Silver Wolf's Second - Mate Bond

The largest rogue's breath hit my face—rotten meat and decay. I scrambled backward, my bad leg dragging uselessly, hands clawing at the dirt for purchase.

"Lost little omega," he snarled, circling closer. The other three fanned out, blocking any escape. "Smells like you've been rejected. No pack. No protection."

My fingers found something hard buried in the leaf litter—a rock, maybe, or— No. The silver knife. The small one I'd brought for cutting herbs. My hand closed around it.

"Stay back," I gasped, holding it up with shaking hands.

They laughed. The sound scraped against my nerves like claws on stone.

The largest lunged.

I didn't think. Twenty years of suppressing my instincts, of making myself small and weak for Michael, and some dormant part of me finally broke free. I twisted, drove the blade up and into the rogue's shoulder—right where the artery ran close to the surface. He howled, stumbling back, blood spraying.

The second rogue came at me from the side. I tried to roll away, but my leg buckled. Pain exploded through my hip as I hit the ground hard. The knife flew from my grip, skittering into the underbrush.

Hands grabbed my hair, yanking my head back. Claws scraped my throat, drawing blood. I thrashed, kicked with my good leg, felt it connect with something soft. A grunt. The grip loosened for half a second.

Not enough.

The third rogue pinned my arms. I was on my back now, staring up at three sets of feral eyes. The one I'd stabbed leaned over me, blood dripping from his wound onto my face, mixing with my tears.

"Should've stayed in your broken cottage, omega," he hissed.

I was going to die here. In the dirt. Alone. Maybe that was fitting. Maybe this was always how it was supposed to end—not as Michael's Luna, not with dignity or purpose, but bleeding out in a forest clearing while rogues tore me apart.

The largest one shifted above me, his jaw elongating, teeth sharpening. Going for my throat. The killing bite.

I closed my eyes.

At least the pain would stop. At least the hollow ache where the mate bond used to be would finally go silent. At least I wouldn't have to see Michael and Paisley anymore, wouldn't have to watch them build the life that should have been mine.

I waited for the teeth.

Instead, I heard the most terrifying sound I'd ever heard in my life.

A wolf's roar—deep, primal, filled with rage that made the very air vibrate. Not a howl. A *roar*.

The weight pinning me vanished. I opened my eyes in time to see a massive black shape crash through the clearing like a force of nature. Midnight fur tipped with silver. Eyes that burned amber-gold in the shadows. Bigger than any wolf I'd ever seen, even bigger than an Alpha should be.

He tore through the rogues with savage efficiency. Jaws closed around the throat of the one who'd been about to kill me. A sickening crack. The body dropped. The other two tried to run. They didn't make it ten feet.

I should have been horrified. Should have been screaming. Instead, I lay there in the blood-soaked dirt, watching this enormous black wolf protect me with a ferocity that made my chest ache. Made something deep inside me stir. Something that had been silent for weeks.

The wolf turned to me, and those amber eyes—

I knew them.

"Edward?" The name came out as barely a whisper.

The wolf shimmered, bones cracking and reforming. A moment later, Edward Riley stood in the clearing in human form, chest heaving, still half-wild from the shift. Blood—not his—splattered across his bare skin. He dropped to his knees beside me.

"Ashley." His voice broke on my name. His hands hovered over me, shaking, like he was afraid to touch me. Afraid I'd shatter. "Ashley, stay with me. I've got you. You're safe now."

His fingers brushed my face, pushing blood-matted hair back from my forehead.

The moment his skin met mine, the world *exploded*.

Electric fire shot through every nerve ending. Not pain—something else entirely. Something that made my dormant wolf *surge* upward with a desperate, keening cry. Something that felt like coming home and falling off a cliff at the same time.

The mate bond.

Edward jerked back like he'd been burned, his eyes going wide, those amber irises flashing to brilliant blue and back again. His wolf, recognizing. Claiming.

"No," I whispered. Because it couldn't be. Because the Moon Goddess couldn't be this cruel, to give me another mate when the first one had destroyed me. "No, please, I can't—"

My vision blurred. The pain, the blood loss, the bond trying to form while the old one still bled—it was too much. Everything was too much.

"Ashley, look at me." Edward's hands cupped my face, and that electric spark pulsed between us again, stronger. His voice carried an Alpha's command, but underneath it was something raw and desperate. "Stay awake. Don't you dare leave me. Not now. Not when I just found you."

But the darkness was already pulling me under, and the last thing I felt was Edward lifting me into his arms, holding me against his chest like I was something precious instead of broken.