Page 20 of A Wolf of War
Milo exhaled through his nose, jaw flexing. This wasn’t like her. She wasn’t meant to be this stubborn, this contrary. He knew she was overwhelmed, but this was more than he’d expected. He didn’t want to force her home with him.God, he really didn’t. But the longer she resisted, the more it felt inevitable. He could feel the wolf inside him pacing, preparing.
“Alright, look,” he said, voice low and strained. “I’m trying to be the good guy here, Willow. I really am. But you’ve got to understand—I didn’t think it would go like this. I didn’t think you would react like this.”
“Didn’t think—” she snapped, and then wheezed out a laugh that sounded more like a sob, hollow and bitter. “You didn’t think I’d be terrified? What did you expect, Milo? For me to thank you?”
She straightened again, chest heaving. “My life was good, Milo. And now I can’t go back to it, can I? That’s what you’re about to tell me, right?”
He let her words hang in the air like a smokescreen between them—acrid, distancing. He didn’t interrupt. He let her rage fill the space between until all that was left was silence and the hatred simmering beneath it.
Was that it?
Did she hate him?
The thought pierced like a blade between the ribs, tilted up for the kill. Milo froze. The concept that she might hate him—that the woman he ached for, body and soul, would choose revulsion over fate—was enough to make his blood run cold. He hadn’t prepared for this possibility. He’d accounted for fear, shock, even denial… but not outright rejection. Not this bone-deep loathing.
Funny, how the man who predicted enemy movements with the precision of an apex predator had failed to read the one person who mattered most. He laughed bitterly.
“You feel it too, Willow. I know you do,” he said, firm and relentless as he moved a few steps closer. “The bond between us—it’s real. You don’t understand it yet, but you will.”
She didn’t move. Her eyes were wide and glassy, fixed somewhere past him. Shock had her in a chokehold, and Milo knew he was pushing the limits of what hermind could handle. Still, time was slipping by. They needed to get back to the manor. Willow’s new life had already begun, and he intended to help her ease into it…
Even if she came kicking and screaming.
He smelled Arlo before he saw him—earth, pine, and the faint sting of antiseptic. His presence confirmed what Milo already suspected—Titan had been handled. He’d face the consequences soon enough. Threatening an alpha’s mate—his mate—was a line no wolf should ever cross, regardless of circumstance. Titan had fucked up royally. There would be blood for that.
With a near-imperceptible nod, Milo gave his consent.
Willow looked puzzled at the movement. She might’ve asked what it meant, but Arlo was already behind her, one hand sealing her mouth, the other plunging in the needle with a practiced efficiency.
Her body gave two small jerks, then folded in on itself.
Arlo caught her, easing her to the forest floor as if she were made of a material all too breakable. Milo watched, his heart seizing with regret as he stepped closer.
“Road’s about a klick east,” he said, voice cutting through the quiet. “I’ll carry her. Let Lachlan and Titansort their shit out. I’m done babysitting.”
Milo knelt beside Willow’s still form, brushing her hair from her face with shaking fingers. She was exquisite like this, silent, his to protect. Soon, she’d be his completely.
He scooped her into his arms and turned toward the trees, Arlo at his side. The woods swallowed them as they made their way to the car.
11
WILLOW
Willow woke like she was rising from deep water—slow, heavy, limbs like liquid lead. It wasn’t pain she felt. It was more like the blood in her muscles had been replaced with a substance both sluggish and uncooperative. She blinked against the weight of her eyelids, lashes fluttering as the world came into focus by maddeningly slow degrees.
Her fingers twitched. Then curled. Uncurled.Good. At least she could move.
And then, she heard it.
Him.
“Willow, baby… can you hear me?”
The words rippled through her, like a disturbance across a pond. They were golden and honeyed, wrapping around her like a promise that things would be alright. Her lips tugged upward as if on their own. The sensations were foreign but somehow comforting. Just hearing him was like being kissed by sunlight in the height of spring, a gentle reminder that the cold was coming to an end. The warmth that bloomed in her chest made her want to weep with elation.
“She’s still high as hell, Milo.”
“No shit, Titan.”
