Chapter 4
The field was silent now, except for the quiet groans of dying men and the sound of our heavy breaths fogging the cold air. Blood soaked into the snow in wide pools, the red stark against the white. Around us, bodies were strewn like broken dolls. Butch, the guards, the bettors—most of them either dead or running.
I didn’t know what to say.
He knelt there, panting, eyes never leaving mine. There was blood in his fur, on his hands, dripping from the gash in his shoulder. His black coat shimmered faintly under the moonlight, his chest heaving with exhaustion.
I shifted, slowly, painfully, until I was in human form. My bones cracked, skin stretching over thin muscle and raw bruises. I didn’t bother covering myself. There was nothing left to hide. Not after everything.
He took a sharp breath when he saw me. I didn’t know if it was from guilt or shock or shame.
Maybe all of them.
“You’re late,” I said hoarsely, my voice like sand.
He flinched. Just a little. “I know.”
I looked around us. “Why now?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked at the bodies around us, his face unreadable. “Because I wasn’t strong enough before. I had to become someone who could break into this place and burn it down.”
I stared at him. “And what did it cost you?”
He didn’t look at me when he said, “Everything.”
I didn’t have the strength to be angry, not now. I was too tired. Too broken. I felt like a shell of who I used to be. Two years in chains will do that to you. The person who waited for him—who believed he’d come back for her—died somewhere along the way.
But part of her must’ve survived. Because she was still looking at him, still wanting to believe this wasn’t just a dream.
He stood slowly, wincing as his wounded shoulder moved. “We can’t stay here.”
I laughed bitterly, the sound more of a cough. “Where would we go? You killed their guards, yes—but there are more. You think they won’t come for us?”
“I’m counting on it,” he said. His voice had changed. It was colder now, edged with steel. “Let them come. I didn’t come just to save you—I came to end them all.”
I blinked at him, unsure of what to feel. “You’re not the same.”
“No,” he agreed. “Neither are you.”
He was right. We weren’t those two kids anymore—naive, hopeful, in love. The world had beaten that out of us. What stood before each other now were survivors.
But I still needed to understand. I had to know why he left—why he disappeared without a trace five years ago. Why he didn’t come when I was first taken. Why he let me rot in a cage.
“You said you’d be worthy of me,” I whispered, my throat tight. “So you left. And I waited. I waited until I couldn’t anymore.”
He stepped closer, close enough that I could see the pain in his eyes. “I wasn’t worthy. I had nothing—no power, no strength. I was nothing but a weak Alpha’s son who couldn’t even protect the one thing he loved. So I became something else. I hunted the monsters that created this place. I learned how they worked. I let them see me as one of them. Until I could bring it all down.”
I stared at him. “And what if I was already dead?”
His jaw clenched. “Then I’d burn them anyway.”
The wind howled around us, sharp and cold. I shivered. He noticed and pulled off the shredded cloak he wore, draping it around my shoulders. It smelled like him and ash and blood.
“We have to move. More guards will come soon,” he said.
“I can’t run fast. Not like this.”
He didn’t hesitate. He turned, dropped to one knee, and said softly, “Then I’ll carry you.”
For a moment, I just stared at his back. Broad, strong, scarred. The last time I saw it, it was walking away from me. Now it was offering to carry me out of hell.
I climbed onto his back.
And for the first time in two years, I left that cage behind.
We ran through the forest, through trees that looked like ghostly sentinels under the moonlight. Snow whipped around us as the sounds of the prison faded behind us. My head rested against his shoulder, his heartbeat thudding like a war drum beneath me.
I didn’t know where we were going. I didn’t know what waited ahead.
But I knew one thing for sure.
He came back.
And this time, he wasn’t leaving without me.