The scent reaches me first. Layered. Dense. Something underneath the surface that my wolf reads differently from wolf or human. Old. Heavy.
It’s him.
The bear from the cave.
I stop ten feet away. He’s facing me with his arms crossed, leaning against the truck bed like he’s been waiting long enough to get comfortable. He’s huge, tall the way a cliff face is tall, the breadth of him blocking the truck from view. Cropped dark hair. A face built for weather and use, rough-hewn and angular: heavy jaw, flat nose that’s been rearranged at least twice, deep-set brown eyes under a brow that could shelter from rain. Canvas jacket. Jeans. Boots that have covered every kind of ground there is. His hands, crossed over his chest, are scarred across the knuckles. Working hands. The kind that have broken things and built things in roughly equal measure.
He watches me the way he watched me from the cave entrance in his bear form. Patient. Unhurried. The stillness of something that doesn’t need to move to tell you what it is.
Dangerous.
I hold the distance, not ready to decide if he’s a threat or not.
“You’re the bear. You were there. You led them to us,” I say. “In the clearing.”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No excuse. “I did.”
“Why?”
“Because the Syndicate was already tracking you. Creed had teams in the field before Aurora knew you’d left the transport.” His voice is low. The kind that carries without being raised. “If I hadn’t found you first, they would have. And Creed’s extraction protocol doesn’t involve sedation darts and medical teams. They would have taken you. Your female would have been collateral damage.”
My female.
The word feels good.
“So you brought the medical teams,” I say.
“I brought the option that kept both of you breathing.”
I turn that over. My wolf doesn’t like it. My wolf remembers the clearing: the darts, the fall, waking up in the white room. But the man can see the full picture. If Creed’s people had reached us first on that mountain, Sable would be dead, and I’d be back on the table.
“Are you here to take us back to Viktor?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
He uncrosses his arms. “I was in the cave that night. Before the clearing. You know that.”
“I smelled you.”
“I heard you. Both of you.” His brown eyes hold mine. Straight. Nothing hidden. “I heard her talking to you. Heard you answer. Heard what happened between the two of you after.” He pauses, no hint of shame at acknowledging that he’d listened to our moments of intimacy. “The man I heard in that cave wasn’t out of control. Wasn’t a danger to anyone.” He shakes his head. “What Aurora did after that—the containment, the gas, letting that woman into your room—that wasn’t right. I told Viktor as much. He didn’t listen.”
“And now you’re here.”
“Now I’m here.” He reaches into the truck’s cab and pulls out a duffel bag, then sets it on the tailgate. “Clothes. Cash. Burner phone with numbers in it…people I trust, which is a short list. Safe stops if you need them.”
“And the truck?”
“Clean. Unregistered. Won’t trace to Aurora or anywhere else.” He pulls keys from his pocket and tosses them. I catch them. They’re warm from his hand. “You and the healer need to disappear for a while. You’re no use to anyone if Creed finds you first.”
“Why help us?”
He looks at me for a long moment. Not weighing. Deciding how much to say.
“Because something was wrong before you even reached Aurora. And Creed’s people were already in position on that road when you hit it. Set up before you arrived. Nobody’s that fast unless someone told them where to look. Someone told them there was a rescued facility wolf coming in from Ravenclaw that no one could control.”
“A leak.”
