Page 64 of The Pack

My body hummed with satisfaction, my heart pounding as his touch lit a fire in me that refused to go out.

We stayed like that, tangled together in a sweaty, blissful heap, until the sounds of the forest faded into the background. The pack was quiet, at least for a little while.

“Well, that was a sight I’ll be remembering for a long time,” Killian teased, his voice rough and low.

“We all will,” Magnus murmured, and I felt my cheeks flush bright red.

But I didn’t regret a second of it.

CHAPTER 14

Tobias McDonagh

The morning broke soft and quiet, the sky streaked with pale pinks and golds. I sat on a flat stone near the edge of the clearing, sharpening my knife—a habit as much as a necessity.

Zara moved near the fire, her dark hair falling over her shoulders in loose waves, the morning light catching on the subtle curves of her face. She had an energy about her, a quiet resilience that made it hard to look away.

Damn it, I wasn’t supposed to feel this way.

She reminded me of someone. Someone I hadn’t allowed myself to think about in a very long time.

Two hundred years ago, during the Collapse, there had been someone else, someone I had loved fiercely, desperately, in a world that was crumbling around us. She had been my anchor, my light, and when the ferals took her from me, it had taken something of me, too.

I’d built walls after that. High, unyielding walls meant to protect me from feeling that kind of loss again. I’d buried her memory in the darkest corners of my mind, letting it harden into something cold and untouchable.

But Zara… Zara was starting to break through those walls.

It wasn’t just her fierce independence or her sharp tongue, though those things had a way of catching me off guard. It was the little things. The way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was thinking. The quiet determination in her movements, even when she was afraid. The fire in her eyes that burned just as brightly as those of the one I’d lost.

I hated it, yet I couldn’t stop watching her.

“Morning.”

Zara’s voice broke through my thoughts, and I looked up to find her standing in front of me, a tentative smile on her lips.

“Morning,” I replied gruffly.

She hesitated, her hands clasping in front of her. “You’re always sharpening that thing,” she said, nodding toward the blade in my hand.

“It keeps me focused,” I said simply.

Her smile widened slightly, and she tilted her head, studying me. “You know, you don’t always have to be so intense.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Intense is how we stay alive.”

“Maybe,” she said, her expression softening. “But it’s not the only way.”

Something about her words stayed with me as the pack prepared to set out for the day. Magnus was issuing orders while he scanned the horizon like he could see every obstacle ahead. Callum was packing supplies with his usual cheer, and Killian was cracking jokes loud enough for the whole camp to hear. Thorne was lost in his thoughts, likely thinking about last night around the campfire…

My focus kept drifting back to Zara.

She was different. She wasn’t part of this world, not really. And yet, she was here, fitting herself into the spaces of our pack like she’d always been meant to be.

I didn’t know what to make of it.

For the first time in two hundred years, I felt something shift. The weight I’d been carrying—of grief, of failure, of loss—felt just a little bit lighter, and I knew it had everything to do with her.

Zara adjusted the cloak I’d given her, pulling it tighter around her shoulders as the morning chill lingered in the air. The fabric, worn and patched in places, seemed too large for her small frame, but she made it work.

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