Hugh carries me out of the warehouse like I weigh nothing, which is either werewolf strength or adrenaline or both, and I finally feel safe.
The corridor beyond is carnage—evidence of what happens when an Alpha wolf fights to reach his mate.
I keep my eyes fixed on his chest, refusing to look at the bodies we pass.
Some things you can't unsee, and I've already got enough nightmare material to last several lifetimes.
A car waits at the edge of the building—black, anonymous, engine already running. I don't ask whose. At this point, I'm accepting mysterious rescue vehicles as just another Tuesday in my new supernatural life.
Someone emerges from the shadows and tosses clothes from the trunk. Hugh catches them one-handed without loosening his grip on me, pulling on pants with efficiency that suggests practice.
He wraps a blanket around my shoulders and slides into the backseat with me still cradled against his chest.
The car starts moving. Someone else is driving, but I can't bring myself to care about details right now. My whole body is shaking, tremors I can't control despite the blanket's warmth, despite the heat radiating off Hugh's skin.
"My father." The words come out cracked, desperate. "Hugh, where's my dad? Is he okay? They had him when they took me, and he was fighting them, and there was so much blood…"
His arms tighten around me, pulling me impossibly closer.
"Don't worry about that right now." His voice is steady, but I can see his jaw tightening, the muscle jumping beneath his skin. "Just focus on breathing. We're safe. You're safe."
I should push. Should demand answers. But exhaustion crashes over me like a wave, and I'm too overwhelmed to fight. The shaking won't stop, my teeth chattering despite not being cold.
Hugh doesn't speak—just holds me, his hand stroking through my tangled hair with steady, repetitive motions. His heartbeat thuds against my cheek, solid and rhythmic, an anchor in the chaos.
Time blurs as the car climbs through winding mountain roads. Eventually, trees close in around us, and we pull up to a cabin nestled in the mountains like something from a fairy tale.
"Safehouse," Hugh says when I manage to form a questioning look.
Inside, he runs me a bath without asking. The water is hot enough to sting, and he helps me into it with hands that are impossibly gentle for someone who just tore through a warehouse full of armed men.
He washes the fear and grime away—the concrete dust, the dried tears, the lingering touch of hands that grabbed me—until I feel almost human again. Then he wraps me in blankets and settles me in front of a crackling fire.
Only then, with warmth finally seeping into my bones, do the questions start clawing their way out.
"Why are they after me?"
My voice sounds strange to my own ears—hollow, distant.
"That man called me things, so don’t give me the ‘business rivals’ excuse anymore. Hybrid. Half-blood. Freak. Abomination.” My voice trembles, but I don’t stop. “He said I shouldn't exist. What did he mean? What… am I, really?"
Hugh sits behind me, pulling me back against his chest, his arms wrapping around me like he can shield me from the truth. When I look up at him, he looks more exhausted than I've ever seen him—gray beneath his eyes, lines carved deep around his mouth.
"Your mother…" he begins, and the words seem to cost him everything. "Savannah was a werewolf, part of my pack. I knew her—not well, but… I knew her."
The world tilts sideways and I grip his arms to steady myself, trying to anchor myself to something real while reality rearranges itself around me.
"Your father fell in love with her," Hugh continues quietly. "And they had you. A hybrid. Half-human, half-wolf. It's rare, incredibly so, and… controversial. Some see hybrids as bridges between worlds. Others see them as perversions of nature that need to be eliminated."
"Like the people who took me."
"Exactly. The fanatics who've been hunting hybrids for generations, believing they're protecting the purity of both species." His voice goes rough with disgust. "Savannah was killed by them when you were young—too young to remember. They murdered her for loving a human, for creating you."
The fire crackles and I hear somewhere outside an owl calls into the darkness. Inside my chest, everything I thought I knew about myself shatters and reforms into something new.
"Dad knew." It's not a question. "He's known this whole time. That's why he was so protective, why he kept me isolated, why he watched me like I might break."
"He hoped your wolf nature would never manifest. Hoped you could live a normal human life without ever knowing what you really are."
Hugh's arms tighten around me as if feeling all the pain boiling inside me and take it away with a single touch.
"But it did manifest. The heat you experienced on your birthday…” His voice gets quieter. “That was your werewolf side awakening. And the bond between us triggered something that had been dormant your whole life."
My whole life reframed in an instant.
Every moment I felt different, every time I sensed things others couldn't, every inexplicable instinct I dismissed as imagination—all of it finally makes sense.
I wasn't broken or strange or defective.
I was something else entirely.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Sudden anger surprises me, cutting through the numbness. "You knew too. This whole time, you knew what I was, and you kept it from me. You let me stumble around in the dark—"
"I was afraid."
The admission comes out raw, vulnerable in a way I've never heard from him.
"Afraid of how you'd react. Afraid of what it would mean,” he swallows nervously and pulls me impossibly closer. “Afraid that telling you would put you in more danger, or that you'd hate me for being part of a world that was the reason your mother got killed."
I should be furious. Part of me is—a hot coal of betrayal burning in my chest. But sitting here wrapped in his arms, finally understanding why I've always felt like an outsider, the anger can't quite take hold.
There's grief instead. And relief. And a strange, settling peace.
"There's more to learn," Hugh says softly. "Your abilities, your heritage, the world you're now part of. I'll teach you everything—help you understand what you can do, who you are."
He turns me in his arms, cupping my face with hands still trembling slightly.
"But right now, the only thing that matters is that you're my mate. And I'm yours. And I'm never letting anyone hurt you again. Not fanatics, not betrayers, not anyone. Do you understand?"
I reach for him instead of answering—my hands fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer. He responds immediately, arms crushing me against his chest, his face buried in the crook of my neck.
We stay like that for a long time, wrapped around each other in front of the fire, breathing in each other, letting the warmth seep into places that have been cold for too long.
But even as peace settles over us, a new fear takes root in my chest.
They killed my mother for loving a human. For creating me.
What would they do to Hugh?
To the powerful Alpha for being a fated mate to a hybrid?