Her whisper shakes the air between us.
“Mate.”
The word cuts into me like a blade shaped from light and truth. My breath stumbles. My pulse hammers so loudly that I cannot hear the wind or the rustle of leaves or the distant shifting of the rogues behind us.
Only her voice. Only that word.
I jerk away from her as if burned. The movement is sharp, too fast, and the earth slips under my boots. My wolf lunges forward, snarling inside me, desperate to go back to her, to close the distance I just created. My body trembles with the effort to push him down.
No. Not now. Not like this.
Her eyes widen with confusion and hurt. She tries to sit up, but her body fails her. Muscles tremble under her skin. Her hands press into the dirt, barely holding her weight. Every part of her looks fragile an
