Chapter 105
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The forest swallowed me whole the moment Kaia burst through my skin in one painless motion, the world sharpening into a lattice of scent and motion. Instinct took over as my paws tore through damp earth and frozen leaves.
The trees blurred past in streaks of dark and green, branches whipping at my flanks. Heady adrenaline pumped in every muscle, singing with the remembered geometry of flight. I did not look back; the gods knew I didnโt need to. His presence slammed into the woods, heavy and inevitable as death.
The ground gave way to tremors with every arch of his strides, even with the distance between us.
It confused me.
And gave me hope, in a way.
I expected the High Alpha of the Umbra realm to be a stealthy hunter, but I could sense him behind me, my mind computing without strain exactly how much distance split us.
I could feel his cold. The air that carried him was steel and winter and something different yet so familiarโthe low hum of restraint abandoned.
My chest tightened as I forced my already long strides to lengthen, angling for thicker cover, my body forced to burn through the ache rather than think and plot a way to survive him.
Kaia wanted the climb, but I pushed lower into the shadow and underbrush. She easily conceded, trusting my instinct.
I cut right, then left, doubling back on my own path before leaping a stream and plunging upstream through the icy water to drown my scent. I did not even have time to brace for the cold.
His so-called backyard was an entirely different world compared to his mansionโeven that I had not explored fully.
For a heartbeat, as water dripped down my now-heavy fur, I dared to hope that I might buy time.
Then, my muscles locked. I stilled like an animal detecting a shift in the wind. I heard something.
Nothing.
I heard nothing.
The ground no longer quivered from his heavy strides. His scent of pure cold had receded to nothingness; his presence had eased into the air, folding into it and vanishing like it had never existed.
My skin prickled as if a cold hand traced my spine. In the dark, in woods uncharted by me, I was alone and cold and… afraid, as his words hissed through my mind.
The gleam of pure, unraveling wrath in his gaze would haunt me for life, as it did now. The undertone was clear, and I ached in more ways than one.
Right now, fear remained dominant. I scanned for him, eyes darting sharp enough to hurt, my snout rising to inhale the scent of the woods, tracking anything strange withinโhiding, waiting, close or far.
But it all came back void.
I would know him masked; in another world and another life I would recognize him. But here… I could not even find him.
I was alone, but I knew better than to believe that.
Vladimir did not make empty promises… or threats.
I counted the seconds of deafening silence to keep myself grounded enough not to be ambushed. Still, the slow simmering of inevitability remainedโpitying, mocking.
I dared to raise my gaze, hoping and dreading to see his white fur.
Nothing.
Again.
Could a white wolf hide in the dark?
Desperation fueled me, and I did what I had never tried before. I reached out the only way my body knew how. I looked for him through our incomplete bond.
It was a mistake. Agony needled through me like I had prodded a tender, inflamed wound.
I tried to bite back the yelp that threatened to escape but failed. In the still woods, even the bare fraction of the sound echoed like a siren.
Fuck.
The ground tremored again.
Not distant.
Not behind me.
Not even close enough to track.
It came from beneath.
Kaia barely had time to react before the earth gave way under my paws, soil collapsing in on itself with a violent roar as roots snapped and stone fractured. Instinct screamed fall, but there was no fallingโnot really. The ground rebounded instead, an explosive force hurling me upward as if the forest itself had spat me out.
My body left the earth.
Tail tucked hard, ears flattened against my skull, every muscle locked as cold terror detonated through me. The world dropped away in a sickening lurch, trees shrinking beneath me, sky rushing too fast and too open. Kaiaโusually so sure, so anchoredโcould not break through the panic seizing us both.
This should beโ
Height stole her voice.
Stole mine.
I twisted midair on pure reflex, bracing for the impact I knew was coming, lungs burning as fear hollowed me out from the inside. There was no time to think, no time to correct, only the awful certainty of gravity reclaiming what it was owed.
Thenโ
White.
A violent blur of it.
The unmistakable scent of Vladimir tore through the air, sharp and absolute, flooding my senses so fast it made my blood spike painfully hot. There was no warning, no sound, just the sudden crushing certainty of him colliding with my trajectory.
Handsโno, clawsโclosed around me.
Not a catch.
A snatch.
The sky vanished as I was ripped from it, momentum brutally redirected as he twisted with me, his body taking the brunt of the descent. We hit the ground hard but controlled, earth buckling beneath his weight, my body shielded instinctively as he rolled us through the impact.
Pain flaredโbut muted. Contained.
I skidded to a stop beneath him, breath tearing from my lungs in a startled gasp, the forest rushing back in all at once.
And then I realized the downside.
He was on me.
Fully. Completely.
His weight pinned me to the groundโmassive, coolness bleeding through white fur into my trembling body. His chest rose and fell once, heavy and close enough that I could feel it, smell him, feel him in a way that made Kaia shudder beneath my skin.
The hunt was over.
And he had caught me.
His jaws clamped over my ruff as he growled.
“Moya p>
Loud and clear.
Mine.