RHEA’S POV The silence in my small living room felt like a physical weight crushing my chest.
The stranger remained on his knees before me, his forehead pressed against the cold floor, waiting for an answer I didn’t want to give.
I set the glass vase down on the side table with trembling hands.
My pulse was hammering in my ears.
“What is your name?” I asked softly, breaking the silence.
“If you’re asking me to follow you, I at least need to know who you are.” He lifted his head, his bloodshot eyes were filled with raw exhaustion.
“Garrett,” he rasped, his voice rough.
“I am Garrett, Beta of the Northern Pack.” I swallowed hard, looking away from his desperate gaze.
If I go with him, I knew I would lose everything.
I had spent five years running.
Five years pretending the wolf world didn’t exist, burying my scent, and building a quiet, fragile life filled with safety for my son.
Going back into the wolf realm meant stepping right back into the lion’s den.
It meant risking my father finding out I was still alive.
It meant risking Cassius finishing what he started at the frozen lake.
And Elias.
The thought of my son tore a deep hole through my heart.
I had promised him.
I had kissed his forehead before my shift and promised that I would be there the exact moment he woke up.
“I can’t, Garrett,” I whispered, my voice cracking in the quiet room.
“I have a son.
I can’t leave him.” Garrett’s expression shattered, heavy with grief and raw desperation.
“I know you don’t know me, but believe me when I say I need your help.
If you stay back, my Alpha dies.
Hundreds of innocent people, children who fled into the caves, will be slaughtered when the border pack returns to finish us off.
You are a doctor.
Can you truly live with those deaths on your conscience?” His words hit me like a physical blow.
As a doctor, I took an oath to preserve life.
As a woman who had spent her childhood watching innocent people suffer under a cruel Alpha, I knew the terror his pack was facing right now.
I looked toward the hallway, where the faint scent of Elias lingered in the air.
“Give me five minutes,” I choked out, turning away before he could see the tears filling my eyes.
I walked into my bedroom, closed the door, and pulled my phone from my pocket.
My fingers were shaking so badly I mistyped the code twice before dialing Maya’s number.
She picked up on the third ring, her voice groggy.
“Rhea?
Is everything okay?
Your shift ended half an hour ago.” “Maya…” A sob escaped my throat before I could stop it.
I pressed my hand over my mouth, trying to steady my breathing.
“Maya, I need you to do something for me.
Something big.” Instantly, the sleepiness left Maya’s voice.
“Rhea, what’s wrong?
You’re scaring me.” “I…
I can’t come pick up Elias this morning,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
“Something happened.
A situation.
I have to leave the city for a few days.” Silence stretched over the line.
“Rhea, you promised him.
He was talking about making pancakes with you all night before he fell asleep.
What patient requires you to leave town?” “A wolf, Maya,” I confessed, tears spilling over my cheeks.
“A Beta collapsed outside the ER.
He was wounded by a beast.
Somehow, I…I healed him.
I don’t even know how to explain what had happened but he told me his entire pack is dying.
Their Alpha is bleeding out.
If I don’t go…” “Are you insane?” Maya hissed, her voice dropping into a desperate whisper.
“You ran from that world for a reason.
What if it’s a trap?
What if your father’s men find you?
What about Elias?” “I know,” I sobbed silently, gripping the phone tightly.
“I know the risks.
But I can’t let an entire territory die when I have the power to stop it.
Please, Maya.
Keep him safe.
Don’t let him leave your apartment.
Tell him…
tell him Mommy loves him, and that I’m so sorry I broke my promise.” From the background of the call, I heard the faint, sleepy sound of my son stirring.
“Mommy?” Elias’s small, sweet voice drifted through the speaker.
“Is Mommy on the phone?” My heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
I held my breath, biting my lip until I tasted blood just to keep from crying out loud.
“She’ll call you back in a little bit, sweetie, go back to sleep,” Maya murmured to him softly, before speaking back into the receiver.
“Rhea…
promise me you’ll come back.
If you die out there, I will never forgive you.” “I promise,” I breathed.
“I’ll come home to my boy.
I swear it.
Thank you, Maya.” “You don’t have to thank me,” Maya said.
“Just make sure you come back alive.” “I will,” I hung up the phone, wiped my eyes, and stepped back into the living room.
Garrett was already standing, watching me with a mixture of profound relief and deep respect.
“How do we get there?” I asked coldly, my tone hardening as I locked my fears at the back of my mind.
“I don’t have a car, and a storm like this has shut down human movement.” “My SUV is parked three miles north, hidden near an off-road border outpost,” Garrett said quickly, adjusting his torn shirt.
“The engine froze in the snowdrift when I crossed into the human on foot.
I can jump start the car, I have the tools in the trunk and then we can drive straight into the Northern territory.” I didn’t say another word.
I grabbed my medical kit, pulled on my heavy winter coat, and followed him out into the freezing night.
The walk to the border was long.
The blizzard howled around us and the cold bit into our skin, but Garrett moved with purpose now, fueled by the hope that he had found a miracle.
After an agonizing forty-minute trek through knee-deep snow drifts, we reached a black SUV buried beneath a massive patch of snow near a tree.
Garrett cleared the exhaust, popped the hood, and used a small jump battery from the trunk to force the engine to roar to life.
“Get in,” he said, turning the heater on.
I climbed into the passenger seat, clutching my medical bag to my chest.
As the SUV moved forward, breaking through the snow drifts and tearing down the winding mountain road, the familiar human city lights began to dwindle in the rearview mirror.
An hour into the drive, the human vanished, replaced by a dark, pine filled dirt pass.
“We’re crossing the territorial boundary line now,” Garrett said softly from the driver’s seat.
“The Northern Pack’s ancient ward magic guards these woods.” The moment the SUV crossed the invisible threshold separating the human realm from the wolf kingdom, my body turned.
A sudden, violent surge of raw, ancient magic slammed into my chest.
“Ah…” I gasped, my body moved over in my seat.
My vision flashed white.
Deep within my heart, an agonizing pressure built up, like something heavy and dormant inside my blood was violently twisting and trying to break free.
I gripped the dashboard, my nails digging into the leather, gasping for air as my lungs burned.
What was happening to me?
The feeling was foreign to me.
It was like my insides were about to burst open.
Garrett slammed on the brakes, turning to me with panic written all over his face.
“What’s wrong?
What’s happening to you?” “I’m…
fine,” I choked out, sweat breaking out across my forehead.
The agony slowly subsided into a dull, thrumming ache deep in my bones, leaving me panting and weak.
“Just…
keep driving.” Garrett stared at me with wide, searching eyes, clearly sensing the terrifying spike of energy that had just rippled through the car.
But he didn’t push for an explanation.
He hit the gas pedal again, speeding deeper into the dark, snow-covered mountains of the North.
I rested my forehead against the cold window, watching the dark trees blur past.
My body was trembling, not from the cold, but from an overwhelming, suffocating sense of fear.
I was going back to the world that had tried to destroy me.
And I had a terrible feeling that nothing would ever be the same again.