Chapter 14 14
A few minutes later.
The Kia screamed in protest as the dirt road narrowed, the rain pelting down so hard the windshield wipers gave up on life. My knuckles were white on the steering wheel, but Gregor was worse—his entire body radiated that dangerous, simmering heat. His eyes had gone molten gold, glowing even in the dimness of the storm.
And then—without warning—he moved.
Gregor threw the door open, launched himself out of the still-moving Kia, and mid-air his body shattered into fur, claws, and death.
I nearly swerved into a ditch. “WHAT THE HELL?!”
Behind us, his massive wolf form crashed into the enemy car with the force of a wrecking ball. Metal screeched like it was being torn apart by the gods themselves. The headlights spun wild in the rain as the car flipped, Gregor’s claws raking through steel like tissue paper.
Then came the screams.
The kind of guttural, dying howls that cut straight through bone. Wolves—big, vicious, Black Fang warriors—were dragged out of the wreckage by Gregor’s teeth. One tried to shift mid-struggle, but his head was already in Gregor’s jaws before his human skin had even fully returned. Blood spattered across the rain-slicked mud, turning the road into something out of a nightmare.
Another wolf lunged at Gregor, but he slammed his paw straight through its chest cavity. Ribs cracked like splintering wood, blood spraying across the dirt. The wolf collapsed, twitching, before Gregor ripped it in half like it was nothing but rotten cloth.
My jaw dropped. “Holy—”
The Kia rolled to a slower crawl as I tried not to drive us into a tree while simultaneously witnessing the Alpha Hulk Edition happening behind me.
Within minutes—minutes—the Black Fang’s shiny black cars resembled broken toy models scattered across the mud. Glass shattered, doors ripped off, flames licking out of hoods. Wolves lay strewn in bloody piles—headless, gutted, limbs bent wrong.
Gregor didn’t just fight. He destroyed.
And then, just as suddenly, he stood there—breathing like thunder—before his wolf form peeled back into human flesh.
Naked flesh.
Right. Of course.
Because the universe absolutely hated me. Or loved me.
There he was: blood-streaked, rain dripping down muscle that shouldn’t even legally exist, golden eyes still glowing with that feral, merciless dark warrior rage.
And I… drove even slower.
Not because I wanted to admire the view—shut up—but because if I drove any faster, the Kia would stall, and honestly? I was afraid of getting in the line of sight of that thing he called a wolf. His aura alone pressed against my ribs like iron shackles. My own wolf inside me whimpered, cowering at the sheer dominance rolling off him.
Gregor didn’t speak at first. He simply yanked a limp Black Fang warrior off the ground, stripped him of his tactical uniform, and without a blink, started putting on the blood-stained gear like it was just another Tuesday. He dressed quickly. Then his golden eyes snapped to me, sharp and burning.
He stalked toward the Kia, boots sinking into the mud, and ripped the door open. With a movement too quick, too precise, he tossed a smaller uniform—clearly from one of the dead men—into my lap.
“Now. Change.”
Two words.
Just two.
But they weren’t Gregor’s voice. Not really. They were darker. Deeper. The growl that came from somewhere ancient, from his warrior wolf that made even the storm quiet for a heartbeat.
I froze. My heart hammered so fast it hurt. My wolf didn’t just flinch—she bowed.
My throat went dry. I wanted to sass him, I really did. Something like, ‘Gee, thanks for the bloody hand-me-downs, what an honor.’ But one look at his eyes—those blazing, ruthless pools that weren’t entirely his anymore—shut me up real fast.
So I did what no one, not even me, thought I could do.
I obeyed.
Slowly, carefully, I opened the driver’s door, stepped out into the rain, and closed it behind me like I was trying not to wake the devil himself. Without looking directly at him, I stripped out of my ruined clothes and dragged the uniform on. My hands shook so badly it was a miracle I managed to zip it.
Then I slid back into the driver’s seat.
The silence was deafening. Only the rain and the low hum of the engine.
Gregor finally sat down beside me, dripping blood onto the rubber mats, his breathing loud and ragged, like each inhale was still fueled by violence. His chest rose and fell in heavy, raw waves.
I dared a glance at him. “You… uh. You okay now?”
His eyes were still glowing faintly when they cut toward me. “Yes.”
One word.
But it was enough to make the hair on my arms rise.
So I gripped the steering wheel tighter, said nothing, and drove into the storm—pretending the puddles on the road were the only reason my hands were shaking.
I drove. And drove. And drove.
For a whole damn hour, the only soundtrack in the Kia was rain, mud splatters, and Alpha Broody McBloodstains breathing like he was auditioning for a Darth Vader remake. Not gonna lie, I thought he was about two breaths away from ripping the steering wheel out of my hands and yeeting it into the forest. But eventually—finally—the golden glow in his eyes dulled, and he looked slightly less like a serial killer. Progress.
That was when he finally picked up his phone and called Zach. His voice was clipped, still sharp around the edges.
“Coordinates. Somewhere off-grid. Somewhere no one, not even the king, knows.”
Zach said something on the other end, but honestly? My brain checked out after the word coordinates. The only thing keeping me awake at that point was adrenaline, the faint stink of wet wolf blood in the car, and the growing realization that the Kia’s cup holders held no coffee. This, in my opinion, was an actual crime.
We turned right at some barely-there dirt road Zach mentioned, winding up into the woodland. And when I say woodland, I mean the kind where every tree looked like it had a personal vendetta against Kia minivans. Branches scraped the sides, roots tried to trip the tires, and at least twice I was pretty sure I saw a squirrel flipping us off.
Thirty minutes of this nonsense later, we broke through the treeline. The mountain opened up around us, and my jaw actually dropped. Below us, the world just… fell away. A cliff. And not a cute little hill. I’m talking sheer drop, the kind where you could see the sea churning below like it was hungry for idiots in minivans.
I gripped the wheel tighter. “Don’t say it, Gregor. Don’t you dare tell me to drive closer to the edge. I like living. I really, really like not becoming Kia-flavored seagull chow.”
He didn’t answer. He just smirked, the sadistic bastard.
Four hours later—FOUR HOURS of off-road torture—I was dead on my feet. Or dead on my butt, because my spine had been permanently fused to this driver’s seat. But then, finally, salvation.
Nestled between trees and a patch of rocky clearing was… a cottage. And by cottage, I don’t mean fairytale cottage. No, this was the kind of place where horror movies start. Broken garden shed out front, one lopsided shutter hanging on for dear life, and a front porch that groaned even from a distance.
Oh, and a horse. Just… chilling. Tied to a fence post like it was the guardian of this whole operation. Big, black, and glaring at us like it was judging my driving skills. Which—fair, but still rude.
But here’s the kicker. The chimney was smoking. And that smoke? It smelled like actual food. Real food. Not stale chocolate, not Korean noodles that I had tragically sacrificed to the garbage gods earlier, not whatever half-dead jerky was still stuck in Gregor’s coat pocket.
My stomach actually growled so loud it startled me.
“Oh thank god,” I groaned, pulling the Kia into the crooked driveway. “Food. There’s food. I don’t even care if it’s poisoned at this point. I’d lick arsenic off a plate if it came with a side of bread.”
Gregor shot me a look. “You threw out the noodles.”
I threw my hands up. “They were soggy! They smelled like burnt regret! And anyway, YOU didn’t want them, Mister ‘I Only Feast on the Blood of My Enemies.’”
He growled low in his throat, but I was too hungry to care. My eyes were locked on that cottage like a starving wolf about to pounce. Because listen—if someone was actually cooking something in there? Then whoever owned this place better be prepared to share, because I was not above tackling a grandma over a bowl of soup.
I slumped forward, forehead against the wheel. “If that’s just someone burning socks in their fireplace, I swear to god I’ll cry.”