Page 116 of Wolf's Reckoning
We tore through the trees, heartbeats pounding like war drums. The Hollow’s outer perimeter blurred past in green streaks and brown shadows. Voices rose, screams sounded, and the clearing was in chaos.
And in the center—Rowen. Katana in hand. Face pale, but eyes lit with fury. Blood at her temple. Two rogues down at her feet. Three still circling. I leapt the last barricade just as one lunged.
She didn’t see me coming.
My wolf roared from beneath my skin, and I tackled the rogue mid-air, shifting in the process, claws slashing, bones cracking beneath the impact. I didn’t stop until the ground was red and the threat was ash in my mouth. Killian charged at the other.
Another rogue came at her blind side. She didn’t miss. Wood met flesh in a clean, perfect arc, and he fell with a wet grunt.
She shifted. Her wolf was small, but I remembered her speed. We kept close together now, breath labored, blood slicking our paws.
And then it hit. The mate bond. Not a flicker. Not a whisper.
Adetonation.
It snapped into place between us like a lightning strike straight through my ribs, and from the way she staggered, it hit her just as hard.
It forced the shift on us both, and I turned slowly, chest heaving, meeting her wild eyes.
“You feel that?” I rasped.
She didn’t answer. She looked like I felt—raw, broken open, torn between fight and surrender.
I reached for her, just once, hand cupping the back of her neck as the world spun around us.
“You’re mine,” I whispered, kissing her fiercely, knowing this wasn’t the time but needing to taste her anyway.
She didn’t deny it. But she didn’t accept it either.
And as I drew back, the part of me that still remembered how this started—how she rejected me—wasn’t going to beg her for it. I’d told her and she was still not ready to accept this, so I made my decision.
I wouldn’t stay here, frozen in want. Not when my pack needed me bleeding and brutal. Rowen had made her choice—her pack, not me.
I turned back to the fight. Shifting back to my wolf, I surged forward into the fray.
Chapter 28
Rowen
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
The heat of his mouth was still seared into mine, and the words—You’re mine—still echoed in my ears like a death knell. And maybe it was. Maybe that was the end of who I thought I was. Because when Wolfe kissed me, the bond didn’t just flare.
Itclaimedme.
Every instinct in my body—mywolf—howled in recognition. And then he turned his back and left me gasping in the dirt.
The bastard.
The sound of bone breaking jarred me out of my trance, and I spun to see a pack member thrown against a tree. Blood slicked the earth. Screams rang out. Someone shifted mid-lunge, the snap of spine and muscle twisting the air as they clawed toward a rogue trying to tear through the line.
I blinked once, twice, andmoved.
My limbs felt foreign—too fast, too strong—but I didn’t stop to question it. My feet pounded across the forest floor, and I launched myself toward the nearest threat. One of the rogues had taken down a young Hollow wolf and was going for the throat.
Not on my damn watch.
