Sera’s fist stops an inch from my nose.
"Better," she says, and lowers her arm. Sweat darkens the collar of her tactical shirt, the only sign that the last hour of sparring has cost her anything. "You actually blocked that one before I hit you. Progress."
I bend over, hands on my knees, sucking air through teeth that have learned to guard my tongue. "High praise."
"Don't let it go to your head." She tosses me a water bottle. I catch it—left-handed, because my right is swelling where I failed to block her kick. "You still move like a drunk toddler with inner ear problems. But you're less pathetic than last week."
"Only the ones who survive deserve romance," I gasp out.
She flashes teeth that are too white, too sharp. "Kade. Stop lurking and give me a real workout."
Kade emerges from the tree line, broad shoulders rolling beneath his shirt. He’s been joining us occasionally, but today there’s a different energy between them—a charged current that makes the hair on my arms lift. He doesn’t grunt at me. His eyes are locked on Sera with predatory focus, dark with a hunger that has nothing to do with violence and everything to do with possession.
"Ready?" he asks, his voice dropping an octave.
Sera’s lips curve. "Make me work for it."
They collide like thunderheads.
This isn’t training—it’s foreplay dressed as combat. Kade grounds, they grapple, chest to chest, hip to hip, their bodies aligning with devastating precision. His hand slides down her spine to grip her ass, lifting her slightly, and she wraps her legs around his waist with a flexibility that makes my mouth go dry.
"Focus, Abby," Sera gasps out, but she’s not talking to me about technique. She’s taunting me because she knows I’m watching.
Through my bonds, I feel Rhett and Theron stir—miles away in the settlement but connected to my pulse. They feel my sudden spike of arousal, the heat flooding my belly as I watch Sera and Kade move together. It’s kinetic, erotic, the way they anticipate each other’s breath. When Kade pins her against a tree, his forearm across her throat, she doesn’t struggle. She arches into him, grinding against his obvious hardness, her eyes fluttering with pleasure that looks exactly like pain.
"Watch the hips," Sera breathes, but Kade is biting her neck now, his free hand sliding between her legs, and I know I should look away but I can’t.
The bond with Rhett flares—warm, steady, concerned. He feels what I’m feeling, the restless heat building low in my stomach. Theron’s bond sparks sharper, hungrier, a mirror of my own desire. They know. They’re feeling what I’m feeling, and I’m feeling them feeling it—a feedback loop of mounting tension.
Kade spins Sera, slamming her front-first against the oak, her cheek pressed to bark. He covers her from behind, one hand fisted in her hair, the other tearing at her belt. "You’re mine," he growls, loud enough for me to hear.
"Prove it," she challenges, pushing back against him.
They don’t finish the spar. They finish each other, right there against the tree, Kade thrusting into her with brutal, claiming strokes while she bites her own wrist to muffle her screams. I can see the bond between them—a visible golden thread pulsing with each impact, spiraling tighter and brighter as they climb toward climax.
I’m flushed, trembling, my own body responding to the display with unwelcome intensity. I want that—raw, unapologetic claiming. I want to be taken like I’m the only thing that matters. The bonds in my chest scream for attention, Rhett’s steady warmth and Theron’s golden fire both flaring with need, demanding I come back to the settlement and let them ease the ache Sera and Kade have ignited.
When Kade finishes with a roar, his teeth sunk deep in Sera’s shoulder—marking her, sealing their reunion in blood and sex—I finally remember how to breathe.
Sera stumbles away from the tree, adjusting her clothes with shaky hands, her perfect hair ruined, her lips swollen. She looks at me, pupils blown wide, and laughs—a raw, honest sound.
"That’s what you’re missing," she says, her voice husky. "That’s what sealing feels like when both partners are warriors. Not gentle. Not careful. Conquest."
I stand up on unsteady legs, my own arousal damp between my thighs, my face flaming. "I have two seals."
"You have two safety nets," she corrects, her eyes narrowing. "Rhett treats you like glass. Theron treats you like redemption. Neither treats you like prey." She stalks toward me, smelling of sex and pine and victory. "If you want to be Alpha, you need to be hunted. You need to want it so badly you forget fear."
She leaves with Kade, his hand resting possessively on her bruised neck. I watch them go, shaking with unfulfilled need, my bonds vibrating with the echoed desires of wolves miles away.
Back at the lodge, the atmosphere is thick with unspoken knowledge. Rhett’s dark eyes follow me with gentle heat—he knows, he feels my arousal, but he’s too careful to push. Theron prowls the perimeter like a lion who’s scented blood, his amber eyes tracking every movement I make, waiting for permission to pounce.
Jarek presides over the chaos of maps and texts, oblivious or pretending to be. "The bond structure remains unprecedented," he says, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Five points connected through a central nexus. If the central node fails, the feedback propagates through all connections instantaneously."
"Can it be modified?" Grogan asks, his own eyes lingering on my flushed cheeks, my rapid breathing. He knows too. They all feel it—the residue of my arousal humming through the shared network.
"Theoretically," Jarek continues, clinical as ever, though I notice his hand trembling slightly. "I’ve found references to severing rituals, but the sacrificial magic was chaotic. Attempting modification risks accelerating collapse."
"So we’re still leashed." Hrollok’s bitterness cuts through the room. He stands by the window, deliberately not looking at me, but I feel his pulse through our bond—rapid, jealous, painfully hard. He knows what I watched, what I felt, what I want, and it’s killing him that he’s not the one providing it. "Weeks of research confirms her death kills us all. Brilliant."
"Hrollok," Rhett warns quietly.
"What? Should I pretend I’m grateful to be enslaved to a human who can’t even find her wolf?" He turns, green eyes burning with frustrated desire. "Winter solstice is six weeks away, and she’s still hollow. We’re gambling our lives on a bluff."
"I’m not empty," I say, stepping toward him, letting him feel my heat, my hunger, the arousal that hasn’t faded since the forest. "I’m just not what you expected."
"That’s comforting." His laugh is jagged, his eyes dropping to my mouth, my heaving chest. He wants to punish me for wanting. He wants to be the one to satisfy me. The conflict is tearing him apart.
Political tension outside mirrors the pressure in this room. Other packs question how a human can claim Alpha status. The settlement buzzes with rumor: the sacrifice who refused to die, the abomination wearing a human face.
I’m bonded to Rhett and Theron now—two bright stars burning steady. But three connections remain incomplete, frayed edges that could unravel everything. And despite the power humming through those sealed bonds, the memory of Sera and Kade mocks me—their violence, their passion, their perfect feral symmetry.
I have six weeks to find my wolf, seal my bonds, and become something impossible.
Or we all die.
________________