I can see is nothing!
I can’t smell her, can’t taste her, and I don’t know if it’s because she’s gone or because I’m slipping–too far, too fucking rabid, too alpha–struck to think past the heat hammering between my ears.
I crawl forward. One arm. Then the next. Every inch, I rake the earth open like she might still be underneath
- it.
And then, clink.
I freeze. Neck twisted, chest heaving. There. Buried half in the mud. A glint, soft and pale, like—
9:37 Thu, Sep 4
Chapter 144
No.
64
55 vouchers
I lunge. Fist slams into the dirt, claws ripping around it, and when I drag it up, I already know what it is. That thin silver chain. That cracked moonstone center. The one I gave her.
She dropped it?
9:37 Thu, Sep 4
