Page 20 of His Mark

She didn’t say anything. She was simply staring at me and taking everything in. There was no mistaking her features. Those cheekbones, those lips. Her face was older, wiser, the soft roundedness of childhood replaced by sharper, more grownup edges.

And her hair… her hair was no longer the dark dirty blonde it used to be. It was a deep, rich brown, streaked with caramel and honey. It spilled around her shoulders, framing her beautiful, stubborn face, and for a moment, I couldn’t do anything but stare.

I had no idea how, but she was here, naked and sated, stretched out across my bed, her body pressed against mine.

A warm possessive feeling unfurled in my chest, and I reached for her without thinking, my fingers brushing over her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw. The firelight flickered over her features, casting dark shadows under her highlighted cheekbones, the stubborn set of her mouth. She had always been defiant, even as a kid, but now? Now she carried herself like someone who had fought her way through life and won every time.

Her lips parted slightly, but she didn’t speak right away. Instead, she exhaled slowly, rolling her shoulders like she was shaking off invisible chains.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” she croaked, her voice still hoarse from screaming.

I smiled. “No?”

She let out a little laugh. “I wanted to find you, but I had almost lost hope.”

I studied her, the wavering firelight catching the lighter streaks in her hair. She was no longer the little girl I had left behind all those years ago, butfuck, she was still my Lia.

And she had been looking for me!

“You almost lost hope?” I repeated. “And yet, here you are. In my bed.”

Her lips quirked, just slightly. “Lucky me.”

Something about the way she said it made my stomach flip just a bit. I reached for her again, watching as her lashes fluttered. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t lean into it either. Always stubborn. Always guarded.

“What the hell are you doing out here, Lia?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

She exhaled, her breath warm against my skin. “I told you. I was looking for you.”

I arched a brow. “Why?”

Her fingers curled against the sheets, her body too still. “Because you might be the only person who can stop what’s coming.”

“What’s coming?” A tingle of dread inched up my back.

Lia had always been stoic, but right now, lying in my bed, bare and stretched out beside me, she looked tired. Not just physically—though I could see the exhaustion pulling at the edges of her face—but deep down, in her bones.

Something had happened to bring her here, something bad, and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like it.

“Tell me what’s coming, Lia,” I commanded.

She hesitated, just for a second.

Then she exhaled and met my gaze, her voice too controlled. “Something’s happening in the city. Something worse than anything we’ve ever faced before.”

I watched her carefully. “Go on.”

Her throat bobbed slightly as she swallowed, her fingers flexing. “The wolves,” she murmured. “They’ve always needed humans to reproduce, right? The natural born female shifters, most of them, they’re infertile, right? That’s why they take human women, why they breed them against their will.”

I clenched my jaw. I already knew this. It was the reason I had turned against my own kind, the reason I had formed my own pack and built a life out here in the mountains, far away from the corruption of the city. But her words, and the way she said them, the tightness in her voice, made a cold dread settle in my gut.

“Lia,” I said carefully, “tell me what’s going on.”

She licked her lips, hesitating once more. Then, finally, she spoke again.

“They’ve been working on a drug,” she said, her voice tight. “A way to force human females to carry shifter girls that are fertile. For a while, we thought it might actually work. We thought maybe—maybe—it would stop the forced breedings, that they’d stop stealing us to carry their children.”

My blood went cold.

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