Chapter 4 THE FIRE, HIS WOLF
The lights were out. The penthouse was black.
Mia’s phone was the only glow, and it was at 12%. The battery icon was red. Like a warning. Like blood.
“A?” she whispered. Saying his name felt like calling a monster. Or a prayer.
Nothing answered.
Then she smelled it. Smoke. Not from the TV. Real. Acrid. Curling under the door from the hallway, seeping in like water.
The next bomb is for the penthouse.
She didn’t pack a bag. She didn’t think. She grabbed the ring box, the burner phone, and ran barefoot for the elevator. Her feet slapped against marble that was already warm.
The elevator was dead. Of course it was dead. The button didn’t even light up.
Stairs. There had to be stairs. Fire code.
She yanked open the door to the stairwell and nearly fell back. It was a chimney. Smoke rolled up, thick and black, heat licking her face, her arms. The metal handle seared her palm.
“Going down?”
She screamed. The sound bounced off concrete and came back to her.
A hand clamped over her mouth. She bit it. Hard. Tasted blood.
“Jesus, Mia!”
Alex. He tasted like blood and ash and that pine-smoke scent that was starting to mean safety.
“Stairs are compromised,” he said against her ear. He was breathing hard, not from exertion. From rage. “Ivan’s men cut the power and lit floor 95. Fire’s climbing. We go up.”
“Up? There’s nothing above us but roof.”
“Helipad.” He took her hand. His palm was cut, bleeding down his wrist. He didn’t notice. “Can you run?”
She nodded. Then realized he couldn’t see her. “Yes.”
They took the stairs two at a time. Her lungs burned. Her thighs burned. His didn’t. He moved like the building wasn’t on fire, like smoke wasn’t trying to choke them. At floor 105 the door opened to night and wind and the sound of blades cutting air.
A helicopter, matte black, no lights, no markings. A man in tactical gear leaned out, face covered, only his eyes showing.
“We gotta go, boss! They’ve got RPGs on the adjacent roof!”
RPGs. In Manhattan. In her life.
Alex hauled her up into the bird. The floor dropped away before she was even seated. Below them, the penthouse,his home, the place he’d brought her to keep her safe, bloomed orange. Windows blew out. Glass rained down over the city like deadly snow.
Alex slammed the door, then slammed her into the seat, buckled her in with hands that shook. Not from fear. From fury. From something wilder.
“You’re okay,” he said. Not to her. To himself. A mantra.
“You’re okay. You’re okay.”
“Your building—”
“Insured.” His eyes were pure gold now, no brown left, no human left. “My Luna isn’t. You aren’t.”
The pilot banked hard. Something streaked past them, close enough that Mia saw it. Missile. MISSILE. In the sky. Over Central Park.
“Flares!” Alex roared.
The night turned to day as countermeasures fired. The chopper dropped fifty feet. Her stomach stayed up. Her ears popped.
When they leveled out, Alex was still holding her buckle. Like if he let go, she’d disappear. Like he needed the physical contact to believe she was real.
“Where are we going?” she whispered. Her voice was gone.
“Upstate. I have a house. Pack land. Warded. No one gets in without bleeding out on the perimeter.”
“Why did Ivan—”
“Because I claimed you at Council.” His voice was scraped raw, like he’d been screaming. “Because the Council didn’t take you from me. Because he looked weak. So now he’ll kill you to prove I’m weak. Or take you to prove I’m not Alpha enough to keep what’s mine.”
The city was gone below them. Just dark and trees and a ribbon of highway.
“Did anyone die?” she asked. “In the building? Your staff? The security?”
Alex didn’t answer for a long time. The only sound was the blades and her heartbeat. “Evacuated. My people are loyal. They knew to run when the lights went out. It’s protocol.”
“But someone—”
“Ivan sent a message.” He finally looked at her. “Not to me. To you.”
He handed her his phone. Photo. Grind & Go. Her café. Rosa. The door kicked in. Wood splintered.
She was alive. Crying, mascara down her face, but alive.
Taped to her forehead: a note. Scrawled in red. “She’s next if the wolf runs again.”
Mia threw up in the helicopter. Into a bag the pilot handed back without looking.
Alex held her hair. Didn’t say “I told you so.” Didn’t say anything. Just held her hair and rubbed her back with a hand that was too gentle for someone who’d just lifted a man by his throat.
When she was done, he wiped her mouth with his thumb. His hands were still bleeding. Smearing red on her chin.
“Sleep,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
“I can’t.”
“Try.” He shifted, pulling her against him. Into his side. Into the smell of smoke and pine and him. Into warmth that felt like the only warm thing left. “My wolf’s quiet when you’re touching me. He stops trying to break my ribs. Let me have that. Let him have that.”
She shouldn’t. She knew she shouldn’t. But she did.
She was asleep before she knew it, head on his chest, listening to a heart that beat too slow to be human.
She woke up to quiet. No blades. No city. No smoke.
They were on the ground. Gravel, trees, a house that looked like it was carved out of the mountain itself. No lights. No neighbors. Safe. Or the closest thing to it.
Alex carried her out. She pretended she was still asleep because his arms were the only thing that didn’t hurt, because if she opened her eyes she’d have to face it all.
Inside: wood, stone, fireplace cold. Smelled like cedar and dust and nobody-home. He laid her on a couch that was older than her. Started a fire with hands that weren’t human-steady anymore. Claws instead of nails. Longer. Sharper.
“A?”
“Don’t look,” he said. Voice gone gravel. Deeper. Wrong. “I’m not…. I can’t hold him back anymore. Not after tonight. Not after almost losing you. Not after smelling your fear.”
“Your wolf?”
“He wants the bond. He wants to bite you and drag you to our den and not let you out until you’re pregnant and can’t run and can’t be taken.” His head hung. His shoulders shook. “And I agree with him. God help me, I agree with him.”
Terror and heat went through her at the same time. Equal parts. Twins.
“Is that what you’ll do?”
He laughed. It was broken. Shattered. “If I did, you’d never forgive me. And I’d lose you anyway. Because you’d hate me. And I can’t— I won’t be that for you.” He looked up. Eyes full gold, glowing in the firelight. “So I’m going to go run until the sun comes up. Until he’s tired. Until I’m human again. Lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone but me. Not for my voice. Not for anything.”
“Wait—”
He was gone. The front door slammed. Then silence.
A second later, a wolf howled. Big. Close. Not like anything on nature documentaries. Not like anything that should exist.
She locked the door. Every lock.
Then she went to the window.
He was there. On the lawn. Black as midnight, bigger than a Great Dane, bigger than a normal wolf, gold eyes catching moonlight. He was beautiful. He was terrifying.
He saw her. Stalked to the glass. Put his nose against it. His breath fogged it.
She should have been terrified. Should have run.
She put her hand up to his.
Glass between them. His breath fogged it. Her ring clinked against the pane.
Mate. Her brain supplied. Not her thought. His. Or the wolf’s.
A howl from the trees. Then another. And another. Answering.
He threw his head back and answered. The sound went through her bones, through the floor, through the foundation of the house.
Then he was gone, running into the dark with his pack, with shadows that moved like him.
She slid to the floor.
Her phone buzzed. The burner.
Unknown number.
“keep running little wolf.”