Golden Eyes

Who's chasing who?

The scent hit Jackson harder than the wind at eighty miles an hour.

Gasoline, ash, and musk — a stink that dragged his stomach into a knot and lit his temper like dry kindling. Kevin. Or at least one of Kevin’s lapdogs. The bastard was close. Ahead. Maybe only a few miles.

Rowan’s arms tightened instinctively around his middle when he stiffened on the bike. He could feel the question humming through her body even before she spoke.

“Jackson? What is it?”

He swallowed his snarl, forcing his voice low, even. “Hang on, darlin’. Road’s about to get bumpy.”

He throttled down to seventy, easing into the middle lane of the highway. The roar of the engine masked his racing pulse. He couldn’t risk telling her yet. Couldn’t risk her panic making her a liability while his head needed to stay clear.

Every sense sharpened — the wind cutting across his cheeks, the vibrations in the steel under his thighs, the way the horizon shimmered with heat. And threaded through all of it, the faint, sour-sweet reek of Kevin’s pack.

The fucker’s laying breadcrumbs. Wants me to know he’s ahead. Wants me to follow.

He gritted his teeth and shifted lanes again, weaving between two semis, using their hulking bodies as cover. Rowan jolted against him, and he reached one hand back briefly to squeeze her arm. A silent promise: steady. I’ve got you.

She pressed her forehead against his back after that. Didn’t speak. That, more than anything, unnerved him. Rowan had fire under all that trembling; he’d seen it flash in her when she told Kevin “no” on the roadside. But now she was holding it in, tight-lipped. Like she was saving her words for later. Like she was holding something back.

Just like me.

Jackson exhaled almost violently through his nose, trying to shake the thought, but it clung like a baby opossum to its mother's back. Kevin’s stink, Rowan’s silence, his own restless wolf clawing at the inside of his ribs, it all pressed on him like storm air before lightning. His eyes squinted and flashed gold momentarily.

They crossed into the next town just before noon. A dry, sun-baked grid of gas stations, shuttered diners, and a single grocery store with a sagging awning. There was even an old, white, one-room church in the middle of the town. Jackson pulled into the back lot of a truck stop, cutting the engine. The sudden quiet roared louder than the Harley ever did.

Rowan peeled herself off him, tugging the helmet free. Her hair, damp from the motel shower, curled wildly now, haloed by dust and wind. She rubbed her temples, then looked at him with sharp, tired eyes.

“You smelt him, didn’t you?”

Jackson blinked. “What makes you say that?”

“You went stiff as a board back there. And you don’t weave semis like that for fun.” She crossed her arms, voice thin but steady. “Don’t lie to me.”

The wolf in him bristled. He hated being cornered, hated being read so easily. But Rowan wasn’t wrong. She was sharper than she let on. He leaned back against the bike, pulling his sunglasses down his nose to meet her gaze head-on.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Kevin’s close. Close enough to stink up the asphalt.”

Her breath hitched, but she didn’t back down. She just hugged herself tighter. “So what now?”

“Now,” he said slowly, “we don’t do what he wants.”

They ate inside the diner attached to the truck stop. Stale coffee, burnt bacon, pancakes that tasted like cardboard. Jackson forced it down anyway. Rowan pushed her food around but barely ate. Her eyes kept flicking to the windows, to the line of bikes parked out front, to the dusty road beyond. She was waiting for Kevin’s shadow to fall across the door.

Jackson watched her more than he watched the windows. The way her fingers tapped the mug when she was nervous. The way she checked her phone twice but never sent a text. The faint smudge under her eyes, exhaustion she wouldn’t admit to.

She’s breaking. And I don’t know how to keep her whole.

“You need rest,” he said abruptly.

Her head snapped up. “So do you. You barely slept last night.”

“I don’t sleep easy, darlin’. Comes with the teeth.” He gave her half a grin, trying to ease the weight pressing down between them. It didn’t land. Rowan just shook her head and went back to her coffee.

He wanted to reach across the table. Wanted to tell her that he’d rip the throat out of any wolf or man who came for her. But his hands stayed curled around the mug, knuckles white. Promises didn’t mean s**t until you could prove them.

They didn’t stay long. Too risky. Jackson paid cash and led Rowan back to the bike. As he swung his leg over, he caught movement in the corner of his eye — a pair of men leaning against the far side of the lot. Leather jackets, mirrored shades, posture too relaxed to be innocent. They didn’t look directly at him, but he could smell it. Musk and metal. Wolves.

He didn’t tell Rowan. Just handed her the helmet and started the engine. His musk was almost acting like a beacon. He rubbed his face, his mouth opened to say something, but he just clenched his jaw and revved the engine.

The highway stretched ahead, endless asphalt under an endless sky. Rowan’s grip around his waist was firmer this time, and he felt every tremor of her body against his spine. The wolf in him prowled, restless, torn between wanting to bare his teeth at the men behind them and wanting to push the bike harder, farther, faster.

Canada’s a long way. And Kevin’s already closer than I want.

Hours blurred. The heat shimmered, the road hummed, and Jackson’s head filled with Rowan’s scent — sage and vanilla, stubbornly human, defiantly alive. Every time she shifted on the seat behind him, his pulse hitched. Every time she leaned into him on a turn, his jaw clenched tighter.

This isn’t your fight, he told himself. She’s not yours to save. You’re just the ride.

But he didn’t believe it. Not when she trusted him enough to sleep against his back for a handful of miles, her cheek resting between his shoulder blades. Not when he caught himself wishing he could keep that weight there longer.

By dusk, they pulled into another nowhere town; this one smaller and meaner. One main street, half the shops boarded up, a bar already spilling music and drunks onto the sidewalk. Jackson chose the motel farthest from the noise. Faded blue doors, curtains pulled tight, a vacancy sign that flickered like a dying star.

Inside the room, Rowan dropped her bag and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. She didn’t look at him when she spoke.

“Are we running, Jackson, or are we heading somewhere?"

The question cracked something in him. He closed the door, leaning against it, crossing his arms.

“Both,” he said finally. “Running from Kevin, heading toward Canada, toward a pack that might help you."

“Might.” Her laugh was brittle. “That’s not much of a plan.”

“It’s the best I’ve got.” His voice came out sharper than he meant. Rowan flinched, and guilt clawed at his chest. He rubbed his face with both hands, exhaling hard. “Look. I don’t like it either. But I’ll get you there safe. That’s a promise.”

Rowan studied him then. Really studied him. Her hazel eyes caught the last light filtering through the blinds, and for a moment, Jackson swore she could see straight through the leather, the scars, the wolf under his skin.

“You’re hiding something,” she said softly.

His heart skipped. “Everyone hides somethin’.”

“Yours is bigger than most.”

He couldn’t answer. Couldn’t tell her that the nightmares she’d heard weren’t dreams but memories, that the scar on his shoulder burned every time he thought about the cabin, the dust, the screams. Couldn’t tell her that Kevin wasn’t just a cousin but a mirror — proof of everything Jackson could’ve become if he’d made one wrong choice.

Instead, he pushed away from the door. “Get some rest, darlin’. I’ll take the chair again.”

But long after Rowan’s breathing evened out in the dark, Jackson stayed awake. Watching the window. Watching her. Listening to the wolf whisper in the back of his skull.

She’s not just cargo. She’s your line in the sand.

And Kevin knows it.

Near midnight, a bike roared past outside. Too close, too loud. Jackson’s eyes snapped open, gold bleeding into the dark. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe, just listened.

The engine faded. Silence again. But the scent lingered.

Kevin had found them.

Jackson’s fingers flexed against the armrest of the chair. He looked at Rowan, curled beneath the thin motel blanket, oblivious.

One thought hammered in his skull.

We move at dawn. Or we don’t move at all.