JIMMIE'S
The path was narrow and endless, carved into a forest that didn't seem real. Trees groaned like they could speak, their twisted limbs reaching for me like they knew what was coming behind.
I ran.
My legs moved as if I didn't own them, lungs heaving, breath coming in short, panicked bursts. Everything smelled like wet leaves and dread. The air was thick, heavy, almost alive.
But the thing behind me was worse.
Its growl was thunder, deep and low and vibrating through the ground. It wasn't barking. No, that would've been too kind. This—this was a promise. A death sentence is being read one step at a time.
I didn't dare look.
I didn't want to see it again.
But I couldn't help myself.
I glanced over my shoulder, and that's when I saw it.
A massive dog—no, a beast—barreling through the trees. Black fur gleaming like it had been dipped in ink and ash. Shoulders wide enough to crush bone. Its teeth gleamed wet in the dim light, but its eyes froze me.
Gold. Bright. Furious.
And familiar.
"Devon?" I gasped—in the dream.
The beast growled harder, like it heard me. Like I knew. It wasn't chasing me to eat me—it was chasing me to claim me.
I screamed, feet slipping on the path as I scrambled forward. But the forest curved, and the path narrowed, and the beast got closer and closer—closer—
I turned again, trying to see how close it was—and those glowing golden eyes met mine just as it launched into the air, teeth bared, paws outstretched.
"NO!"
I woke up gasping, clawing at my sheets like they were vines pulling me under.
My room.
My couch.
My tiny apartment that never felt tinier than it did now.
I was drenched in sweat, shirt clinging to my back, breath wheezing like I'd been running. I sat up, hand pressed to my chest where my heart should've been—but it didn't feel like it was mine anymore. Not entirely.
I couldn't sleep more than a few hours without him showing up.
Devon.
Or the… thing he became.
That day played in my head like a broken film strip: the blur of teeth, claws, blood—the way his golden eyes lit up when he found me. The way he said "Mine," not with his mouth, but with everything in him. As if his soul had been starving.
And then me.
Screaming.
Begging.
Rejecting him.
The way his face fell after I said it… God.
It haunts me more than the violence.
I haven't been back to the residence since. Haven't seen Eleanor. Haven't answered her messages. I told the doctors I needed time. Told security I needed space. But mostly, I've been hiding.
Because I don't know what I saw.
And worse—I don't know how I feel about it.
Because even now, despite it all, there's a strange warmth in my chest. A strange ache, like something's missing but nearby. Like I'm… tethered.
To him.
It makes no sense.
None of this does.
I don't even know who Devon is anymore. Is he human? Is he some kind of monster? Did he choose to be that, or was he born with it? How long has he been hiding it? Why was I the one who saw it?
Why me?
Why does the memory of his hands—bloodstained and shaking—still make my pulse skip?
I'm losing my mind.
Or worse—maybe I'm already lost.
I stood up and walked across the living room. The silence of the apartment pressed in close, like it wanted to whisper things to me I wasn't ready to hear.
I glanced down at my phone. I hadn't touched it all day.
One notification.
Unknown Number.
My stomach dropped.
I opened it.
This isn't over. It's just the beginning.
No name.
No number.
No trace.
But the chill it sent through my spine was real enough to make my knees buckle.
I stared at the screen, jaw tight, breath thin.
"This can't be happening," I whispered. "What the hell is happening to me?"
My fingers trembled as I locked the screen and tossed the phone onto the couch like it could burn me. But I still felt it—that phantom warmth in my chest pulsing low, like a second heartbeat.
Like I knew something I didn't.
And it wasn't letting go.
—
DEVON
The silence in the east wing of the residence was absolute. It wasn't just quiet—it was dead. The kind of silence that didn't allow room to breathe. No birdsong, no hum of staff, no Eleanor pacing the halls with her phone pressed to her ear. Just… me.
I locked the doors myself.
No one came in.
No one left.
Even the light stayed out. I hadn't turned on a single lamp in days. Not since that night. Not since I tore through six men like they were paper and stood over Jimmie—his eyes wide, terrified, lips trembling—only for him to look at me like I was the monster under his bed.
And maybe I was.
Maybe I am.
I didn't bring anyone else to that rescue because I knew. I knew what I was going to become. What I would have to let out. I didn't want to explain to military command why the president of Astria had claws and a snout and eyes that glowed like fire. I didn't want to explain why he—Jimmie—was the one I couldn't leave behind.
Franco was the only one who knew enough. Who saw enough, who could I trust not to run, not yet.
But even Franco is looking at me differently now.
Hell, I deserve it.
The sedatives were his idea. Necessary, he said.
Because every time I closed my eyes, I felt the wolf surge. Felt him rage. Not against Jimmie—never Jimmie—but at the space between us. The void. The rejection.
He doesn't understand it, my wolf. Doesn't know how to process the words stay away or the way Jimmie had scrambled back from me like I was something foul. I saw it in his face. That was fear. Real, raw, soul-piercing fear.
Of me.
Of what I am.
The night after, I tried to hold myself together. I sat in the bathroom, door locked, the scent of blood still clinging to my skin. I didn't scrub it off. I just sat on the cold tiles, knees pulled up, forehead against my arm, and listened to the sound of my breathing—rapid, shallow, wrong.
Then I cried.
Not loud. Not raging.
Just… broke.
I hadn't cried since my mother died. Not when I buried friends in a war no one wanted to remember. Not when I gave up half my identity to be the man the world needed. But that night, I wept.
Because I'd seen the fear in his eyes.
And it killed something inside me.
Eleanor came by the door a few times. I heard her voice—gentle, then firm, then finally weary. I didn't answer. What was I supposed to say?
"Yes, I almost shifted uncontrollably in front of the cameras. Yes, I lost control. Yes, Jimmie now sees me as a monster, and I can't blame him."
No. She deserved better than that. So I gave her distance.
Everyone else stayed away. Word got around fast, I'm sure. Staff probably whispered stories about how the President had "taken ill." I knew the tabloids would spin their lies—drugs, burnout, psychosis. They always do. Let them. Nothing they wrote would ever come close to the truth.
Only Franco stayed.
Only Franco sedated me when I started to lose control again—when my body burned, muscles twitching, bones cracking into a half-state. When my wolf clawed beneath my skin, screaming, "We need to go to him, he's ours—he's not safe—he's hurt—GO TO HIM!"
I stayed locked up. I had to. Because if I got loose again, I wouldn't stop at breaking down doors. I'd tear through the city. I'd find him. And this time, maybe I wouldn't stop when he begged me to.
I buried my face in my hands, jaw clenched against the tremor in my bones.
"I ruined everything…" My voice cracked, soaked in something I hadn't let myself feel in years.
A breath. A beat.
"And I still want him."
I stayed there, trembling, as the sedative pulled me under.
Just before the darkness claimed me, I heard Franco's voice through the earpiece left on the desk.
"Devon… we've got a problem. The boy's not safe."