Page 111 of Broken Wolf Heart
She pats my back, smiling ruefully.
“What did you say?” I ask when I can breathe—or talk.
She shrugs. “I haven’t given him an answer.”
“Why not?”
“I was waiting to see if we survived the day.”
Fair.
I glance sideways at her. “Are you going to say yes?”
She shrugs, expression softening. “I don’t know. Maybe. He’s hot. And weirdly sweet for a guy with permanent murder face.”
I laugh. “He’s not that scary.”
“You’re right. I mean, out of that entire pack, he’s the least scary one. Mia, on the other hand…”
“Yeah.”
As if summoned, Mia appears in the doorway, arms crossed.
“If you tell him I said this, I’ll deny it with every breath in my body,” she says dryly. “But Dutch is one of the good ones.”
Andy smirks.
“And you’re not wrong. I’m definitely the scariest.”
With that, Mia disappears again like a cryptid.
Andy and I both share a look and then burst out laughing.
In the silence that follows, I get to just sit and eat my cake. It’s nice. Not relaxing, exactly, considering how many ways the world is currently on fire. But everyone I know is safe. Even Grey. Dutch texted me to let me know he’d made it to the house after a long run as his wolf. No sign of the darkness in him at all. So, for now, we’re all still ourselves.
Andy leans back in her chair, head tilted toward the darkening sky. “I don’t know what we’re building here, Lexi. But it’s starting to feel like something good.”
24
GREY
The second I walk away from the crowd at the gate, something snaps loose in my chest. Not like a clean break. More like threads tearing from the inside out, unraveling everything I’ve been holding together with gritted teeth and willpower. I don’t bother with cars or keys. Instead, I head for the woods.
The moment I’m moving, my wolf claws at my skin, desperate to shift. To run. Tomovein some way that lets him out—and lets the pain out with him. Somehow, I know this is the only way to avoid the darkness taking me over, to let my wolf have full control over me, mind and body.
I shift quickly. The force of it is hard, brutal. The kind of shift that hurts more than it should. Muscles tear, bones snap, and the air splits around me as my wolf takes over and launches into the woods.
And I run.
The wind roars past my ears. Trees blur past, and earth churns beneath my paws. My wolf howls—high and wild and feral. Not because he’s angry.
Because he’s scared.
We’re not right. Haven’t been since Franco. The power I took from him is still inside me like rusted iron—corroding everything.
I don’t know how to fix it.
I don’t even know if it can be fixed.
