When the car stopped, my chest tightened, and I snapped back into the present. Silver Shore. The place where everything had bled out of me once before.
Beside us, a sleek black Maybach glistened in the cold. My instincts sharpened. Who among the pack or beyond it would have the arrogance to linger by the river in this bitter wind? Only someone powerful, untouchable.
The icy air carried the scent of the past, and as I stepped out, memories slammed into me with the force of a claw to the heart. I could still feel the drag of that cursed white dress against the ground, every step heavy, my spirit shattered. I remembered walking by this very river, broken, stripped bare of dignity when he left me at the altar.
I had hated him, yes but hate could never erase the years I once loved him. When he turned his back, when he chose Serena over me, my wolf had howled with fury and despair. Betrayal burned, but deeper than anger was the crushing disappointment.
The image of him walking away, Serena's scent clinging to his skin, carved itself into me. It gave me every reason to despise him, and yet my heart still bled.
That night, numbness wrapped around me like frost. I hadn't even sensed the danger behind me until it was too late. The blade drove into my back with merciless precision. My wolf stilled in shock. My body refused to believe it. I remember looking down, staring in disbelief as the silvered tip pierced through flesh and bone.
I couldn't feel pain then only the instinct to survive, to press trembling fingers to the wound, to hold in the heat that poured out of me. The river had taken my blood, carried it away, erasing all trace of my weakness.
Now, as I scanned the shore again, I searched for remnants of that night a phone, a clue, anything. Nothing. The water had devoured every secret.
"Uncle Carter, when did you return to the territory?" Caleb's voice cut through the haze of memory.
I lifted my gaze. My breath hitched.
There, sitting in a wheelchair by the river, was Carter.
His coat was as dark as midnight, swallowing what little warmth the day had to offer. Against it, his pale skin looked almost inhuman, his features carved sharp, dangerous, and beautiful. The sight of him sent a chill through my spine, the way an alpha's growl freezes the marrow of lesser wolves.
He was no ordinary wolf. He was the hidden offspring of Jeffrey Bolton, Caleb's grandfather, born of a single reckless night abroad. His bloodline was a dangerous mix, his appearance touched by his mother's foreign traits light hair, cold blue eyes. Handsome in a way that could make you forget to breathe, yet edged with lethal promise.
Though not much older than Caleb, Carter carried with him a darkness that unsettled every instinct in me. His presence was frost, his aura heavy with the weight of a wolf who had never been fully accepted, yet had carved out his own place through dominance and raw survival.
He rarely came back to this land, raised far from the heart of the pack, but even in his absence, whispers of him rippled through the ranks. An illegitimate son, yes, but no wolf in their right mind dismissed him. There was power in his silence, danger in the way his eyes cut through flesh and bone.
One look from him, and my wolf bristled not from threat, but from the undeniable pull of something primal. It was instinct warning me, claws pressing beneath my skin, reminding me that some wolves were born to unravel you with nothing more than a glance.
From the very first time I laid eyes on Carter, my wolf recoiled. Fear slithered through me, sharp and unshakable. His aura was unlike anything I'd ever felt cold, merciless, the kind of dominance that silenced every lesser instinct without a single growl.
And yet, the Fates had a cruel sense of humor. More than once, when my life hung by a thread, it was Carter who tore me back from death.
Like the night of the tsunami. I had been certain the ocean would claim me, its waves too strong, dragging me into the abyss. My lungs burned, my wolf thrashed helplessly inside me, and then him. His ship cut through the storm, his pack pulled me from the water, and I woke days later under the Sander roof, alive only because Carter had willed it so.
Afterward, when I prepared my wedding invitations, I wrote each one by hand. Even his. Along with it, I sent a gift I chose carefully, a gesture of gratitude. I had heard whispers carried by the wind Carter had severed his ties to the Boltons, carving his own path with cunning and relentless instinct. A wolf who rose without a pack, a rival even alphas respected.
But he despised the Boltons, so I never believed he would show up on that day. I never expected his gaze to fall on me again.
Now, at Silver Shore, his eyes lifted lazily, pinning Caleb like prey beneath a predator's stare. His voice was cold enough to freeze marrow. "Do I need to explain myself to you?"
I caught the shift in Caleb's scent the quick spike of fear. Even he, bold and reckless as he was, trembled beneath the weight of Carter's presence. This man, bound to a chair, legs stilled by fate, still carried the bite of a wolf no one dared to provoke.
"Of course not," Caleb muttered, bowing his head without meaning to. "I was just… curious what brings you here in this freezing wind, Uncle Carter."
Carter's lips curved in the faintest of smirks, cruel and knowing. "Curious, are you? I wonder too why aren't you wrapped around your new mate, and instead wandering the cold like a lost pup?"
Caleb gave a strained laugh. "Don't mock me, Uncle. Isabel's temper is… fierce. She's angry with me right now."
That was when I saw it the flash of mockery in Carter's pale eyes, sharp as a blade. "Her temper isn't the problem. The problem is she was blind enough to bind herself to trash like you."
The words sliced through the air, raw and brutal.
"Uncle Carter!" Caleb's face twisted, rage and humiliation clawing at him, but Carter dismissed him like one would a gnat, not even sparing him another glance.
"Damian. We're leaving," Carter said lazily.
The man behind him a towering wolf with shoulders broad as stone and a scar etched across his brow stepped forward. Without a word, he began pushing Carter's chair, the wheels groaning as they rolled over the uneven path.
Caleb's fists clenched tight, knuckles white, his wolf bristling with rage as he glared at Carter's retreating back. His pride couldn't stand the humiliation, and so he spat after him, "At the end of the day, Uncle Carter, Isabel's the one who married me."
His voice cut into me, sudden and sharp. I froze where I stood, my breath caught in my throat. Why would he drag me into this now? Why would he use my name in front of Carter, as if daring fate itself?
I didn't understand. I had no bond with Carter. No tie, no history beyond the few times he had pulled me back from the edge. And yet, Caleb's words lingered in the air like a challenge, like a secret threat to unravel something I couldn't yet see.