CHAPTER 4: The Part Where I Stab First And Ask Questions Never

The wolf who came through the door was bigger than my last three nightmares combined. He cleared the doorframe sideways, and even then it was close. His fur was black shot through with dark red, like old blood, and his eyes were the particular shade of amber that meant *dominant* in every language wolves understood. Behind him came two more — smaller, but not by much — and behind them, the sound of chaos spilling through the shattered windows into the grand entrance hall. Luna fired her crossbow. The bolt caught the lead wolf in the shoulder, not the throat, but it was enough — silver-tipped, it made him stagger, his shift stuttering as the burn spread. He went down on one knee, snarling. "Reload," Marcus said tightly, already moving to flank. "I know how crossbows work, Marcus, I invented this crossbow—" "You absolutely did not invent—" "Metaphorically—" I threw my dagger. It wasn't a good throw. I hadn't thrown a knife in three years and my form was garbage and I aimed for center mass because I was panicking. But panicking apparently had excellent aim, because the blade sank into the second wolf's thigh — shifted, so that meant deep, meant real damage — and he went down howling. Everyone stopped and looked at me. "I had a food truck," I said, slightly breathless. "People tried to rob it sometimes." "I love her," Luna announced, slamming another bolt into her crossbow. "Darius is keeping her. I've decided." "Nobody asked you," Marcus and I said, in perfect unison. We both looked at each other. He looked away first. The third wolf was still coming. He was smarter than the others — hadn't fully shifted, lingering in that halfway state that sacrificed speed for cognitive function. His eyes were calculating as they moved between me, Luna with her crossbow, and Marcus in a fighting crouch. Looking for the weakest point. His gaze landed on me and stayed there. *Right. The new unknown quantity. The rogue nobody had a file on.* "Don't," I said, because I've never been able to stop myself from talking, even when talking was the worst possible idea. His lips peeled back from teeth that were caught between human and wolf. "You're the Alpha's mate." "So I've been told." "He'll break eventually. They always do." He took a slow step sideways, circling. "Or you'll leave. Rogues always do." Another step. "Either way, you're leverage." "That's a very long speech for someone about to have a very bad day." He launched. I ducked — pure instinct, the kind you develop when you've been surviving alone for five years — and his claws raked the air where my face had been. I came up inside his reach, which was both the smart place to be and the most terrifying, and drove my elbow into his ribs with everything I had. Half-shifted wolves are dense. It was like hitting a car. My arm screamed. He barely flinched. *Okay. Different plan.* I grabbed his wrist — the clawed one, the stupid one, I have a death wish apparently — twisted the way that old rogue in Spokane had taught me in exchange for three weeks of meals, and used his own momentum to send him stumbling past me. He crashed into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. Marcus was already there. One clean strike to the base of the skull. Precise, professional, the kind of blow that meant someone had trained him well. The half-shifted wolf crumpled. Silence. Then Luna lowered her crossbow. "Okay. I need to revise my earlier statement." "Which part?" I asked, cradling my arm. "All of it. Starting with 'welcome to the family' and ending with whatever just happened." She gestured between me and the unconscious wolf. "Where did you learn to do that?" "Spokane." "What's in Spokane?" "A retired Omega named Gerald who made incredible enchiladas and had extremely strong opinions about wrist locks." I was shaking, slightly. Adrenaline. My wolf was still up, still ready, still scanning the room for threats. "How many more are there?" "Perimeter guard is at forty wolves," Marcus said, checking his phone. "Darius has them—" He paused. "Darius *is* them, at this point. He's running the eastern flank himself." Through the bond, I could feel it. Not words — not anything that specific yet — but heat and fury and absolute focus, the particular sensation of a predator completely in his element. Darius was out there doing what he was built for. He was fine. My wolf settled, fractionally. "The east wing is compromised," the older woman — she still hadn't told me her name — said calmly. She'd produced a walking stick from somewhere and was using it to prod one of the unconscious wolves. "Three of them came through the library. I handled two." "You handled two," I repeated. "I'm seventy-three, not dead." She looked up at me. "You're tougher than you look, girl." "I look pretty tough." "You look like someone poured a rogue into a borrowed coat." She tilted her head, and there was something in her eyes — sharp, assessing, almost hungry — that made me want to step back. "But that's interesting. That's very interesting." "What is?" She didn't answer. Just turned and walked toward the library, tapping her stick against the marble floor. "Who is she?" I asked Luna. "Elder Maren. Pack historian, seer, general mystery. She's been with the Stone pack for fifty years and she's terrifying and nobody argues with her, including Darius." Luna paused. "She called you interesting. That's either wonderful or catastrophic." "With my luck, both." Marcus was moving through the hall, checking windows, pulling out his phone again. He was good at this — efficient, tactical, professional. The Beta doing his job. I watched him and tried to separate the boy I'd known from the man in front of me and found, uncomfortably, that the lines were blurring. He caught me watching. "Your arm," he said. "Let me—" "I'm fine." "You're holding it against your chest." "Because I want to." His jaw tightened. "Sera—" "Don't." I kept my voice even. "You don't get to worry about me, Marcus. Not after five years of radio silence. Not standing in your brother's house with your brother's mate bond burning through my chest." I met his eyes. "We can be civil. We can even be cordial, eventually, because I'm an adult and this situation is bizarre enough without adding a feud. But we're not doing the caring thing. Not yet." He held my gaze for a long moment. Then nodded, once. "Okay." "Okay." The front door opened. Darius walked in, and the temperature in the room changed the way weather changes — sudden, total, impossible to ignore. He was in human form but barely, that particular controlled intensity rolling off him that meant the wolf was still right at the surface. His coat was gone. His shirt was torn at the shoulder. There was blood on his jaw that wasn't his. His eyes found me immediately. Something loosened in his expression — not much, not visibly, but through the bond I felt it, a small release of tension like the first breath after almost drowning. He crossed the room. Stopped in front of me. His hand came up and gently, so gently, took my injured arm. I let him. I was going to be annoyed about that later. "Three broken ribs," he said quietly, scanning my face. "At least." "Two. Three is an exaggeration." "The arm." "Bruised. Probably." I watched him catalogue every detail of me, the way he'd clearly been doing since he walked in. "I'm okay." "I know." But he didn't let go of my arm. "I felt you through the bond. All of it." His thumb moved over the inside of my wrist, that maddening gentle pressure. "You fought." "I did mention I could—" "You fought well." His eyes lifted to mine. "My wolf is having very complicated feelings about that." "Complicated how?" "Proud." A pause. "Furious that you were in danger. Prouder because of what you did about it." His mouth curved, barely. "She's a contradiction." "She's not the only one." Something warm moved through his eyes. "No," he agreed. "She's not." "The east wing is secure," Cole said, appearing from nowhere in the way that Cole apparently just did, like a very competent ghost. He surveyed the unconscious wolves in the hall, the cracked plaster, Luna still holding her crossbow. "Three teams breached the compound. All neutralized. Perimeter is holding." "Casualties?" Darius asked, not looking away from me. "Four injured, none critical. One compromised safe house." Cole's eyes moved to me for exactly half a second. "The rogue handled herself." "She has a name," Luna said. "The rogue named Sera handled herself," Cole amended, completely deadpan. "High praise," Luna told me. "He once described me as 'functional.'" "That was a good day," Cole said. I laughed — startled, genuine, completely involuntary. The sound surprised even me. Darius looked at me like I'd done something remarkable, which made me want to stop immediately, so I turned the laugh into a cough, which fooled exactly nobody. "Search them," Darius said to Cole, releasing my arm only when Cole had moved far enough away. "I want to know who sent this team, what they knew about the compound layout, and specifically—" his voice dropped to something dangerous "—how they knew she was here." "Already running it." Cole crouched beside the nearest wolf, efficient and merciless. "The timeline is interesting. This attack launched within two hours of your arrival, Sera. Someone had very fast intelligence." Everyone heard the implication. Darius heard it too. "Sweep the inner circle. I want loyalty confirmations by morning." "There's a traitor," I said, because saying it out loud felt necessary. "There's a traitor," he confirmed. His eyes were already somewhere else — calculating, tactical, building the architecture of a counter-response. "Which means—" "Which means," Marcus cut in quietly, "that whoever is after her isn't working alone. And they knew you'd bring her here." The fire crackled in the hearth. Outside, the compound was returning to something like order — howls dropping from warning to all-clear, the distant sounds of wolves reorganizing. Inside, the silence had teeth. Darius looked at me, and for the first time, I saw something in his face that wasn't certainty. It was fear. Real, human, bone-deep fear. "Sera," he said quietly. "I know." "I need you to stay. Not because I'm commanding it. Not because of the bond." His jaw worked. "Because someone knew exactly where to find you within hours of your arrival. Which means running doesn't help anymore. Which means—" "Which means I'm safest here," I finished. "With you." "Yes." I looked at him — this impossible, infuriating, devastating man who'd walked into a dark alley and rearranged my entire existence — and I thought about five years of running. Five years of looking over my shoulder. Five years of being alone and calling it safe. "One condition," I said. "Name it." "Teach me to fight properly. Not just survival-brawling. Real training." I held his gaze. "I'm not going to be your liability. I'm not going to be something to protect. If I'm staying, I'm staying as a partner. Not a possession." The silence stretched. Then: "Deal." Something shifted between us. Not the bond — something under it, or alongside it, more complicated and more real. The beginning, maybe, of something that had nothing to do with fate and everything to do with choice. Luna cleared her throat. "This is very moving. It's also two in the morning and I haven't eaten since—" "If you say you're hungry," Cole said, "I will personally throw you into the training ring." "I'm hungry AND emotional, Cole, I contain multitudes—" The howl that cut through the night wasn't a warning. It was a distress call. From inside the compound. Darius was moving before it finished, and the look on his face turned my blood cold. Because the sound was coming from Elder Maren's direction. And Elder Maren didn't distress.