Chapter 5

KAT'S POV “To get a drink.” The lie tastes like sawdust on my tongue. Mateo nods, a slow, trusting motion in the dark, and his hand falls away from my hip. He burrows back into the pillow with a sigh of pure oblivion. I lie there, counting the frantic beats of my own heart until his breathing deepens into the steady rhythm of sleep. Only then do I move, a ghost in my own home. In the walk-in closet, I grab one of Ezra’s shirts, pressing the soft cotton to my face. His scent wraps around me, a cruel comfort. You drank too much, Kat, Kora whimpers in my mind, her voice thick and unsteady. I feel… heavy. I don’t think I can shift. Panic, sharp and cold, lances through me. Great. My one failsafe, my wild card, is sidelined by a few sips of sugary alcohol. I feel perfectly clear-headed, a stark, sober terror cutting through the night. Ditching Ezra’s shirt, I pull on dark track pants and a jumper, my movements silent and precise. The third step from the top groans under my weight like a dying thing. The sound is a gunshot in the sleeping house. I freeze, my blood turning to ice, ears straining. Nothing. Only the suffocating silence pressing back. The woods are a different beast at this hour. It takes me longer, my human senses straining against the gloom without Kora’s sharpened awareness. My mother is a wraith at the riverbank, her anxiety a palpable fog. Our hour is spent in hushed, frantic whispers that go in circles. My yawns become uncontrollable, a betrayal by my own exhausted body, and she finally sends me away, her worry for me overshadowing her own need. The walk back is worse. Kora is a sluggish weight in my psyche, a silent, nauseous passenger. I’m utterly alone. Every rustle in the underbrush is amplified. The friendly, familiar woods of my pack territory morph into a labyrinth of lurking shadows. This is my punishment, I think, a hysterical edge to my internal voice. For scaring Mateo. The universe is balancing the scales. I’m almost home, the outline of the packhouse a dark promise against the sky, when a twig snaps to my left. I freeze. My heart seizes, then hammers against my ribs like a trapped bird. I sniff the air, but my human senses are useless. Kora stirs, a groggy, fearful press against my consciousness. What… is that? she slurs. “An animal,” I whisper to the darkness, to myself. I force my legs to move, but the feeling is undeniable, a prickle on the back of my neck, the visceral knowledge of a predator’s gaze. My breaths come in short, sharp gasps. I glance over my shoulder, see nothing but shifting shadows, and break into a run. Another snap, this time from the right. I spin, my boots skidding on damp leaves. And he steps from between the trees. Mateo. Bare-chested, arms crossed over his torso as if against a chill. The look on his face isn’t anger. It’s profound disappointment, etched with a sorrow that hurts more than any shout. “I’m sorry, Kat,” he says, his voice low and rough. “You left me no choice.” The ground feels unsteady beneath my feet. “What did you do?” The whisper is torn from a throat tight with dread. I already know. The pieces click into place with a sickening finality. Footsteps behind me. Slow, deliberate. I don’t want to turn. I have to. Ezra emerges from the darkness, and it feels like the world drops out from under me. His eyes aren’t just angry; they’re blazing with a hurt so deep it looks like hatred. The bond between us, usually a warm current, is a frozen, cracking wasteland. “I didn’t want to believe him,” Ezra says, his voice dangerously quiet. He scoffs, a harsh, broken sound. “Told him he was being paranoid. Clearly, I was the fool for trusting you.” Tears burn, blurring the two most important men in my world into monstrous shapes. Mateo’s betrayal is a physical wound. How long had he known? Had he been following me? Ezra strides forward, hand outstretched. I flinch away, a reflex that makes a low growl vibrate in his chest. “Kat?” Mateo takes a step, his own pain evident. “Save it!” I snarl, the hurt twisting into fury. “You were supposed to be my friend!” His expression hardens, the gentle Beta disappearing into the steel of the Head Warrior. “I am your friend. But you are also my Luna. My first duty is to keep you safe. To keep my Alpha safe.” His voice softens, then hardens again with each word. “I can’t do that if you’re sneaking into contested woods every night. My job is to protect this pack, and you. Even from your own choices, Kat.” The tears fall then, hot and shaming. Cornered. Ezra’s fingers wrap around my bicep, not rough, but inexorable. “Have you shifted out here?” His question is deceptively calm. I open my mouth to lie, to deny. “Don’t,” he breathes, the word a lethal warning. Mateo steps forward. In his hand is a small, square piece of paper. He holds it out like an offering to a funeral pyre. “I was going to give this to Ezra tomorrow. Hoping I was wrong. Hoping it was from weeks ago.” He looks at me, and the betrayal in his eyes mirrors my own. “You lied to my face tonight, Kat. Do you know what it did to me to wake up and find you gone? To think something had happened to you after I let you go?” He passes me the photo. The moonlight is enough. It’s me. In my wolf form, Kora’s white fur luminous. Nuzzling my mother’s grey wolf. A moment of pure, vulnerable connection. Captured. “You painted a target on your own back,” Ezra growls, his grip tightening. “Where did he get this, Mateo?” “A patrol intercepted one of Jackson’s scouts last night. This was in his possession.” The air leaves my lungs in a rush. Oh, gods. I try to shrug off Ezra’s hand, a futile gesture of defiance. He yanks me into his chest, his body a wall of tense, trembling fury. “I am holding Maddox back by a thread,” he rasps against my ear. “Start. Walking. Home. Now.” The walk back is a death march. Shame and terror war inside me. Mateo won’t meet my eyes. Inside the packhouse, the urge to run, to shift and just flee, is almost overpowering. Mateo blocks my path, his hands coming up. “Kat, please...” I try to shove past him, but he pulls me into a firm, brief embrace as Ezra locks the door with a definitive click. “I will never willingly hurt you,” Mateo whispers into my hair, his voice choked. “But I can’t just be your friend when you’re a Luna acting like a reckless pup. My loyalty has to be to your safety first.” He presses a kiss to my forehead, a benediction that feels like a sentence, and releases me. “Don’t direct your anger at him,” Ezra says from the doorway, his voice like ground glass. “He did what was right. You orchestrated this, Kat. Every step of it.” I flee upstairs, killing the glaring lights, a small, petty revenge. Mateo’s door is ajar, his nightlight a confessional glow. I don’t look back. Ezra follows me into our room. His silence is a living, suffocating entity. It’s worse than his rage. His rage is fire; this silence is the vacuum before an explosion. The bond is a storm of betrayal, fear, and a possessive, terrifying love that feels like a cage. I crawl into bed, a stone settling in my gut. Ezra waits by the door. Mateo appears, shadows in his eyes, and passes him something small and metallic. My blood runs cold. Ezra closes the door. The click of the lock is the sound of my freedom ending. He walks to the bed, and the moonlight glints off the object in his hand. Handcuffs. “You can’t be serious.” My voice is a thread of sound. “I can’t risk you,” he states, his own voice devoid of all warmth. “Be grateful this is the only consequence tonight.” “Grateful? You’re going to handcuff me? Like a criminal?” The hysteria rises, sharp and brittle. “It is infinitely better than the alternative,” he snarls, sitting on the edge of the bed. He snaps one cuff around his own wrist with a chilling finality. “What alternative?” I spit, scrambling back. “Letting Maddox out to teach me a lesson? To put me in my place?” He moves faster than I can track. One hand cups my jaw, not to hurt, but to hold me absolutely still. His canines elongate, a flash of deadly white in the dark. His eyes churn, the human blue battling with Maddox’s molten gold. “Don’t,” he whispers, a tremor of pure strain running through him, “fucking tempt me.” The fight drains out of me, replaced by a cold, stunning realization of the war he’s fighting inside...for my sake. He releases a shuddering breath, his forehead dropping to mine. In that moment of terrible closeness, the cool metal closes around my wrist with a soft, definitive click. He lies down, pulling on the short chain, tucking my bound hand against his chest and drawing me firmly against his side. My head rests on the steady, furious drum of his heartbeat. “Go to sleep,” he orders, the Alpha command a faint vibration in the words. “You wouldn’t let me see her,” I murmur into the darkness, the root of it all. His body goes rigid, a tremor wracking him as he visibly subdues Maddox. “For a reason that is now staring you in the face,” he grinds out. After a long moment, the tension slowly bleeds away, leaving utter exhaustion in its wake. “If you need to see her… take Mateo. I don’t trust what I would do if I saw her right now.” His lips brush my hair, a contradiction of tenderness and captivity. He reaches over and plunges the room into absolute darkness. “Now,” he says, the word a final law. “Sleep.”