The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I crossed the circular drive, my grandmother's blood-oath scroll pressed against my ribs like a second heartbeat. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the manicured lawn, and I could feel the weight of the Ashford ancestral home at my back—no longer mine, no longer home.
My car waited thirty yards away, keys already in my trembling hand. Just thirty more steps and I'd be free of this place, free of Kade's casual cruelty and Selene's pitying smiles and Marta's satisfied smirk. Thirty steps to—
A hand closed around my wrist.
The world exploded.
Every nerve ending I'd thought dead since the miscarriage suddenly screamed back to life. My vision flooded gold, my canines lengthened, and for the first time in three months, my wolf surged to the surface with a force that nearly brought me to my knees.
Mate.
The word echoed through my consciousness like a bell tolling, impossible and undeniable. I spun around, yanking against the grip on my wrist, and found myself staring into eyes the color of storm clouds—silver-gray and intense, framed by dark lashes that belonged on a Renaissance painting.
He was tall, broader than Kade, with black hair that looked like he'd been running his hands through it. A scar cut across his jaw, old and white against olive skin. He wore a black wool coat that probably cost more than most people's cars, but there was something wild about him, something that spoke to the predator in me.
Alpha. The recognition hit me like a physical blow. His scent rolled over me in waves—cedar and iron and something darker, something that made my wolf pace restlessly beneath my skin.
His pupils contracted to pinpoints as he stared at me, his grip on my wrist tightening for just a moment before he released me like I'd burned him.
"...It's you," he breathed, his voice rough with shock.
I stumbled backward, my heart hammering against my ribs. The scroll crinkled against my jacket, reminding me of what I carried, what I'd stolen, what would happen if Kade discovered me here with a strange Alpha.
"Who are you?" The words came out sharper than I intended, but I was past caring about politeness. My wolf was still singing in my chest, still reaching for this stranger like he was salvation itself.
He straightened, composing himself with visible effort. "Rhett Graves. I'm from the East Coast." His eyes never left mine, searching for something I couldn't name. "I've been tracking a bloodline connection that led me here."
"What kind of connection?" My voice sounded steadier than I felt.
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, his gaze dropped to my throat, to the faint marks left by the Luna chain I'd worn for two years. The chain I'd draped over Selene's crib rail less than an hour ago.
"You're running," he said. Not a question.
The observation hit too close to home. I glanced toward my car, calculating distances and angles. The security cameras mounted on the estate's stone pillars tracked movement along the main drive. If Kade reviewed the footage later...
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied.
Rhett's mouth quirked up at one corner, transforming his face from merely handsome to devastating. "Sure you don't. That's why you're gripping those car keys like a weapon and why you smell like fear and fury in equal measure."
The accuracy of his assessment made my skin crawl. "I need to go."
"So do I. But first—"
The sound of a door opening cut through his words like a blade. We both turned toward the house, where Bryce—Kade's Beta and head of security—had emerged from the back entrance. He moved with the purposeful stride of someone conducting a routine patrol, but his eyes were already scanning the grounds.
Panic shot through me like lightning. If Bryce saw me here with a strange Alpha, if he reported back to Kade...
Rhett seemed to read the situation in an instant. Without a word, he stepped sideways, his broad shoulders blocking the security camera's view of me. The movement was casual, natural, as if he'd simply shifted to get a better look at the house's architecture.
"Go," he said quietly, his voice barely audible.
I didn't need to be told twice. I sprinted toward my car, my feet silent on the gravel despite my haste. The engine turned over on the first try—a small miracle—and I reversed out of the drive without looking back.
But as I reached the main road, I couldn't resist checking my rearview mirror. Rhett stood exactly where I'd left him, hands clasped behind his back in a pose of casual interest. Bryce was walking toward him now, close enough that I could see the Beta's suspicious expression even from this distance.
A stranger. An Alpha I'd never met, who'd felt the same impossible mate bond I had, who'd risked exposure on Kade's territory to help me escape.
Why?
I drove three blocks before I trusted myself to think clearly. My wolf had settled back into the depths of my consciousness, but she was no longer silent. She hummed with an energy I hadn't felt since before the miscarriage, since before my body had failed at the one thing it was supposed to do.
The scroll pressed against my ribs with each breath, a reminder of what I'd taken, what I now carried. The blood-oath that bound the Volkov and Ashford packs together. The document that made Kade's alpha status legitimate.
Without it, without my consent and my bloodline's backing, he was nothing.
My phone buzzed against the dashboard. Unknown number.
I pulled over, my hands shaking as I opened the message:
*The thing you took—it won't just destroy him. It'll destroy you too. Find me before the next full moon. Graves Bar, Portland Old Town.*
I stared at the screen until the words blurred. How did he know what I'd taken? How did he know my name, my number?
I looked down at the passenger seat, where the scroll's leather wrapping had shifted during my hasty escape. A corner of the parchment was visible, and in the dying afternoon light, it seemed to pulse with its own inner glow.
My grandmother's voice echoed in my memory: *Some bonds run deeper than blood, child. Some connections span generations.*
I thought about Rhett's words—tracking a bloodline connection. About the way my wolf had recognized him instantly, completely, as if she'd been waiting for him her entire life.
The scroll pulsed again, brighter this time, and I realized that whatever I'd stolen from Kade's future, I'd also awakened something in my own past.
Something that a stranger named Rhett Graves seemed to know more about than I did.
I put the car in drive and headed toward the highway, toward my friend Maya's safe house in the mountains. But my eyes kept drifting to that glowing parchment, and my wolf kept humming with newfound life.
The next full moon was in two weeks.
Portland was a four-hour drive from here.
And for the first time since I'd lost my baby, since I'd lost my mate, since I'd lost everything I thought defined me, I felt something that might have been hope stirring in my chest.
