POV Natalie
“Here you are.”
The voice cuts through the night air like a blade I’ve been expecting.
I don’t need to turn around to know who it is—I’d recognize that particular brand of controlled fury anywhere.
Avery stands there in the moonlight, and she looks absolutely murderous. Not the sexy kind of murderous that made me want to kiss her senseless.
The actual kind that makes you wonder if you’re about to become a cautionary tale.
“How does it feel?” she asks, voice deadly calm. “Killing twelve of my species?”
The accusation hits like a physical blow. “I didn’t do it.”
I mutter the words, but even I can hear how pathetic they sound. Like a kid caught with chocolate on their face claiming they didn’t eat the cookies.
“Oh really?” Her voice drips sarcasm that could strip paint. “Is that why you dragged me into that room? To protect me from the bloodbath you weren’t planning?”
“I was trying to warn you.”
“Warn me?” She laughs, and it’s the ugliest sound I’ve ever heard from her. “You conveniently separated me from my pack right before they got slaughtered. What a fucking coincidence.”
My chest tightens. This is going exactly as badly as I thought it would. “Avery, listen to me—”
“No, you listen.” She steps closer, and I can see the pain behind the rage in her eyes. “Twelve wolves are dead. Wolves I’ve known since I was a kid. And where was their diplomatic representative? Off playing whatever twisted game you’ve been running on me.”
“It wasn’t a game!”
“Bullshit. Everything about this has been a game. The fights, the kisses, the late-night meetings—all of it was you setting me up for this moment.”
The accusation cuts deeper than any blade. Because part of me knows how it looks. How perfectly orchestrated the timing was, how convenient my warning seemed.
“You think I wanted this?” I gesture wildly at nothing, at everything. “You think I planned for our species to die?”
“I think you’re a vampire who’s been lying to me since day one. I think you saw an opportunity to complete your mission and took it, regardless of the collateral damage.”
“That’s not—”
“What mission, Natalie?” Her voice goes quiet, deadly. “What were you really supposed to do at that summit?”
The question hangs between us like a loaded gun. Because we both know.
“I was supposed to…” I swallow hard. “I was supposed to bring back a wolf.”
“Which wolf?”
“Any wolf.”
“Try again.”
Fuck. She’s not going to let this go. And why should she? Her pack just got decimated, and I’m standing here with blood on my hands whether I pulled the trigger or not.
“You,” I whisper. “I was supposed to bring back you.”
The silence that follows is deafening. But there’s something else in her eyes now. Not just betrayal. Recognition.
“So all of this,” she says slowly, “every conversation, every touch, every moment I thought was real—it was all part of your assignment.”
“No! Not all of it… Not the parts that mattered.”
“How the hell am I supposed to know which parts mattered?” Her voice cracks on the last word. “How am I supposed to trust anything you’ve said when you just admitted you’ve been hunting me this entire time?”
“Because I chose not to! Because I could have taken you a dozen times and I didn’t!” I step closer, desperate. “Just like you could have dragged me back to your pack in chains, but you didn’t.”
She goes very still. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb, Avery. We both know what this is. We both know why we kept meeting. Why did we kept fighting instead of finishing it.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know you were supposed to capture a vampire. I know your daddy gave you a deadline. I know you’ve been just as conflicted about this whole thing as I have.”
The look on her face confirms everything. We’re both hunters. We’re both prey. We’re both completely fucked.
“So what?” she says, but there’s less venom now. “So we’re both traitors to our own kind. That doesn’t change what happened.”
“Doesn’t it? Because I’m starting to think we weren’t the only ones playing games.”
She stares at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean maybe we were both set up. Maybe they wanted this to happen. Maybe the whole summit was designed to fail, and we were just the convenient scapegoats.”
“That’s paranoid bullshit.”
“Is it? Think about it, Avery. Both sides send their problem children to a peace summit with secret orders to sabotage it. What are the odds that’s a coincidence?”
I can see her working through it, see the moment she realizes I might be right.
“You think they planned this.”
“I think we’ve been played from the beginning.”
“Even if that’s true,” she says, “wolves are still dead. Wolves died while we were too busy eye-fucking each other to do our jobs.”
The words hit like a slap. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Don’t call it what it is? You’re a predator, Natalie. I’m prey. That’s the only relationship we’ve ever had.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then prove it. Tell me you had nothing to do with tonight.”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
“You can’t, can you?” She shakes her head, and I see the exact moment she gives up on me. “Because you did. Maybe you didn’t pull the trigger, but you loaded the gun.”
“Avery, please—”
“No. We’re done. This whole twisted thing between us is over.”
She turns to walk away, and something inside me snaps.
“I was supposed to crash the summit! Supposed to kidnap you in front of everyone, destroy any chance of peace, and drag you back to my coven like a trophy. But I couldn’t do it because…”
She stops but doesn’t turn around.
The words tumble out in a rush. “Somewhere along the way, this stopped being about survival and started being about you.”
She stares at me. “So you’re saying you failed your mission because you caught feelings?”
“I’m saying I chose you over everything else, and it still wasn’t enough.”
“It wasn’t enough because wolves died, Natalie. Wolves died while you were choosing me.”
The accusation hangs between us like a death sentence. Because she’s right. People died while I was having my emotional breakthrough. People died while I was realizing I’d rather be exiled than hurt her.
“I know,” I whisper.
“Do you? Because you’re standing there talking about choices like they matter when there are twelve families who will never see their loved ones again.”
The guilt hits me like a physical blow. She’s right. She’s absolutely right, and I have no defense. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t bring them back.”
“I know.”
“Sorry doesn’t change the fact that you were there to betray me.”
“I know.”
The admission hangs between us like a confession. We’re both guilty. We’re both victims. We’re both completely fucked.
“Sorry doesn’t—” She lunges.
No warning, no telegraphed movement. One second she’s standing there breaking my heart with brutal honesty, the next she’s shifted and launching herself at me with claws extended and murder in her eyes.
I barely get my arms up in time to block her strike. Her claws rake across my forearms, opening deep gashes that burn like acid. But pain is familiar. Pain I can work with.
What I can’t work with is the look of absolute hatred in her eyes.
She comes at me again, and this time I don’t just defend. I fight back. Because apparently that’s all we know how to do—hurt each other in increasingly creative ways.
We crash into trees, tear through underbrush, trade blows that would kill normal people. She’s stronger in wolf form, but I’m faster. She’s got claws, but I’ve got fifty years of combat training.
It’s brutal. It’s vicious. It’s everything our relationship has been building toward.
And it’s breaking my heart.
I manage to get behind her, arm around her throat in a chokehold that cuts off her air supply. She struggles, but I’ve got leverage and desperation on my side.
“Stop,” I hissed in her ear, and my voice came out dripping with venom I didn’t know I was capable of. “Just fucking stop.”
She goes still, but I can feel the tension in her body. The moment I let go, she’ll tear my throat out.
“You want to know the truth?” I tighten my grip, and she makes a choking sound that makes me hate myself. “If I don’t bring a wolf back, they’ll exile me. Cast me out to the sun. So congratulations, Avery. You get to be the hero who saves her pack and destroys the monster.”