THREE YEARS LATER
DAPHNE.
The rogue pack found me, not the other way around.
Three years ago I crossed into neutral territory with nothing but my mother's healing kit and the clothes on my back. No plan beyond getting as far from the Northern Sector as possible. I walked for days, sleeping in hollow trees, eating whatever I could, using every trick my mother had taught me to stay hidden.
Then I collapsed.
Infection from a cut I hadn't treated properly. Fever so high I was hallucinating. I remember dirt under my cheek and thinking this was a stupid way to die after surviving everything else.
I woke up three days later in a makeshift tent with a woman named Mira standing over me asking if I knew anything about medicine.
Turned out I'd stumbled into a rogue pack. Good rogues—wolves who'd left their birth packs for various reasons but weren't interested in violence or chaos. Just wanted to live quietly. Safely. Away from pack politics and territory disputes.
They had about a hundred and fifty wolves. Families mostly. Some lone wolves who'd found their way here over the years. They kept themselves hidden deep in the neutral forests, moving camp every few months to stay off anyone's radar.
When I recovered enough to stand, I offered to help in the healing tent. Mira had been managing alone and she was drowning in it. Within a month I was running the place. Within six months I'd completely reorganized how we handled everything from supplies to treatment protocols.
Three years later, this was home.
I'd learned things here I never could have learned anywhere else.
And I'd learned how to stop thinking about him.
Most days I could go hours without Rovian crossing my mind. Without remembering how he used to look at me or the sound of his laugh or those months when I'd been stupid enough to think we were happy.
Most days.
But over the last year, a bad plague had broken out across the realm.
Some kind of terrible fever that made wolves bleed from their eyes and killed them within seventy-two hours of the first symptoms. No one had found a cure yet. Nothing even slowed it down.
It had spread like wildfire.
And from what travelers told us, the Northern Sector had been hit particularly hard. Their hospitals were overflowing with dying wolves.
I'd become somewhat known as a healer over the past year.
Word traveled in strange ways even in neutral territories. People started seeking me out specifically. Traveling for weeks to find our hidden camp, asking for the healer who'd supposedly saved a dozen wolves from the bleeding sickness.
I had saved them. Barely. Through trial and error and sleepless nights and losing more patients than I saved until I figured out the right combination of treatments.
I still couldn't cure it. But I could slow it down.
We made anyone who came looking for us prove they needed help before we'd reveal the camp's location. I also kept my identity hidden, using my mother's name—Elara—instead of Daphne.
I told myself it was for safety. For the pack's protection.
But really, I just didn't want Rovian to find me.
Not that I thought he was looking. He'd probably married his proper, well-bred replacement years ago. Probably had an heir by now. Probably never thought about the healer's daughter he'd married and destroyed.
I shook myself out of it and turned to the six-year-old girl lingering in my workspace. I'd saved her brother from the bleeding sickness two months ago and she'd decided I was her favorite person in the entire world.
"Daphne!" She'd come running in this morning with a fistful of wildflowers, practically vibrating with excitement. "Happy birthday! Mira said you're a whole year older now!"
I'd completely forgotten that the day before had been my birthday.
Twenty-five now. Huh.
So now she was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the healing tent, making piles of dried herbs while I checked our inventory. She was sorting them by color instead of type and getting almost everything wrong, but she was so serious about it I didn't have the heart to correct her.
"This one is for tummy aches," she announced proudly, holding up a sprig of something that was definitely not for tummy aches.
"Close, Tara," I said, making a note that we were running low on feverfew again. "That one's actually—"
The tent flap burst open hard enough that it nearly tore off its hooks.
Mira stood there with her face drained of color and her chest heaving like she'd been running. "We need to evacuate. Right now."
I was on my feet before I'd consciously decided to move. "What happened?"
"There's an attack." She grabbed Tara and pulled her close. "The Northern Sector. They're coming through the eastern perimeter."
The world tilted sideways.
The Northern Sector.
We were too far south. The North had no business being here. No reason to even know we existed.
"Are you sure?"
"Scouts confirmed it. At least fifty soldiers." Mira was already backing toward the exit, still holding Tara. "They're not passing through. They're coming straight for us."
Outside I could hear the chaos starting.
I grabbed my mother's healing kit off the shelf. The leather was worn soft from three years of constant use but it was still the most valuable thing I owned.
"How long do we have?"
"Ten minutes if we're lucky." Mira's voice was shaking. "They're moving fast, Daphne. Really fast."
"Why would the North attack a neutral rogue pack?" I followed her out into the chaos of the camp. "What could they possibly want with us?"
"I don't know, but we can't—"
"The king is with them!" someone shouted from across the camp. A scout, his voice carrying over the noise. "Someone saw his banner!"
I stopped walking, unable to make my legs work anymore.
Rovian was with them.
"Daphne." Mira's voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. "Come on, we have to move."
But I couldn't. Couldn't process what I was hearing. Couldn't understand why after three years of silence, this was happening to me.
"Daphne!" Mira grabbed my arm and shook me hard enough to rattle my teeth. "Whatever you're thinking about, think about it later. We need to go."
She was right. I forced my legs to remember how to work.
We ran.
The camp was complete chaos. Wolves everywhere, running in different directions, some heading for the western exit while warriors formed defensive lines to buy evacuation time. Children were crying. Someone was screaming orders I couldn't focus on through the noise.
And underneath all of it, getting closer with every second was the sound of Northern soldiers crashing through the forest.
We were almost to the western border, almost to safety, when I heard them clearly.
"Find the healer! They said she was here!"
My feet tangled under me. I would've fallen flat on my face if Mira hadn't caught my arm.
"They're here for me." The words came out flat, like they belonged to someone else. "They're not attacking the pack. They're looking for me."
"We can't be certain––"
"Find the healer!" The voice was closer now, definitely Northern accent, definitely male. "Her name is Elara!"
Mira's face had gone gray. "How could they possibly—"
I pulled my arm free from her grip. "Someone told them where to find the healer. Someone gave them my name."
"Then we run faster—"
"No." I pushed her toward the path that would take her to safety. "You run. Get Tara to the western camp with everyone else."
"I'm not leaving you—"
"You have to." I shoved her harder than I meant to. "If they're here for me, staying just puts you in danger. Go. Please."
I turned and ran the opposite direction before she could object.
If they wanted the healer, fine. I'd lead them away from everyone else. Away from the families and children who'd given me a home when I had nothing.
The forest had trees so massive their roots had burrowed and twisted into the ground deeply. It was a perfect hiding spot.
Behind me I could hear them spreading through the forest. Voices calling coordinates to each other with military precision.
They were good at this. Trained for it.
But I was good at disappearing.
"I'll cover this section. Move on."
The sound of his voice stopped me dead in my tracks.
My heart splintered right down the middle after hearing that deep baritone for the first time in three years.
Rovian.
Three whole years of learning to exist without him.
And he was thirty feet away in the forest, hunting me.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to make myself smaller. Tried to become part of the log and the dirt and the ferns. Tried to disappear completely.
His footsteps were coming closer. I could hear them now, moving through the underbrush.
He wasn't even rushing. Just walking, like he had all the time in the world to find me.
It was such a Rovian-like move that it made my hands curl into fists.
My heart was going to give me away. It was beating so loudly there was no way he couldn't hear it.
Then something else started happening.
A sensation I'd never felt before crept over my skin. The air around me felt different, like it had weight to it now. Like something was pressing down on me from all sides.
His footsteps were getting closer. And the strange sensation was getting stronger.
It wasn't just on my skin anymore… it was seeping deeper, sliding underneath and wrapping around my bones.
What was happening?
My heartbeat wasn't just racing from fear anymore. It was racing from something else.
The sensation intensified, making me stifle a gasp as it poured through my chest like warm liquid.
And then the scent hit me.
Rich and dark and so intensely masculine it made my mouth water before I could stop the reaction. Cedar and smoke and something deeply familiar underneath that I couldn't name but desperately wanted to. The scent wrapped around me and my body responded without asking my permission first.
I wanted to find the source of that scent. I needed to find it.
My chest felt tight, my stomach was doing something strange and fluttery, and that pulling feeling was getting stronger with every second. Trying to drag me toward something.
And that's when I realized.
The scent was coming from Rovian.
My wolf stirred deep inside me. That primal part that usually stayed quiet and dormant was suddenly wide awake and paying extremely close attention.
To Rovian.
To the rich smell of him. To whatever this overwhelming feeling was that I couldn't understand.
The footsteps stopped.
Right next to where I was hiding.
Goddess, please.
His hand reached down through the ferns, and my stomach plummeted.
I saw his fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt right at my chest, getting a solid grip. Then he yanked me straight up out of the ground.
One second I was pressed flat against the damp earth, the next I was on my feet and crashing forward into a wall of solid muscle.
Into him.
I looked up and forgot how to breathe.
Rovian.
Three years hadn't made him any less devastating to look at. If anything, he'd gotten worse. Hotter. More overwhelming to take in.
His face had lost whatever softness it might have had before—all hard angles now, jaw carved from stone, cheekbones that could cut glass.
He looked lethal.
And he looked at me like I was the only thing in the entire world that existed.
Right then something slammed into my chest so hard my knees almost gave out.
My wolf started to form the thought…
But Rovian beat me to it before my wolf could make the declaration.
His grip on me tightened, as he growled out,
"MATE!"