The tent reeked of sour blood and unwashed bodies. The prisoner hung from a post, his toes barely brushing the dirty hay. His face was a solid crimson crust. One eye was swollen shut; the other stared dully into the void.
"The Southern Ridge? Or did you go through the lowlands?"
I wound his greasy hair around my fist, forcing the back of his head to slam against the wood. The prisoner only sobbed, spitting out a glob of pink foam.
"Come on. The Silverclaws have never been known for their patience."
"Screw... you..."
I punched him in the stomach. Short, professional. The ribs under my knuckles snapped like dry twigs. Beneath my own ribs, in the very center of my being, the bond resonated. A thin, white-hot thread connecting me to her. Alina.
I closed my eyes for a second, inhaling the scent of fear radiating from this piece of meat. The wolf inside me scratched its claws, demanding I spill his guts. Too soon.
I focused on that thread. I pictured her face. Her slender wrists. Her eternal, maddening fear. I took my rage—cold, slick—and shoved it with force into that mental channel.
Watch what I'm doing. Feel this.
The prisoner screamed as I drove a knife under his fingernail. But his scream was only a faint echo of what I felt through the bond. Alina's distant, muffled wail in her tent at the other end of the camp. She felt the blow. She choked on my cruelty.
"Again. Names. Who in the pack is leaking information to Damian?"
"No one... it was just us..."
I twisted the blade. Slowly.
"You're lying. You have dirt from our eastern caves under your fingernails. Only our own can pass through there."
"Please..."
"Names."
I pushed the rage through the bond again. Now it wasn't just anger, but a thirst for possession mixed with the scent of iron. I could feel Alina there, in the darkness of her tent, curling into a ball, shaking violently. That echo of her pain made my hands surgically precise.
"Brant..." the prisoner wheezed. "And... and old Gilmore."
I froze. Gilmore. The very one who taught me how to track deer ten years ago.
"Who else?"
"That's all... I swear... no one else."
I wiped the knife on his pants. The prisoner slumped in his ropes. His breathing became wheezing and uneven.
"Erik! Mark!"
The tent flap pulled back. The Thorne brothers entered, not glancing at the bloody mess. They were used to it.
"Get rid of this trash. Interrogate him again in an hour. If he dies, feed him to the crows."
"Will be done, Alpha."
I stepped out into the night. The wind lashed at my face, smelling of whistling pines and cold mountain snow, but my skin was burning. The bond vibrated like a taut string. It was heavy, leaden, pulling me in one direction. Toward her.
I walked through the camp, not noticing how the patrols shrank into the shadows upon seeing my glowing amber eyes. The rage hadn't subsided. It had simply changed form.
I burst into her tent, tearing the flap from its hinges.
Alina was sitting in the corner, huddled in a pile of wolf furs. Her hair was disheveled, her face whiter than a sheet. She was trembling all over—a fine, continuous tremor that hadn't stopped since my last blow in the interrogation room.
"You..." she barely moved her lips. "Why are you doing this?"
"Stand up."
"Stop... I saw... I saw his eyes..."
"I said: stand up."
I grabbed her by the elbow and jerked her to her feet. She was light, almost weightless. Her fear smelled of wild herbs and stale wax. She tried to turn away, but I dug my fingers into her chin, forcing it up.
"Look at me."
"Cale, please... it hurts."
"It hurts?" I snarled, feeling the wolf bulging beneath my skin. "You think this is pain? This is only the beginning."
"You're a monster."
"Your monster, Alina. Your bond chose me. Don't resist."
In her dilated pupils, I saw my reflection—bloodstained, with a wild fire in my eyes, a true beast. That reflection triggered a surge of primal triumph within me. She hated me, and that hatred was sweeter than any submission.
"I feel your fear," I leaned closer, my hot breath washing over her neck. "It tastes like copper."
"Leave me alone..."
She tried to push me away, her small palms pressing against my chest. Useless. I caught her hands with one of mine, pinning them to her stomach. My patience snapped. The wolf broke its chains.
I sank my teeth into her neck. Right where a vein pulsed beneath the thin skin. Directly over the old, scarred-over mark.
Alina screamed—a sharp, breaking sound. She went limp in my arms; if I hadn't been holding her, she would have simply fallen. I felt her hot blood fill my mouth. Salty, thick, real.
In that moment, the bond between us turned from a thin thread into a steel shackle. It was no longer an echo. It became a shared pulse. Her weakness flowed into me, my rage into her.
I pulled away, licking drops of blood from my lips.
She hung in my arms, breathing heavily. A new, ragged mark was blooming on her neck.
"You're quiet now," I let her go, and she slid down onto the furs.
"You're killing me... piece by piece."
"No," I turned to leave. "I'm making you a part of me. Sleep, Alina. Tomorrow, we hunt traitors."
I left the tent, feeling a strange, heavy satisfaction. The bond no longer burned. It pressed down on my shoulders with the pleasant weight of a broken will.
The night was quiet. Only somewhere in the distance, at the edge of the forest, a lone patrol wolf howled. I answered with a low growl, tasting her blood on my lips.
She won't leave. Now, she'll never leave.