Chapter 223 223
Sabine POV
I need height.
I need a tree.
I keep running, plunging deeper into the eerie darkness of the woodland, desperately searching for something anything with branches low enough to climb. My eyes burn fiercely, my vision blurring in and out as the fever refuses to loosen its grip.
Then they stop.
Both of them.
And when they lift their heads and howl up at the moon, the horrifying truth crashes into me.
They aren’t mutant dogs.
They’re wolves.
Christ.
I don’t know how long I’ve been running, but somehow I’ve gone in a wide circle. The warehouse buildings loom ahead, steel and concrete rising from the dark like salvation. Relief surges through me. If I can just get inside, I can barricade the doors hold them off.
“With what?”
That voice slips into my head again and worse, I answer it without thinking.
“I’ll find something.”
I’m almost there when my relief shatters.
Wolves burst from the shadows ahead of me, charging straight toward me from the opposite direction.
Since when did this country have a wild wolf problem?
I stop, lungs burning, mind racing. Before I can think of a way out, they surround me wolves forming a perfect circle, closing me in.
My fingers tighten around the metal bar still clutched in my hand. Any that dare come close will lose fur. And blood.
They growl in unison, bodies low, muscles coiled, ready to strike. I’m so close to the building now so close. If I can dodge them, just once, I might make it.
I take a cautious step sideways.
The largest wolf snarls viciously, warning me back.
Did wolf packs have leaders?
If they did, this was him.
Massive. Brown-furred. Broad and terrifying.
And yet he was nothing compared to the black wolf standing nearby.
That one looked like something torn straight from my nightmares. Sleek. Enormous. Beautiful in a way that made my skin prickle. A perfect predator wild, lethal, and utterly breathtaking.
The black wolf moves toward me. Strangely, he doesn’t feel threatening but I still raise the bar defensively.
The brown wolf bares his teeth and shoves him aside.
In an instant, they’re on each other snapping, crashing, jaws clashing in a brutal fight for dominance.
I edge backward, desperate to escape their savage struggle
Teeth snap inches from my calf.
A warning.
Don’t move.
Fear locks me in place as I watch them fight brown seemingly stronger, black refusing to yield. I don’t know why, but I find myself rooting for the black one.
Why?
What does the winner get?
Me?
I swallow hard, my body exhausted, surviving only on adrenaline.
Then
Angels.
I’ve never seen one before, but I swear she must be one.
She appears as if summoned from nowhere, running toward me in a white ribbed vest dress, long pale-blonde hair streaming behind her. She’s coming to save me until she slows at the edge of the wolf circle.
I want to scream at her to run. To get help.
But instead, I watch in stunned silence as the wolves part for her. Step aside. Make space.
The fighting wolves don’t notice her until a deep, terrifying growl tears from her throat.
Okay.
Definitely not an angel.
Was she… a wolf whisperer?
The two wolves break apart, snarling, preparing to lunge again.
Boldly, she reaches out and taps the brown wolf on the nose. He stills, clearly understanding the sharp look she gives him though he looks far from pleased by her interference.
The black wolf seems almost amused… until his gaze shifts to me.
Did he win?
Is this the part where I get eaten?
He prowls toward me, silent and deadly. The others fall quiet no snapping, no growling. Just watching.
I’m frozen as he stops in front of me and lowers his head sniffing far too close for comfort.
“Hey!” I shove his snout away.
He licks my hand.
My breath stutters.
My eyes widen in horror and disbelief as his form begins to change bones shifting, body reshaping—until a man stands where the wolf had been.
I can’t breathe.
Tall. Muscular. Dark-skinned and devastatingly striking. He’s majestic whether wolf or human.
My gaze drops without permission.
He’s naked.
Completely.
I stare.
When my eyes flick back up, he’s smirking, clearly aware of exactly where I’d been looking.
Then his deep, powerful voice rumbles through the night.
“Mine.”