The forest never truly slept.
Even in the quiet before dawn, when the mist gathered low and heavy, the pines whispered secrets to the wind and the river hummed against its banks. Sapphire could hear it from her window—the heartbeat of the packlands, steady and familiar. Yet tonight, it did nothing to calm her. The rhythm of the earth felt off, its pulse mismatched to her own.
Her wolf was uneasy again, pacing restlessly inside her mind. Something's watching us.
Sapphire drew the curtains closed and rubbed her arms. "It's just nerves. That's all."
But the words rang hollow, even to her.
She tried to distract herself, fussing with her hair, her nightshirt, the lamp on her bedside table. Still, every small creak of the house made her flinch. The memory of that night on the ridge clung to her—the way the Peace Fighter had looked at her, calm yet lethal, like the embodiment of every contradiction she didn't know she craved.
And the way her wolf had whispered mate in trembling awe.
She'd tried to dismiss it as shock. Peace Fighters didn't have mates; everyone knew that. Their emotions were chemically bound, suppressed until nothing human remained. Yet when she closed her eyes, she could still feel the brush of his energy, cold and searing all at once, the invisible tether that thrummed like an echo beneath her skin.
A faint knock at her door startled her.
She turned, heart pounding. "Who's there?"
"Cain," came her brother's muffled voice. "You all right? You've been pacing for half an hour."
"I'm fine," she lied, though her voice trembled. "Just... couldn't sleep."
"Yeah, I figured." His tone softened. "Dad says there's talk of rogue sightings near the southern ridge. Don't wander too far tomorrow, okay?"
"I won't."
She heard him move away, his footsteps fading into silence.
But the quiet didn't last long.
The air shifted. It was subtle at first—a faint drop in temperature, a tightening in her chest. Then came the scent: metal, ozone, and rain. Her pulse quickened.
She knew that scent.
Sapphire turned toward the window, her breath fogging the glass as she peered into the darkness beyond. For a moment, she saw nothing. Then a shape emerged at the edge of the woods—a tall, solitary figure standing half in shadow, half in moonlight.
Dominic.
Her wolf stilled instantly, torn between fear and longing.
He shouldn't have been there. Peace Fighters didn't linger near pack territories unless ordered to. And yet, even from this distance, Sapphire could feel the pull between them, alive and undeniable.
Before she could think, she was moving.
She threw on her shawl and slipped out through the back door, her bare feet silent on the grass. The night wrapped around her, heavy with pine and smoke.
When she reached the edge of the trees, he was already waiting.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"Neither should you," he replied, that same calm tone from before, though his eyes betrayed a flicker of emotion—concern, maybe. "It's not safe."
Sapphire crossed her arms. "I live here, remember?"
He stepped closer, and the air between them thickened, charged with something dangerous and magnetic. "You shouldn't be out here alone."
She swallowed hard. "And you? You're a Peace Fighter. You're supposed to follow orders. So what are you doing in my woods?"
He hesitated, glancing past her toward the packhouse, his jaw tightening. "There are rumors of attacks nearby. Rogues. I was sent to patrol the borders."
She frowned. "By who?"
"Command," he said simply. "You shouldn't concern yourself with it."
"That's easy for you to say when it's my family's land they might attack."
His gaze returned to her then, sharp and assessing. "I'm not your enemy."
Her wolf growled softly, not in warning but in confusion. Sapphire looked up at him, her breath catching. "I didn't say you were."
For a moment, the silence stretched, threaded with tension so fragile it might break under the weight of a single word.
Then he reached out, almost reluctantly, and brushed his fingers against her wrist. The contact was brief but electric—an energy that shot straight through her, making her wolf howl in recognition.
"Go inside," he murmured, voice low and rough. "Lock your doors. If anything happens, call for me."
"And you'll come running?" she whispered.
He hesitated. "I shouldn't."
"But you will."
He didn't answer, but his silence was louder than any promise.
When he turned to leave, she caught his hand. "Dominic," she said softly. "Why do I feel like I've known you my whole life?"
He froze.
His voice, when it came, was raw. "Because some bonds don't care about logic. They just are."
Sapphire didn't sleep that night. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the pale blue fire of his gaze and felt the ghost of his touch lingering on her skin. Something ancient and wild inside her had awakened, and no amount of logic could quiet it.
By morning, the forest's quiet hum had turned to a hush of warning. Birds avoided the trees closest to the border, and even the wind carried an edge of apprehension. The entire pack could sense it now—the shift in the air, the unspoken dread of change.
Sapphire stood by the window, watching the mist rise from the river. Marge was already in the yard, speaking to a pair of sentries. Beyond them, Cain was arguing with a messenger wolf from another sector. Tension thickened like smoke.
When the soft knock came at her door, she knew it was him.
Dominic stood in the doorway, his uniform black against the sunlight pouring through the hall behind him. He looked out of place in her world of warm wood and laughter, a shadow carved from discipline and danger. Yet the moment their eyes met, something inside her eased.
"May I come in?" His tone was neutral, but she could hear the restraint in it—the way he fought to keep his emotions caged.
She nodded, stepping aside. "You're not supposed to be here."
"I know," he said simply. "But I couldn't stay away."
Her heart tripped. "Why?"
He took a step closer, his gaze tracing her face with a kind of reverence that almost hurt to see. "Because I can feel what you're feeling. Every fear, every tremor in your wolf—it echoes in me. That shouldn't be possible."
Sapphire swallowed hard. "But it is."
He exhaled, slow and sharp. "You're my undoing."
Her breath caught. "What?"
"I've spent my life being told emotion is weakness," he murmured. "That connection makes you breakable. But then you looked at me like I was still worth saving, and now I can't remember what strength was supposed to feel like."
For a long moment, she said nothing. Then, quietly: "Maybe strength isn't the absence of feeling. Maybe it's learning how to survive it."
A muscle in his jaw flexed. Then he reached up, brushing his thumb along her cheekbone as if testing the reality of her. The calluses on his fingers were rough, his touch careful, reverent.
"You're shaking," he said softly.
"I'm not afraid of you."
"Good," he whispered. "Because I'd burn the world before I let it touch you."
The words hit her like a vow—quiet, dangerous, absolute.
She leaned into his touch before she could stop herself, drawn by something greater than reason. His scent surrounded her: smoke, rain, and the faint metallic trace of silver. Her wolf purred, pushing closer, aching for more.
"Dominic," she breathed, his name a fragile thing on her tongue.
He closed his eyes. "Don't. If you say my name like that, I won't be able to stop myself."
"Then don't."
The silence that followed was electric, heavy with everything they both wanted and couldn't yet take. He pulled her closer, just enough that she could feel the solid warmth of his chest against hers, his heart beating hard and uneven.
"I can't mark you," he said, his voice rough. "Not yet. The Council would destroy you if they found out. They don't forgive Peace Fighters who break conditioning."
Sapphire looked up at him, tears stinging her eyes. "So what am I supposed to do? Pretend I don't feel this?"
He cupped the back of her neck, lowering his forehead to hers. "No. You feel it. You hold it close and remember it's real. That's what will keep you alive."
Her hand rose to rest over his heart, the rhythm steady beneath her palm. "Then promise me something," she whispered. "If something happens to me—if I disappear—don't stop looking."
His expression darkened. "Don't talk like that."
"Promise me," she said again, fierce now. "Swear it."
He hesitated, then pressed his lips to her forehead. "I swear it. I'll find you in every world, Sapphire. There isn't a power alive that could keep me from you."
She smiled through the ache in her chest. "Even the Peace Fighters?"
"Even the gods," he said.
A tear slipped down her cheek. He caught it with his thumb, and his eyes softened. "You don't know what you do to me."
She did, though. She could feel it—the war inside him, the pull between duty and instinct, the deep, wild need that mirrored her own.
For one impossible second, the rest of the world vanished. There was only the warmth of his body, the scent of pine and smoke, the quiet hum of a bond older than either of them.
Then the front door banged open.
"Dominic!" Cain's voice echoed down the hall. "We've got movement near the eastern line!"
Dominic tensed, the soldier snapping back into place.
Sapphire caught his hand. "Go," she whispered. "But come back to me."
His grip tightened around hers, one heartbeat longer than necessary. "Always."
He released her and was gone before she could take another breath, his shadow dissolving into the morning light.
That night, the storm finally broke.
Rain fell in sheets, battering the roof, turning the air sharp with ozone. Sapphire sat by the window, watching lightning tear across the sky. Every flash illuminated the forest, empty and trembling. Dominic hadn't returned yet.
Her wolf prowled inside her chest, uneasy. He's in danger.
"Don't," she whispered. "Don't do this to me."
He's ours. We'd know if he wasn't breathing.
She wanted to believe that. She pressed her hand to her belly, drawing strength from the warmth there, from the faint spark of a future she could almost see—Dominic's arms around her, laughter in the halls, the patter of small feet in the packhouse.
Hope.
She clung to it as thunder rolled through the valley, shaking the glass in its frame. Somewhere beyond the trees, a wolf howled—a sound of mourning, or warning, she couldn't tell.
And through it all, she felt his presence flicker across the bond: faint, wounded, but alive.
Her heart squeezed painfully. "Come back to me," she whispered.
The wind howled in answer, carrying his scent—rain, steel, smoke—through the crack of her window.
Far beyond the ridge, Dominic limped through the storm, blood trailing from a gash across his arm. The rogue attack had come without warning, a coordinated strike meant to draw them away from the packhouse. He'd fought them off, but the pattern was clear now.
Someone wanted Sapphire unguarded.
He paused at the tree line, breath harsh, every nerve burning with pain and fury. His wolf snarled inside him, demanding he turn back, that he go to her.
"I'm coming," he rasped, his voice swallowed by thunder. "I promised."
He vanished into the rain, following the invisible thread that bound him to her heart.
The storm raged on.