A strange calm followed each bite of the bird, deeper than hunger ever left behind. Not like the chewy strips dried by travelers, tougher on the teeth. Nothing since last market fire compared at all. Rabbit always felt thin now, lacking weight.
Firelight flickered across his face while she ate, silent but uneasy. Not peace - more like waiting without knowing what for. Her gaze stayed fixed on Rhett, chewing slowly, seeing things she hadn't seen before. The quiet between them had shifted, somehow heavier now.
A bite at a time, he worked fast. Nothing extra moved. The meat came off sharp, fingers dragged down denim, then bones cracked into flames. Like drills back then. How the group stayed tight.
"How long have you been out here?" Sage asked. Casual. Conversational.
"In the Deadlands?"
"Yeah."
"Three years. Give or take."
"That's a long time to be alone."
"I manage."
"No pack? No contact with anyone?"
A flicker of stillness. So small most would overlook it. Had Sage not been looking, her eyes might have passed right by.
"No," Rhett said. "Just me."
Liar.
Teeth sinking into the pheasant, Sage held the quiet like a weight. The moment stretched without need for words.
"What about you?" Rhett asked. "Before Crimson Howl. Where were you?"
"Born into a small pack up north. The Ashwood Pack."
"I've heard of them. They dissolved about... what, fifteen years ago?"
"Sixteen. After my parents died. The pack fractured. I was shuffled around - foster placements in different packs. None of them stuck. I ended up in Crimson Howl when I was nineteen because their lead warrior saw me fight at a border tournament and recruited me."
"You were recruited as a warrior at nineteen?"
"I was good."
"I don't doubt that."
"Good enough to be their lead warrior by twenty-two. Good enough to train their entire fighting force. Good enough to defend their borders for six years." Sage's voice hardened. "Not good enough to be believed when I told them the truth."
Fork clattering onto the plate, he stopped eating. Her face held his gaze like a magnet, deep and quiet, giving nothing away.
"What truth?"
Fingers drumming on the table, Sage thought through what she might say. Out of silence comes nothing - so maybe speaking first would stir something loose. Rhett held pieces she lacked. To pull those close meant offering up bits of herself, one at a time. A word here could buy a truth there.
"Crimson Howl's leadership is corrupt," she said. "Money flowing to unknown accounts. Weapons purchases off the books. Communications with outside contacts that aren't logged. I found the records. I brought them to Declan."
"And he buried it."
"He buriedme. His Luna - Vivienne - planted evidence of treason. Forged documents. Faked communications. Made it look like I was feeding intelligence to Deadland rogues."
"The border patrol deaths."
Sage looked at him sharply. "How do you know about that?"
A silence came again. This stretch felt heavier than before.
"Word travels," Rhett said. "Even in the Deadlands. Four Crimson Howl warriors killed on the eastern border. Blamed on a rogue incursion. But the rogues in this area didn't do it."
"How do you know?"
"Because I know the rogues in this area. They're scavengers, not killers. Most of them are just trying to survive."
"And you know them how, exactly? If you've been living alone for three years with no contact?"
Rhett looked up just as she did. Their eyes locked without warning.
Sparks rose like tiny stars when the log settled deeper into the flames. Between them, the fire popped softly under the weight of silence.
"I keep to myself," Rhett said slowly. "But that doesn't mean I don't pay attention to what happens around me."
Something stirred behind his eyes - empty words dressed up polite. Not new, those kinds of replies. They slipped into place beside the old handset, the unread texts, the monogram where a full name used to live.
K.
Who was K?
"Can I ask you something?" Sage said.
"You've been asking me things all morning."
"One more."
"Go ahead."
"Why did you help me? You found a bleeding stranger in the woods. You could have walked past. Most rogues would have. Why stop?"
A flicker of flame caught Rhett's eyes. Not quite still, his jaw moved - this steady grind she'd begun noticing whenever thought clashed with gut. What showed up each time what he felt fought what he knew.
"Because I know what it looks like," he said finally. "Someone who's been broken by the people who were supposed to protect them. I know that look. I've worn it."
Truth carried its own mark. The way her nose caught it - not sharp, but sure - like frost on stone at dawn. A stillness lived inside real words. Deceit left behind a faint rot, something low and crouched beneath the air. What she breathed in now held none of that.
Truth stood behind his words here. Because he wanted to help her, he acted without pretending. Behind that choice sat real intent.
Whatever else filled his hands - texts, calls, updates - sat right next to real concern. Never replaced it.
Complication grew. Simplicity didn't stand a chance.
"Thanks," Sage said.
Rhett nodded.
Quiet came back again. Yet now it carried weight - heavy with words never spoken, by each of them.
Foot halfway turned toward the door, Sage froze as her wolf went rigid. A breath held too long escaped - thoughts scattering like stones dropped in water. Then stillness, sharp and sudden.
A shiver ran through Sage, every strand of hair lifting at once.
Scent.
A fresh smell drifts in. Not from before, but now it moves across the land. From the northwest it arrives. The breeze shifts, turns, brings it forward. Wind alters its path. Now the air holds something different.
Wolf.
This wasn't Rhett. Nor the pale echo of outlaws scattered across the Deadlands. It felt new. Near. Drawing in by the breath.
Up she stood, though her mind hadn't given the word yet. Into position went her frame - centered weight, relaxed fists, gaze slicing through the edge of the woods. Old habit fired without warning, those six relentless years rising despite cracked bone and raw skin.
Something shifted in Rhett. Already upright when she noticed, he moved quicker than she could follow. Not quite seeing the change, just its result - now standing where seconds before he had been still. His frame turned slightly, facing that open stretch of land beyond the trees. Breath sharp in his nose, catching scents carried by cold air.
"You smell that," Sage said.
"Yeah."
"How many?"
Breath flared through Rhett's nose. A tight squint pulled at his gaze.
He spoke first. One word came out. But then silence followed
"But what?"
A strength there. The smell… he stopped short. Something shifted on his face, unfamiliar to her eyes. That usual stillness cracked, briefly. Through it peeked pure astonishment.
Fear wasn't it. A wolf like Rhett? Fear hardly ever showed up on his radar.
Huh. Then again, there was this flicker - almost as if it knew. A pause, quiet, then a glance too familiar.
"Rhett. Who is it?"
Just as silence held the air, movement flickered at the edge of the woods beyond the ridge.
It did not happen loudly. There were no broken limbs falling, no grand arrival. Only a quiet shift in shade - the dark shape of a trunk turning into the outline of someone standing there.
A figure moved through trees into open space.
Standing a head above most. Slender, not thick like Rhett - more like steel drawn thin, while Rhett stood solid as stone. Hair black and combed tight from a forehead smooth as if shaped by hand. Cheekbones sharp enough to catch shadow, nose straight, jawline taut like wire. Those eyes though - light, almost colorless blue-gray, reflecting flames but making them feel distant, somehow colder.
A man dressed in shadows, clothed in quiet price tags. Not loud - never loud - but heavy with value all the same. That coat flowed like liquid midnight, each fold worth a dozen tents full of gear. His boots stayed clean till now, untouched by dirt, unmarked by ground.
Stillness shaped him. Not a twitch out of place - just quiet precision. Each angle, each curve said it without words: control isn't claimed, it simply shows. He wore it like breath, steady and unasked.
Fingers tapping, he turned his eyes toward Rhett.
His eyes moved toward Sage next.
Breathing in sharp, his nose twitched. Just a sliver more open, yet those light eyes said everything. On someone so still, such small shifts carried weight.
That smell reached him as well. Not just a hint - something deeper pulled at his senses. Sage's presence, changed now that she was tied to Rhett, sent signals only wolves could read. This one had picked up every note of it.
Right away, he responded.
A tremor ran through him. Eyes widened now, dark and deep. The line of his jaw set hard against the silence. Fingers that once hung loose, calm and idle, drew inward, knuckles pale.
Not anger.
Recognition.
A wildness pushed against Sage's ribs. It moved like a heartbeat, restless beneath her skin.
A quiet intensity replaced the chaos she remembered with Rhett. Not sharp edges, but something colder now. A presence like steel drawn slow from shadow. Her wolf went still, eyes narrowed - judging distance, weighing threat, reading every shift in his stance.
Beneath that evaluation, beneath the wariness, something else stirred
Pull.
Still that tug. Not the same hum though - new grain, new spice. Yet underneath it all, one steady push.
Footsteps away, her wolf leaned toward the other one. Close now, it pulled without sound. Not words but motion drew them near. Stillness gave way when fur brushed against fur.
Wrong, Sage told herself. Not now, definitely not - this can't be repeating itself.
Yet there it was. A sensation running through her veins, settling deep into her skeleton, humming at the core of her jaw. That familiar collapse of certainty - unwanted, undeniable, exact.
Mate.
A second mate.
"Kieran," Rhett said.
A hush swallowed it whole, just as ponds take stones without ripple. Quiet closed around the word, heavy and sudden.
K.
"K needs confirmation before he moves."
It began as just letters on paper. That name stuck around longer than expected. Not someone giving orders. Simply what appeared in the records. A label without authority behind it. Just how things were written down back then.
Kieran.
Here he stood.
Something shifted in Kieran's gaze as it left Sage, slow like pulling free from deep water. Rhett became the center of his attention. Words came out measured, sharp, a flat tone belying the fire flashing across his face. The calm sound didn't match what burned beneath.
"You were supposed to confirm her identity," Kieran said. "Not adopt her."
"She needed help."
"She needed to be assessed. Quietly. Without emotional entanglement." Kieran's pale eyes cut back to Sage. "And without triggering a mate bond that I could smell from two miles away."
Fear gripped Sage without warning. The air turned sharp, like ice in the veins.
It hit him. The scent of her connection to Rhett hung in the air. Yet his skin prickled, tight with a force that felt just as fierce.
What's your name? Sage said. Though her voice sounded calm, inside she trembled.
Kieran watched her closely. Not quite cold, yet not warm either - more like a soldier scanning terrain before a fight, weighing what works and what might break. Yet beneath that stillness, something restless pushed up from inside him, an animal straining at the edges. The push and pull showed in small cracks - a twitch near his jaw, a breath held too long.
"My name is Kieran Ashford," he said. "And if you are who I think you are, then we have a great deal to discuss."
Ashford," Sage said again. Something about the name felt familiar, though far away. Hidden deep. Much like a childhood word lost over time.
"It means nothing to you?" Kieran asked.
"Should it?"
A flicker changed how he looked. Not ice behind the eyes anymore, but a letdown so heavy it seemed to pull at his bones. Hope had been there once, you could tell, only to fade into nothing. The mask cracked open, revealing not distance, but sorrow shaped by lost expectation.
That's right," he murmured. "It ought to."
He looked at Rhett. "We need to move. I wasn't the only one who caught her scent. There are Crimson Howl trackers in the Deadlands. Three of them. Crossing the southern ridge as of this morning."
Sage's stomach dropped.
What's the distance? Rhett said. Gone was the relaxed posture. Now he stood like an apex predator - sharp, intent, every muscle coiled tight, turning quiet isolation into raw threat.
"Six hours. Maybe less if they catch the wind."
"How do you know about the trackers?" Sage demanded.
Kieran turned his eyes toward her. Not because he trusted anyone else, but because border patrols answered to him. Months gone, those same watchers kept tabs on Crimson Howl too. The rot inside? He saw it coming long before she ever did. Evidence planted by others - already known, already tracked. It was clear they would go after your life. Should you make it through - which mattered more than almost anything - the Deadlands would be where you landed
Suddenly still, Sage fixed her eyes upon his face.
"You knew they were going to frame me."
"Yes."
"And you didn't warn me."
A pause hangs in the air. Stillness follows. Quiet settles between words. The moment stretches, thin and sharp.
"No," Kieran said. "I didn't."
A hot fury exploded inside Sage. Not just anger - something deeper shook her bones. The wolf within howled, raw and sharp. Colors shifted, edges glowing faint gold around what she saw. Then came the change: fingers twisting, nails pushing outward, turning hard and dark like burnt stone. They bit into her skin without warning.
"You let them put me inchains - "
"I needed you outside Crimson Howl. Inside their compound, you were untouchable - too well guarded, too integrated into their structure. I couldn't get to you. But a fugitive in the Deadlands - "
"Is an easy target."
A free man. Loose. Without chains. Kieran kept his voice steady, yet something sharper pushed through - a thin split in calm surface. Staying silent wasn't kindness. It was survival. Had you remained with Crimson Howl, breath would've left your body before thirty days passed. Vivienne had more in mind than just pinning something on you. Sleep would be the moment she chose, her plan already set to end things quietly - then leave behind a scene that seemed natural
"You don't know that."
"I do know that. Because I intercepted the order."
Silence.
Smoke curled up when the flame jumped. One piece of wood broke apart, turned dark.
"Which one?" Sage said quietly.
A crumpled sheet came from inside Kieran's coat. With slow fingers, he offered it forward.
Sage took it.
A note arrived, written by hand on paper marked with the crimson wolf emblem and sealed with the mark of the Luna herself. Brief, what it said took only moments to read.
Before the next full moon, deal with Blackwood. Handle it without noise. Remove every piece of proof. Leave nothing leading back our way.
- V
Fingers traced each line while eyes stayed locked - third pass now. Still sitting there, silent, after finishing again.
The Blackwood problem.
This is who she turned out to be. Never took up arms. Never ran with any group. Didn't fit into the shape of someone real.
A challenge. Waiting solution.
Folded the paper she did, slow and exact. Stillness held her fingers - no tremor allowed. Shaking was something she refused to permit.
"Where did you get this?" she asked.
"From the messenger Vivienne hired. He didn't deliver it."
"Because you stopped him."
"Because I stopped him."
Sage lifted her gaze from the page. There he was - Kieran - waiting by the trees, still as ice, face unreadable. Yet those eyes. That faint blue-gray stare locked on her, sharp in a way that ignored duty, ignored reason.
There he stood, his wolf close, so near it seemed to breathe through his skin. It stared at Sage as if seeing light for the very first time in ages. Not a word passed between them - only that gaze, raw and quiet.
"What do you want from me?" Sage asked.
Kieran's jaw tightened.
"Everything," he said. "But that's a conversation for after we survive the next six hours. Rhett - break camp. We need to move north."
"North?" Rhett frowned. "There's nothing north except - "
"Except the others. Yes. It's time."
"She's not ready."
"The trackers don't care if she's ready."
Into the space they stood, Sage moved. Her presence caught both Alphas' attention at once - then came the tug, one bond pulling left, the other right, each insistent. Dizziness rose. A sour taste filled her mouth. Energy crackled under her skin.
"I decide if I'm ready," she said. "And I decide where I go. Both of you seem to have forgotten that I'm not your property. I'm not your mission. And I'm not yourmateuntil I say I am."
She looked at Rhett. "You've been reporting on me."
A flicker in the air gave him away, though his expression stayed flat. Guilt curled through his usual smell, quiet but unmistakable.
"Yes," he said.
Her gaze snapped toward Kieran. "That one," she said, tilting her head slightly.
"Yes."
She looked at Kieran. "You let me get tortured so I'd be easier to collect."
"That's a reductive interpretation of a complex - "
"Yes or no."
His jaw worked.
"Yes."
Footsteps slowed. A quiet settled deep in her chest. Fire had ripped through earlier, now gone - replaced by a stillness that didn't bend. That refused to break.
"Here's what's going to happen," she said. "We're going to move north, because Crimson Howl trackers will kill me and I prefer being alive. But when we get wherever we're going, you're going to tell me everything. Who you are. What you want. Why my last name makes you look like you've seen a ghost. And who theothersare."
Her eyes moved from one face to the other.
"And if either of you lies to me again, mate bond or not, I will walk into the Deadlands alone and you will never find me. Are we clear?"
A small nod came from Rhett. It dragged through time, heavy and quiet. Behind his stare, a flicker - maybe respect, maybe something else - slipped into view.
A silence stretched between them. His lips twitched upward, just slightly, like a ripple across still water. That small shift felt real, more honest than anything he had shown before.
"Clear," he said.
"Good. Break camp."
Fingers brushing the pack's worn strap, Sage began collecting what mattered - light things, useful ones.
From behind, Rhett's voice slipped through - low, meant for Kieran. "Didn't I say she wouldn't bend so quick." The words hung just long enough to catch air before fading
Then came Kieran's reply, barely above a whisper, nearly lost before it reached her ear
"I didn't want easy. I wantedher."
Sage's wolf purred.
Fur bristling, she hushed the voice inside her head.
They moved north.