Jax's POV
The storm didn’t scare me. Hunters didn’t scare me.
What scared me was Lena running beside me in the dark, her breath sharp, her fear loud enough that I could almost taste it in the air. Every instinct inside me screamed to shift, to scoop her up, to carry her far away from this place and never let anyone touch her again.
But I couldn’t. Not yet.
She needed to learn to move on her own. She needed to learn to survive.
The forest closed around us as we ran. Snow whipped into my face, stinging my skin, but I kept my eyes forward. Damien ran ahead, breaking the path, listening for sounds that didn’t belong to the storm.
Behind us, I felt them.
The hunters
They didn’t chase like animals. They stalked. Slow. Confident. Like they already believed we were cornered.
I reached ba
