Chapter 3 First Person POV

I'd imagined killing Thaddeus Crimson approximately seven hundred times in the last five years, and none of my fantasies had been quick or merciful.

"I don't do anything quietly," I said, letting my wolf rise to the surface just enough that my eyes shifted to silver. The change always hurt these days, like my body was protesting the transformation it was built for, but I'd learned to hide the pain behind a smile that showed teeth. "But I'm happy to discuss my bloodline right before I rip out your throat."

Thaddeus laughed, the sound echoing across the clearing in a way that made my skin crawl. He looked exactly the same as he had five years ago at that gathering where my life had imploded. Tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair going silver at the temples and eyes the color of old amber. Handsome, if you ignored the cruelty that lived in every line of his face. He wore expensive clothes like armor, tailored black pants and a shirt that probably cost more than everything my pack owned combined.

"Still so much fire," he said, taking a step forward. His wolves moved with him, a synchronized threat that tightened the noose around our camp. "I've always admired that about you, Lyrix. Even as a teenager, you had this spark. This defiance. It's what makes your bloodline so valuable." He tilted his head, studying me like I was a particularly interesting specimen under glass. "Tell me, does Raven Blackwood know you're dying? Does he feel it through that broken bond you're both still clinging to?"

The mention of Raven sent a sharp pulse through my chest, the damaged mate bond flaring with something between pain and recognition. I shoved it down, buried it deep where it couldn't distract me. "What I do or don't tell Raven is none of your business. Actually, everything about me is none of your business. So why don't you take your hunting party and get the fuck off my territory before I make you regret showing your face here."

"Your territory?" Thaddeus raised an eyebrow. "This is neutral land, little wolf. No pack, no protection, no rules. Which means I can do whatever I want." He gestured to his wolves, and they fanned out wider, moving to flank our camp from multiple angles. "I'm going to make this very simple. You come with me now, willingly, and I let your little collection of broken strays live. You fight me, and I kill every single one of them while you watch."

Marcus growled low in his throat beside me, his body coiled tight and ready to spring. Jen had shifted partially, claws extending from her fingertips, her breathing controlled despite the fear I could smell rolling off her in waves. They were loyal and brave and completely outmatched. Thaddeus had brought at least fifteen hunters, all of them trained killers from one of the most brutal packs in North America. My pack had eight wolves total, and three of them were barely out of adolescence.

The math was simple and devastating.

"Why?" I asked, buying time while my mind raced through options that all ended badly. "Why now? You've known where I was for months. You've had scouts watching us. Why come for me today?"

"Because you're running out of time." Thaddeus's smile sharpened. "The rejection curse is accelerating. I can smell it on you, that sweet rot of a bond dying. Another few weeks and you'll be too weak to be useful to me. So I'm collecting my asset before it depreciates further."

Asset. The word landed like a slap, reducing everything I was to a thing he could own and use. My wolf snarled, wanting blood, wanting to tear into him and make him pay for every threat, every violation, every moment of fear he'd caused. But charging him would be suicide, and more importantly, it would get my pack killed.

I'd built this family from nothing. Taken in the wolves no one else wanted, the ones who'd been rejected or exiled or broken by packs that saw them as disposable. Sage, who'd been cast out for being too weak despite her brilliant mind. Marcus, who'd lost his entire family to a pack war and had nowhere else to go. Jen, who'd been labeled a troublemaker for questioning her Alpha's orders. These wolves trusted me to protect them, and I'd be damned if I let Thaddeus Crimson murder them because I was too proud to surrender.

"If I go with you," I said slowly, hating every word, "you leave them alone. Completely. No retaliation, no hunting them down later, no using them as leverage. They're free and clear."

"Lyx, no." Sage's voice cut through the clearing, sharp with panic. She'd appeared at the edge of the safe house, laptop abandoned, eyes wide with understanding of what I was about to do. "Don't you dare. We'll fight. We'll find another way."

"There is no other way," I said, keeping my eyes on Thaddeus. "Not one where you all survive."

"How noble," Thaddeus purred. "The dying wolf sacrificing herself for her pack. It's almost touching." He pulled something from his pocket, a silver collar that gleamed in the afternoon light. Suppressor magic radiated from it, the kind of enchantment that would cut me off from my wolf completely. "Put this on and come quietly. Your pack lives. You have my word as an Alpha."

The word of an Alpha was binding, woven into the magic that governed pack law. If he gave his word and broke it, he'd lose his power, his pack, everything. It was the only real guarantee I'd get, and we both knew it.

I took a step forward, and Marcus grabbed my arm. "There has to be another option. We can run. We can fight. We can..."

"Die," I finished quietly, meeting his desperate gaze. "We can die. All of us. Is that what you want?"

His hand dropped, and the defeat in his eyes nearly broke me. I turned back to Thaddeus, chin lifted, shoulders back, every inch of me radiating defiance even as I walked toward my own capture. The collar felt like ice in my hands when he passed it to me, the suppressor magic crawling across my skin with oily wrongness.

"Good girl," Thaddeus said, and I wanted to claw his eyes out.

I was lifting the collar to my throat when the howl split the air. Different from before. Deeper. More powerful. The sound bypassed my ears entirely and went straight to my chest, to the damaged mate bond that suddenly flared to agonizing life. Every wolf in the clearing froze, including Thaddeus's hunters, their bodies responding to an Alpha command that transcended pack loyalty.

The forest exploded with movement as wolves poured through the tree line, larger and more disciplined than Crimson's hunters, their formation precise and deadly. Shadowfang warriors. At least thirty of them. And at their center, moving with lethal grace and eyes burning gold with fury, was Raven Blackwood.

He looked at me, then at the collar in my hands, and something feral took over his expression.

"If you put that collar on," he said, voice low and absolutely wrecked, "I will burn down every territory between here and the ocean until there's nothing left but ash and memory."