Marcus
She sleeps.
The rage that poured from her, a physical force in this small cabin, has exhausted itself. She lies curled on the simple bed, a predator forced into stillness. Even in sleep, her scent fills the space. Rain-soaked earth, clean steel, and a sharp, wild defiance that is all her own. It is a scent my wolf has craved without ever knowing it existed.
I stand at the window, my hand resting on the rough-hewn frame. My knuckles are white. The forest outside is dark, the moon a sliver of bone behind the clouds. It was in that darkness I found her.
Her words echo in the quiet room. *I would have rather died in that clearing than live as… this.*
A curse, she called it. She does not understand. I did not curse her. I answered the will of the Goddess.
I close my eyes, and the scent of the memory returns. Old blood. Silver-rot. The signature of a hunter’s trap not meant to kill, but to corrupt. To create monsters.
The trail had been three days old. The scent was of Garris, one of my own. A young male, barely an adult, who had vanished on a patrol near the guild’s territory. We searched for weeks. But the scent I followed was a perversion of the wolf I knew. It was twisted with agony and madness.
I was not on a hunt. I was on a mercy mission. To find what was left of my packmate and grant him the peace the hunters had denied him.
The trail ended in a small clearing. And what I saw stopped my heart.
Garris was a monster. A thing of pure, mindless rage, his fur matted with filth, his eyes the vacant yellow of the silver-plague. He was crouched over a small human child. The air was thick with the girl’s terror, a smell like ozone and salt.
My wolf snarled, demanding I tear the heavens apart to save the innocent. I prepared to move, to end Garris’s suffering and protect the child.
Then a figure exploded from the tree line. A hunter.
My entire being went rigid. I knew her instantly. Harper. The Commander’s daughter. A legend in the guild, even at her young age. They called her the Silver Ghost. Said she was ruthless, efficient, a perfect weapon forged in her father’s shadow.
I expected her to use the child. A distraction. Bait. It is what a hunter would do.
“Run!”
Her voice was not the cold command I anticipated. It was a raw, desperate scream. She threw herself between the child and the rogue, her silver blades a flash of moonlight in the dim clearing.
I remained hidden in the shadows, frozen by a shock that went deeper than strategy. This was not the act of a cold-blooded killer. This was the act of a guardian.
The child scrambled away, and the hunter turned her full attention to the beast. She moved like a storm. A dance of impossible grace and brutal precision. She did not fight with hatred. She fought with a sorrowful purpose, a surgeon cutting away a cancer.
She was winning. She drove Garris back, her blades leaving sizzling trails of silver on his corrupted flesh. She crippled him with a strike to the thigh, and he went down, howling.
She stood over him, blade raised for the final blow. And then she hesitated.
I saw it. Even from my distance, I saw it. Her eyes met his, and for a fraction of a second, she did not see a monster. She saw the victim trapped inside. She saw the same wolf I was there to mourn.
That single moment of compassion was her undoing.
Garris, in a final spasm of mindless agony, lashed out. The blow threw her across the clearing. Before she could recover, he was on her. I heard the sickening crunch of bone, her strangled scream of pain.
His jaws, dripping with venom and poison, locked onto her shoulder.
The world went silent. The forest held its breath.
With her last measure of strength, she drove her remaining blade up under his jaw. A final, merciful strike. She did for him what I could not.
He collapsed on top of her. Dead. Truly at peace.
I stepped out from the trees. The child was gone. The forest was quiet save for the sound of Harper’s ragged, shallow breathing.
The scent of her blood was sharp in the air. But underneath it was the smell of the rogue’s venom. It was a vile, creeping thing, a scent of rot and decay that was already wrapping its tendrils around her life force.
I knelt beside her. I brushed the matted hair from her face. She was so pale. So still. A broken doll left in the mud.
And then my wolf spoke. Not in words, but in a feeling. A certainty that slammed into me with the force of a physical blow. A single, soul-shaking truth that buckled my knees.
*Mate.*
The word was a brand on my heart. *Ours. She is ours. Do not let her die.*
Every instinct I had as an Alpha screamed at me. She is a hunter. The enemy. Bringing her into our world is an act of treason. It could doom us all. My pack trusts me to protect them, and my wolf demands I bring their greatest threat into our heart.
I looked at her face, serene even as the poison ate her from within. I thought of her selfless courage. The spirit that chose to save a child over its own safety. The compassion that caused her to hesitate.
That was not the spirit of an enemy.
That was the spirit of a queen.
The Goddess does not make mistakes. The bond is sacred. A gift. And it was screaming at me to act.
My rational mind, the Alpha that had led this pack for ten years, fought a losing war against the primal certainty of the wolf. The war lasted only a heartbeat.
I made my choice.
I lifted her from beneath the weight of the dead rogue. She was light, fragile in my arms. I bit into my own wrist, ignoring the sting, and let my blood, thick with the magic of my lineage, well to the surface.
I pressed my wrist to her lips. “Drink,” I whispered, though I knew she could not hear me.
The act felt profane and sacred all at once. Forcing my life into the mouth of my enemy. My blood, the Alpha’s blood, battled the venom in her veins. Her body convulsed, a silent war raging within her cells. It was a violent, brutal rebirth.
I carried her for hours, back to this cabin, my private sanctuary hidden deep in our territory. I laid her on this bed and I watched over her while her body tore itself apart and rebuilt itself into something new. Something more.
Something mine.
I open my eyes, the memory fading back into the shadows of the room. I turn from the window and look at her. The woman who swore to kill me just hours ago. The woman my soul recognizes as its other half.
She stirs in her sleep, a soft whimper escaping her lips. A frown creases her brow. She is dreaming of the life she lost. The life I stole.
An unfamiliar emotion surges through me, so powerful it makes my chest ache. Protectiveness. It is a feeling I know well as an Alpha, a duty to my pack. But this is different. This is not duty. This is a possessive, desperate need that has nothing to do with leadership and everything to do with the woman sleeping in my bed.
I have risked everything. My life. The safety of my pack. I have bound our future to a hunter who hates what she has become, and by extension, hates me.
Her words come back to me again. *Mercy or a curse.*
I walk to the bed and stand over her. I reach out, my hand hovering just inches above her cheek. I can feel the warmth of her skin, the gentle puff of her breath.
She will wake again soon. And her fury will wake with her. She will see me as her jailer. Her monster.
Let her. I will weather her rage. I will endure her hatred.
I made my choice in that clearing. I chose her. And I will not let her go.
I will show her that what I gave her was not a curse. It was a second chance. For both of us.
