My hands were shaking before the blood even hit the floor.
The patient was already half-dead when I dragged him into the clinic, and honestly? Part of me wished he'd stayed that way. Because when his eyes finally snapped open—gold, lucid, and absolutely furious—I realized I hadn't just saved a stray. I'd locked myself in a room with the kind of monster that eats nightmares for breakfast.
The heavy oak door slammed shut behind me. Dust rained down from the rafters, coating the back of my throat. My chest burned, lungs screaming for air that wasn't thick with the scent of wet earth and copper.
Breathe, Fillia. Just breathe. You're a professional. A liar, sure, but a professional.
"Stay down," I rasped.
Bad choice. My voice sounded like gravel in a blender. Not exactly the "calm medic" vibe I was going for.
He growled.
It wasn't a feral, mindless sound. It was low. Vibrating through the floorboards and up into the soles of my boots. It was the sound of a king deciding exactly which part of my neck he wanted to snap first.
The man—no, I couldn't keep calling him that, my inner wolf was already pacing her cage in recognition—lay sprawled across my surgical table. He was half-naked, half-shredded, and entirely too much for this tiny room. His right side was a mess of torn muscle and jagged skin. It wasn't a clean claw mark. It was silver. Ragged, blackened at the edges, and weeping a fluid that carried an aroma that was not pleasant. It smelled like scorched fur and rot.
My stomach did a slow, sickening roll. Silver. The one thing that could make a god bleed.
I reached for the metal tray anyway. Muscle memory is a bitch; it kicks in even when your brain is screaming Run, you idiot! I'd spent years in real hospitals, under fluorescent lights, listening to the beep of machines. This dekil clinic in a backwater village was supposed to be my hiding spot. My retirement from the chaos.
So much for a quiet life.
The table groaned. One of the leather restraints I'd rigged snapped with a sound like a gunshot. His fingers dug into the wood, splintering the surface like it was wet paper.
"Don't," I snapped, sharper this time. I stepped into his space, grabbing a bottle of antiseptic. "You move, you bleed. You bleed, you die. Pick one."
His head lifted. Slowly.
Fuck.
His eyes weren't just gold; they were molten. No glaze, no shock. He was analyzing me, peeling back my skin with a single look.
"You smell... wrong," he said.
His voice didn't sound injured. It sounded like a threat wrapped in velvet. My ears started ringing. He knows. He's a Lycan, he's a thousand times more sensitive than the local mutts. He's going to sniff out the lie in my marrow.
"You're hallucinating from blood loss," I lied, my voice remarkably steady for someone whose heart was currently trying to punch its way out of her ribs.
"Am I?" His gaze dropped to his side, then back to my face. He exhaled once. A short, sharp huff of amusement. "Then you shouldn't be standing within reach of my teeth, Little Wolf."
He lunged.
The second restraint on his left wrist didn't just snap—it exploded. Metal links shrieked as they hit the stone floor. The table skidded three inches.
I didn't scream. Screaming is for people who have a choice. I just reacted.
I stepped in.
My palm slammed into the center of his chest, right over the sternum. It was a desperate, human leverage move. I leaned my entire weight into it, pinning him down with sheer audacity.
His body jerked. Not backward, but down.
The air in the room shifted. It was like a vacuum had suddenly formed, pulling the heat from my skin. Everything went dead silent.
My hand was still on him. His skin was scorching—feverish, but deeper. It felt alive in a way that made my own blood hum in response. My wolf stopped pacing. She went still, head tilted, listening to the rhythm of his heart beneath my palm.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It was the loudest thing I'd ever heard.
"What did you do?" he whispered.
My mouth was dry. I couldn't shift. I couldn't let a single hair change or my pupils dilate. I had to stay human. I had to be the boring, grumpy village medic.
"I'm keeping you from making a mess of my floor," I said, though my fingers were trembling against his pec.
His lips twitched. It wasn't a smile; it was a calculation. "Again. You smell... wrong. Like a secret kept too long in the dark."
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A heavy knock rattled the clinic door.
I flinched so hard I nearly lost my balance.
"Fillia?" A man's voice. Garrick. The village head's son and a Grade-A pain in my ass. "You in there? We heard a hell of a racket."
Shit.
I pulled my hand back, but the ghost of his heat stayed on my skin. The man on the table turned his head toward the door. His nostrils flared, his upper lip pulling back just enough to show canines that were definitely not human.
"I'm with a patient, Garrick!" I yelled over my shoulder, trying to keep the panic out of my tone. "Go away!"
"We heard a crash," Garrick persisted, his boots crunching on the gravel outside. "The boys saw you dragging something in. You need help?"
The Lycan looked at me. A slow, dangerous glint entered his eyes. "You live in a very loud village," he murmured.
"I said go, Garrick! Unless you want to come in and help me lancing a boil the size of a grapefruit!"
Silence. Then the sound of Garrick muttering something about "crazy mountain women" and his boots shuffling away.
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. My chest felt tight, like a wire was being wound around my ribs. If Garrick had walked in, he'd be dead. If the village saw a Lycan, they'd bring the silver pikes and fire. And my klan? We'd be caught in the crossfire of a war we couldn't win.
I turned back to the table. The man was watching me, his chest rising and falling in heavy, controlled cycles.
"You're a very good liar," he said.
"I have to be."
I grabbed a syringe. It was a heavy sedative, laced with just enough wolfsbane to knock out a grizzly but hopefully not enough to kill a Lycan.
His eyes narrowed. "No."
"Yes," I said.
Before he could snap the remaining chains, I plunged the needle into the side of his neck.
He roared.
The sound was bone-shaking. Glass jars on the shelves shattered. A mirror cracked. The chains yanked tight, miraculously holding as he thrashed. His muscles corded, his veins turning black for a split second as the drug hit his system.
Then, he went still.
Not unconscious—not quite—but pinned by his own weight. His breathing was ragged.
I staggered back, hitting the back of the door and sliding down until my butt hit the floor. My heart was a drum. My ears were ringing. I looked at the red on my hands. Too much blood. Too much heat.
"You... drugged me," he wheezed.
"Safety first," I muttered, wiping my hands on my dekil apron.
"With silver in my blood... that should have killed me by now."
"You're too stubborn to die," I said, forcing myself to stand up and walk back to the table. I had to finish the stitches. I had to hide him before the sun came up.
I worked in silence for twenty minutes, the only sound being the snip of scissors and the wet slide of the needle through his skin. He didn't make a sound, but his eyes never left me.
"You didn't ask my name," he said suddenly.
"I don't care about your name."
"You didn't panic when I broke the chains."
"I've seen worse."
"And you touched me," he whispered, his voice gaining a terrifying clarity despite the drugs. "Like you knew exactly where my pulse was. Like you were looking for the spark."
I stopped mid-stitch and finally looked at him. "Do you want to live, or do you want to keep talking? Because if I slip and nick an artery, I'm not restarting your heart a second time."
Something shifted in his expression. Interest. Dark, predatory interest.
"Both," he said.
I leaned in, my face inches from his. I could smell the forest on him—cedar, rain, and something ancient. "Then listen. You don't growl. You don't move. You don't scent that door. And when I say stay down, you act like a fucking rug. Understood?"
A sudden jolt ran through me.
It wasn't external. It was a violent, internal snap. My knees buckled. I grabbed the edge of the table, my knuckles turning white. The ground beneath the clinic seemed to groan, a low-frequency hum that made my teeth ache.
The Lycan's eyes widened. He inhaled, deep and full, his nostrils flared to the limit.
Recognition slammed into his face like a physical blow. The gold in his eyes bled into something even brighter.
"Oh," he said softly.
I tried to pull away, but it was too late. The mask was cracking. The thing I'd kept buried—my own scent, my own power—was grinding against my ribs, clawing to get out.
Outside, a wolf howled.
It wasn't one of the village dogs. It was a long, mournful cry from the deep woods. An answering call.
The man on the table smiled, and for the first time, I saw the true monster behind the skin.
"You're not human," he said, his voice a low, certain purr.
I stared at him, my pulse screaming, knowing I'd just crossed a line I could never uncross. I had saved him to protect my klan, but looking at the way he was watching me—like I was the only thing left in a burning world—I knew I'd just brought the fire right to our doorstep.
"And you," he finished, "are the reason they're going to burn this place to the ground."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. Because as the howling outside intensified, I realized with absolute, terrifying clarity...
I was already choosing him over everyone else.