Page 17 of Pistols & Peonies

The bond hums in my chest, bright and insistent and too big for my human mind to comprehend. That part of me slips back, fading to a dim echo while the wolf rises, alight with incandescent joy.

We bolt into the woods together. Trees whip past in streaks of shadow and moonlight, the forest floor thrumming beneath our paws. Kane matches me stride for stride, letting me surge ahead before cutting me off with a playful shoulder-check. I growl, and he snaps back, teeth flashing. We’re a blur of momentum and heat, relishing the rush of the run.

I don’t know these woods, but he does. My wolf takes her cues from him without pause, trusting him in a way that makes my human self bristle somewhere deep beneath the surface. We leap a ravine, weave between fallen logs, and tumble in a clearing, rolling through dirt and leaves until we’re breathless with exhilaration.

For as long as the run lasts, I feel weightless. Free. Like this could almost be something beautiful instead of a prison.

The frenzy tapers slowly. Our strides shorten, the wild joy easing into something softer and more controlled. The forest grows quieter as the pack winds down, the moon dipping low and bleeding silver across the trees as we return to the clearing.

My wolf resists at first, still drunk on the run and high on the bond. The shift pulls me under anyway, bones rearranging until I stumble back into my human form and collapse onto the cold grass, breath rushing out of me in sharp bursts. My muscles ache in that bone-deep, satisfying way that says I gave everything I had, heart still hammering with the leftover thrill of running beside my mate.

Kane shifts a few feet away. The change ripples through him smoothly, and when he rises to stand, he’s all hard lines and danger wrapped in moonlight.

Our eyes lock, drawn together like magnets. Then, like we’re both fighting the same instinct, our gazes drop– slowly, shamelessly, and greedily.

He is… obscene.

Hard muscle ripples beneath tan skin, abs flexing with every labored breath. My gaze traces the v-lines of his Adonis belt to the hard, heavy length of him hanging between his thighs, heat flashing through me so fast it’s startling. My lips part, fingers twitching with a sudden, vivid urge to take him in my palm, to climb into his arms, to press up against every inch of him…

No.

It's the bond. Still humming, still pushing instinct through my veins like wildfire– but the longer I’m shifted back, the more the haze lifts. My wolf recedes, rational thought fighting its way to the surface.

The attraction is real, but this pull, this hunger? It’s biology. The primal magnetism of the bond at work.

I jerk my gaze away and push upright, curling in on myself to cover my nakedness as I scan the ground for my clothes. Panic winds its way up my chest, my pulse ticking in my throat.

Kane locates his own clothes easily, stepping into his pants and shrugging on his shirt with efficient movements that I try very hard not to watch. I keep my eyes down, scanning the grass, pretending my heart isn’t trying to punch its way out of my chest.

Once he’s dressed, he moves, circling behind me and stooping to grab something off the ground. When he steps back into view, my clothes are in his fist.

Of course.

He drops them onto the grass beside me, my head snapping up, lips parting on a sharp inhale.

For a fraction of a second, something flickers across his face– barely there, then gone, locked behind that cold, impenetrable armor.

“I’ll… be in touch,” he murmurs flatly, as if we just wrapped up a meeting.

As if we didn’t just forge a bond that changed the architecture of my entire life.

Before I can react, he turns and walks away without a single backward glance.

The cold hits me immediately like a gut punch of emptiness. My wolf whines in the back of my mind, confused and hurt, while my human half burns with humiliation and anger, both sharp enough to cut. I grab for my clothes, clutching them to my chest as I push up to my feet.

My mind trips over itself, scrambling for something– anything– to yell after him. But all I can manage to do is stare as his silhouette disappears into the trees, the shadows swallowing him whole.

CHAPTER 7

Kane

Unlike most shifters, I don't get to relax the day after a full moon run. While everyone else gets their little post-run reprieve to sleep in and recharge, I’m treated to a flood of assessments landing in my inbox before the sun even rises.

Each preserve around the city has a high-level enforcer assigned to oversee the run, and their job is to observe and report. Mine is to sort through their shit, pinpoint what actually matters, and bring Alpha the highlights. Everything hits my desk before it ever touches his.

It grants me a lot of power; more than Alpha probably realizes. Or maybe he does and just trusts me implicitly. Either way, I’m the one deciding what’s significant enough to move up the chain of command and what’s small potatoes– things I can handle internally without wasting his time. He only needs to sign off on major action, leaving me to handle the rest.

That’s why not just anyone can do this job. It has to be someone with actual knowledge and meaningful experience. Someone who can look at a report and instantly tell what stands out– what’s smoke, what’s fire, and what’s bullshit whining from a lower-ranked enforcer trying to impress the boss. At this point, I can assign threat levels with a single glance.