Chapter 10: “Kai”

The word hung in the air between us, a ghost I had foolishly given voice to.

Kai.

The name seemed to vibrate in the charged silence, stripping away the years of anger and betrayal, leaving nothing but the raw nerve of what we had once been.

Garrick’s face was a mask of frozen fury. The shock had evaporated, replaced by a cold, terrifying rage. The cut on his hand continued to bleed, a stark red contrast against his pale skin and the old, silvery scar.

“What did you call me?” he repeated, his voice low and lethally quiet.

I took an involuntary step back, my heel sinking into the soft earth of the riverbank. The rushing water seemed to grow louder, filling my ears. There was no point in denying it. He had heard me. “You heard me,” I whispered, my own voice trembling.

He closed the distance between us in two long strides. He didn’t touch me, but he loomed over me, his presence suffocating. “That name is dead,” he snarled, his breath ghosting across my face. “The boy you called that is dead. He was buried the day I became Alpha. You will never speak it again.”

“Why?” The question burst from me, fueled by a desperate courage. “Because it reminds you that you were capable of something other than cruelty?”

His hand shot out and gripped my chin, forcing my head up. His fingers were hard, demanding. His eyes burned into mine, and for a second, I saw not just anger, but a flicker of pure, agonizing pain. “It reminds me of a weakness I cannot afford,” he said, his thumb pressing against my lip, a brutal echo of his touch in the grotto. “A distraction that nearly cost me everything. You were that distraction then, and you are a dangerous distraction now.”

“So you’ll just pretend it never happened? Pretend we never happened?” My heart ached with a fresh, sharp pain.

“I don’t have to pretend,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “I have to forget. And you will help me by never mentioning it again. Is that understood?”

His gaze dropped to my mouth, and the air crackled. The anger between us was a potent fuel, and the attraction that simmered beneath it was a spark waiting to catch. His grip on my chin softened, his thumb stroking my lower lip in a gesture that was suddenly, shockingly intimate. My breath hitched. I hated him. I wanted him. The two emotions were tangled together, inseparable.

“Is that understood?” he repeated, his voice husky now, his eyes dark with a conflict that mirrored my own.

I was saved from answering by the sound of hurried footsteps crashing through the undergrowth. Garrick dropped his hand from my face and turned in one fluid, predatory motion, placing his body slightly in front of mine.

Calder emerged from the trees, his face grim, his clothing torn. He had a long, shallow cut along his temple that was bleeding freely. He stopped short when he saw us, his eyes flicking from Garrick’s furious expression to my undoubtedly flushed and startled face. He quickly averted his gaze.

“Alpha,” Clader said, his voice tight with urgency. “We have a problem.”

Garrick’s posture shifted instantly from personal fury to professional command. “Report.”

“We encountered a scouting party. Not ours. They were bold, came deep across the border.” Clader’s jaw was clenched. “They were looking for something. Or someone.”

Garrick’s head tilted. His entire focus was on his Beta. The tension between us was not forgotten, but it was forcibly set aside. “How many?”

“Five. We took down three. Two escaped back across the river.” Clader wiped blood from his eye with a grimace. “They fought like cornered rats. Didn’t expect to find us so deep on our own land.”

“Were they Ridge Pack deserters?” Garrick asked, his voice like ice.

“No, Alpha.” Clader’s gaze flicked to me again, just for a second, before returning to Garrick. “They wore no pack insignia, but their scent was familiar. We caught it on the wind after the fight. It was Harker’s men.”

Harker. The name sent creepy shivers down my spine,

Garrick’s shoulders tightened, and a low, almost inaudible growl rumbled in his chest. The air around him seemed to grow colder. This was not the anger he had directed at me; this was a deep, abiding hatred.

“Harker,” Garrick repeated the name, tasting its venom. “What were they saying?”

Clader hesitated, his eyes darting to me once more. “They were asking questions, Alpha. About the new… acquisition.” He clearly struggled for the right word. “They were asking about the woman.”

A cold dread trickled down my spine. The woman, they were talking about me. The skirmish, the border crossing, it was about me.

Garrick went perfectly still. The silence that fell was heavier than any that had come before. I could feel the rage radiating from him, a silent storm. He turned his head slowly, and his eyes met mine. The look in them was terrifying. It was no longer just about a forgotten nickname or a painful past. It was a look of pure, primal possession. The same look he’d had when he told me I was his.

“What exactly did they say, Calder?” Garrick’s voice was dangerously soft.

Calder looked deeply uncomfortable. “They said Harker was displeased with the terms of the trade. They said he felt the price was too low for such a valuable commodity, they were probing our defenses, seeing how we would respond to an incursion. This was a test.”

A trade, a commodity. The words slammed into me, finally making a horrifying kind of sense. I wasn’t just a prisoner to pay a debt, I was an item in a transaction between two ruthless men. And the other party wanted a refund.

Garrick took a step toward Clader, his movement deceptively calm. “And the men who escaped. How far did they get?”

“They made it back across the river. We could have pursued, but you gave orders not to provoke a full-scale conflict on their territory without cause.”

“This is cause,” Garrick said, his voice dropping to a whisper that was more threatening than a shout. “This is more than cause.” He turned his back on both of us, staring across the rushing water toward the dark trees of Harker’s lands. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides. I could see the fresh blood from the cut on his hand welling up between his knuckles.

The moment stretched, filled only with the sound of the river and the ragged sound of my own breathing. The sexual tension from moments ago had been eclipsed by a far more immediate danger. The outside world, a world of traffickers and rival alphas, had just crashed into our already volatile standoff.

Garrick turned back around. His expression was carved from stone, all traces of the vulnerable boy named Kai gone forever. He was pure Alpha now, a predator assessing a threat to what was his.

“We must return to the Lodge. Now,” he commanded, his gaze sweeping over me. It was a look of stark ownership. “Calder, double the patrols. Triple the guard on the southern gate. No one enters or leaves without my direct authorization.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Calder said, nodding sharply.

Garrick’s eyes locked on mine. “You,” he said, the single word laden with unspoken meaning. “You will not leave my sight. Is that clear?”

It wasn’t a question. It was a decree. The fragile illusion of choice I had felt in the stable was gone. Harker’s name had shattered it. I was no longer just a prisoner or a pawn in a personal game of anger and desire. I was the catalyst for a war.

I just nodded, my throat too tight to speak.

He grabbed Thor’s reins and mounted in one fluid motion. He didn’t wait to see if I followed. He expected obedience. I scrambled onto my mare, my hands shaking as I gathered the reins.

As we rode back toward the Lodge, the atmosphere was thick with unspoken tension. Garrick rode ahead, his back rigid. Calder and the other warriors fell in behind us, their silence grim. I was trapped in the middle, the cause of it all.

The forest, which had moments ago felt like a place of potential escape, now felt like a tightening cage. Every shadow seemed to hold a threat. And the man leading me back to my gilded prison was both my jailer and, I realized with a sickening jolt, my only protection from a fate that was likely far worse. The game had changed entirely, and the stakes had just become a matter of life and death.