Griffin Phelan POV:

I caught the scent on the wind. It was metallic, heavy, and definitely human...Only I recognized the scent. My entire body stilled.

It was your blood.

The storm had already rolled in heavy over the ridgeline, swallowing the forest in a restless hush. Still, I moved through it, every step pulled toward that burning thread of scent woven into the trees. Beneath the soil, the pine, and the rain, there it was. Yours. And Liana’s too.

She found me first, drenched and shaking, mud on her boots and panic in her voice.

She told me someone had saved her. That wolves had come out of nowhere—wild-eyed, snapping, nothing like the kind she knew.

You had stood between them and her, no teeth, no claws. Just your body, your voice, and that reckless human courage that I had once tried to forget.

You had no idea what you were facing. They had been full-blooded ferals. Mindless. Starving. The kind of thing I had spent years trying to keep away from, what was left of my pack.

The first time I smelled you, I had been patrolling near the old human trail, the one that cuts close to the border. I remember the sound of your laugh under the trees, the scent of soap and sunlight, and something gentler than I’d known in years. That was when the bond pulled tight inside my chest, unmistakable and unwanted. I left that same night. I never looked back... I ran like the coward I was.

Because I thought fate had already chosen once for me. And when I held the bodies of my mate and our daughter—cold, broken, and torn from me beneath a blood-soaked moon—I swore I would never feel that kind of loss again.

Loving you would’ve meant risking it happening again.

And I believed staying away would keep you safe.

But now, in this clearing soaked with rain and silence, I kneel beside you, and every lie I told myself tastes like ash.

Your body is curled toward Liana. Even now, hurt as you are, you’re shielding her like she’s yours. There’s a jagged tear just beneath your ribs, and I press my hand to it without thinking. Blood spills over my fingers, warm and frighteningly steady.

The clearing stinks of iron and wet earth. The storm has deepened, wind threading through the trees with a sound like distant howling. My knees sink into the mud as I cradle your face, already too cold beneath my hands.

Your eyes open just barely when I speak.

"I should’ve stayed," I whisper, lowering my brow until it rests against yours. I can feel the bond stir, faint and flickering, like a heartbeat buried in snow. The heat of your skin is slipping away, slow and terrifying.

"Should’ve stayed. Should’ve—" I choked on the guilt that clogged up my words.

"Stay with me, a stór."

I lift you gently, arms trembling not from weight but from the terror of how light you feel. Rain beats against my back as I carry you through the trees, your blood trailing behind us like a ribbon unraveling. The healer’s cabin is still far, but I will not stop. I will not let go.

"Just stay with me," I murmur again, voice cracking against the wind. "I’m here now. I’m not leaving again."