CHAPTER 7

N Y X A R A

The wolf walks toward me like he’s already decided something.
“Don’t,” I say, pulling a blade. The sound of it coming free feels too loud in the quiet. He keeps coming.
“Fine,” I mutter. “Your mistake.”
I move first and I don’t think about it. High. Low. Fast. The blade cuts across his ribs and blood spreads through his fur but he doesn’t even react.
“Are you kidding me?”
He lunges and I barely get out of the way, rolling and coming up hard on one knee. I drive my second blade into his shoulder. This time I feel the blade sink deep enough to catch and tear through muscle.
“You should’ve stayed in the trees,” I breathe. He snarls and I snap the wire tight around his leg. It catches for half a second, long enough for hope to spark.
“Got you.” I threw the powder straight into his face.
“Sleep!” He jerks it free like it’s nothing, then shakes it off. And just like that, the wire snaps and the powder drifts uselessly to the ground.
I stare at him. “That would’ve dropped a man.”
His eyes lock onto mine as I catch the scent of his blood then. Sharp and metallic but there’s something else under it. Something warmer and thicker and it hits the back of my throat and settles low in my stomach. My pulse skips. That’s not good.
I swallow. “Don’t.”
My next strike doesn’t sink deep enough. My grip is steady, but something is off. He moves sideways, blocking the trees. I shift left but he’s already there. I step back but he steps forward.
“You’re boxing me in.”
He doesn’t deny it. Instead, his jaws snap inches from my face. Not close enough to bite but close enough that I feel the rush of air from it— a warning.
“This isn’t a game,” I say, but my pulse is starting to race for reasons that have nothing to do with fear. I turn to reposition, and he’s gone. The clearing feels wrong without him. Too empty and too quiet and no sound of something that big moving away.
“Where are you?” I breathe.
The air shifted behind me but it was too late. Heat brushes my back, so close it steals my breath that every instinct tells me to run. Instead, I spin and drive both blades forward with everything I have.
“Die!”
He twists at the last second and my blade sinks into muscle instead of his throat but never deep enough. My foot slides in the dirt.
“Shit—”
He hits me from the side and the ground slams into my back and the air leaves my lungs in a broken gasp. His weight crashes down on top of me, pinning my shoulders. I still have the blades in my hands, but my arms won’t lift the way they should. It’s like my strength is draining somewhere I can’t reach.
“Get off me!” I shove at him. It’s useless and he doesn’t even have to try. His breath moves over my throat. Hot. Steady and controlled. His teeth drag lightly across my skin as my body goes still, not because I tell it to but because something in me recognizes this. The scent, the heat and the weight, and that terrifies me more than the teeth.
“Do it,” I whisper. “If you’re going to kill me, then do it.” A low sound rolls through his chest and it vibrates against me. It’s not anger but something deeper.
“Mine.” The word hits harder than his weight.
My heart stutters. “You don’t get to decide that.”
His eyes flash, but not like an animal’s, like he knows exactly what he’s doing.
“I already did.” He lowers his head slowly, like he wants me to see it coming.
“Wait—” His teeth sink into my neck, not at my throat, but just lower. The pressure is sharp enough to steal my breath, but it’s not the tearing pain I expect. He’s not trying to rip me apart. Then the heat comes and it spreads from the bite outward, fast and invasive. Down my neck, across my chest and into my veins like fire finding dry ground.
I gasp. “What did you—”
My fingers loosen around the blades and they fall somewhere beside us, dull against the dirt. My arms feel heavy and weak, like they don’t belong to me anymore. The trees above me tilt sideways. No. I’m the one tilting and something is wrong.
“You…” My voice comes out thin. “You don’t own me.”
The heat deepens and it should be fading, but it isn’t. It’s getting worse. It pools low in my stomach, tight and coiling. My pulse shifts with it, matching something that isn’t entirely mine. His weight eases just slightly and the fur against my skin disappears.
I feel it happen before I see it — the shift. The bones are moving, and the shape is changing. His massive body pressing me down and reshaping into something narrower. Harder. Human. A hand slides into my hair. Warm fingers, calloused and my stomach drops. I force my eyes to focus.
He’s above me now — bare skin, broad shoulders, dark hair falling forward as he looks down at me like this was always how it would end.
“You’re wrong,” he murmurs. His voice is deeper, rougher and so close I feel it against my mouth. As my vision blurs at the edges, the heat from the bite pulses again and something inside me answers it and that’s what scares me. It’s not him but myself.
“You just didn’t know it yet,” he says. I try to move and try to push him off, but my body barely listens. Darkness creeps inward, swallowing the trees, the sky, and his face. The heat at my neck pulses once more, deep and claiming. The last thing I feel is his breath against my ear. And the quiet certainty in his voice.
“Now you do.”