Chapter 101
Jackson's POV
My knuckles were raw meat.
Blood ran down my hands, dripping onto the snow-covered ice, but I didn't feel it. Couldn't feel anything except the terror screaming through every nerve in my body.
She's dying. She's dying and you can't reach her.
I threw myself against the ice wall again, hearing her voice from inside—weak, getting weaker. The structure was sinking, the thin ice floor giving way beneath the weight of rising water.
"Jackson, the chains! I can't break them!"
I hammered my fists against the ice until I couldn't feel my hands anymore, until my bones screamed in protest. Tiny cracks appeared, spreading like lightning across the surface, but not breaking. Not enough.
Faster. Hit harder.
But I was hitting as hard as I could in human form, and it wasn't enough. The ice was too thick, the structure too well-built. They'd designed it to withstand exactly this kind of assault.
Through the translucent wall, I could see her—head tilted back, water almost to her mouth. Thirty seconds. Maybe less.
No. No, no, NO.
I stepped back, chest heaving, hands hanging useless at my sides. Blood dripped from torn knuckles, painting the ice red. My human strength wasn't enough.
But I had other strength.
For years, I'd hidden it. Suppressed it. Built my entire life around keeping this secret safe, never transforming where anyone might see, never risking exposure.
None of that mattered now.
I'd rather die as a wolf than live knowing I let her drown.
The decision crystallized with perfect clarity. Years of hiding—gone. My carefully constructed life—shattered. Every werewolf would recognize the signature of my wolf. Would know that he was here.
Orion.
The alpha-blooded wolf I'd suppressed for so long that sometimes I wondered if he still existed.
She's dying, Orion snarled in my mind, awake and furious after years of forced dormancy. LET ME OUT.
I closed my eyes, fingers already moving to tear off my jacket, my shirt. Each piece of clothing hit the ice with dull thuds—we'd need them when we came out of the water, if we came out at all. My boots followed, then my jeans, until I stood bare on the frozen lake, steam rising from my skin in the frigid air.
Then I dropped every wall I'd built, every careful restraint I'd maintained since I was fifteen years old.
The transformation hit like a detonation.
Pain—god, the pain—ripped through every cell in my body. This wasn't the controlled change that took minutes of careful focus. This was violent, explosive, my body remembering what it was supposed to be and demanding it back.
My spine arched, vertebrae cracking and reforming with sounds like gunshots. I fell to my knees as my legs broke and rebuilt themselves, femurs lengthening, joints reversing. My scream became a howl halfway through as my jaw extended, teeth sharpening into fangs.
It hurts because you caged me, Orion's voice was clear now, triumphant and wrathful. Because you denied what we are.
Muscles tore and reformed, stronger, denser. My ribcage expanded with cracks that echoed across the frozen lake. Fur erupted across my skin like wildfire—midnight black, thick and powerful. My hands hit the ice as paws, claws scoring deep gouges in the frozen surface.
But with the agony came something else.
Power.
Raw, overwhelming, intoxicating power that sang through every fiber of my transformed body. This was what I'd denied myself. This was what I'd hidden away, terrified of what it meant, of who would come looking if they knew.
My senses exploded into hyperfocus—the scent of Ellie's fear sharp and metallic, cutting through water and ice and blood. The sound of water rushing into the collapsing structure, every drop distinct. The taste of the air itself: her fading heartbeat, the wolfsbane in her system.
And underneath it all, that pull. That undeniable recognition.
Mate. MINE. SAVE HER.
I opened my eyes, and the world was sharper, clearer, more real than it had been in years. The ice wall that had seemed impenetrable seconds ago now looked fragile as glass.
Orion gathered every ounce of our combined strength—years of suppression now fuel for this moment—and I didn't think. Didn't plan.
Just moved.
The ice shattered.
Not cracked. Not fractured. Shattered. Exploded inward in a shower of fragments that caught the moonlight like diamonds.
Water rushed out in a torrent, and with it came the realization—the structure was sinking. The lake was claiming it, pulling it down into the depths.
Ellie.
I dove through the broken wall into chaos. Water everywhere, dark and freezing, full of ice chunks and debris. The structure was collapsing around me, wooden supports breaking free, metal chains rattling.
Where was she? Where—
There. A flash of pale skin, dark hair. Her eyes were closed, body limp, but she was transforming—I could see it happening even as she sank. Fur rippling across her skin, bones reshaping.
She felt the bond. Even drugged, even dying, she felt it.
Her wolf was smaller than mine, sleeker, her fur a rich auburn that caught what little light filtered down through the ice. Beautiful. Perfect.
Mine.
I surged forward, catching her scruff in my jaws—gentle but firm, the way wolves carried their young. She was heavy, deadweight, not helping at all. The wolfsbane was still in her system, keeping her weak even in wolf form.
The ice house groaned, tilting as it sank faster. We had seconds before it pulled us both down into the black depths of the lake.
I kicked hard, powerful legs driving us upward. The surface seemed impossibly far, my lungs beginning to burn. Ellie's weight dragged at me, and for one terrible moment I thought we wouldn't make it.
Then her legs moved. Weak, uncoordinated, but helping. She was still in there, still fighting.
That's it. Stay with me. Almost there.
The surface broke over our heads like a miracle. I gasped, sucking in freezing air that burned my lungs. Beside me, Ellie's wolf form shuddered, coughing up water.
We had to get to the ice shelf. Had to get out of the water before hypothermia finished what the trap had started.
I kept my grip on her scruff, swimming with everything I had. The ice edge was ten feet away. Five feet. Almost there.
My front paws found purchase on solid ice. I hauled myself up, then carefully pulled Ellie after me, dragging her away from the edge before releasing her.
The transformation back hit us both at the same moment—sudden, disorienting, painful. One second I was a wolf, the next I was human again, naked and shaking on the ice.
Beside me, Ellie lay curled on her side, also human, also naked, coughing up water and gasping for breath.
"Ellie." My voice came out hoarse, broken. I crawled to her side, pulling her into my arms. "Ellie, look at me."