One beat. Pain. Two beats. More pain. And yet, I was still breathing. She was everywhere. She was so close.

“Keara?” I choked out her name. Her scent surrounded me. Sweet. Soft. Good. Home. The pain washed away and I could breathe again.

I was dead. I had to be dead. How else could she seem so close? Fingers threaded through my hair, sending a shiver of pleasure through me and calming my inner wolf.

“Jagger, look at me.”

She spoke. She never spoke in my dreams. I could never feel her in my dreams.

“Jagger!”

The voice sounded like glass shattering. I was falling. So fast. So far. My head spun and I clawed the ground to get my balance. But, I was already on the ground. On my knees.

Blue eyes swam in front of me. Dark hair framed her face. Not dark. It shouldn’t be dark. Her hair should be the color of autumn leaves.

“Jagger! You’re okay. Whatever it is, you’re okay.”

I shook my head to clear the fog. My heart thundered inside me. I took a breath, waiting for the pain to follow it. This time, it didn’t.

“Keara?” I called out. I knew she wasn’t there.

“Rowan. I told you my name is Rowan.”

I closed my eyes and reached for Keara’s pain. There was nothing there but my own. A few pangs from the healing wounds stretched taut across my chest. My back hurt from lying on the rock. My knees creaked as I slowly rose to my feet. But, these were normal aches.

I caught Rowan’s eyes again. She held steady, reaching for me. I jerked my hand away.

“What have you done?”

She cocked her head to the side. “Done? I haven’t done anything. I came to check on you and you were having some kind of episode. A nightmare, I think. If you’ll hold still, I’m going to touch you. Just on the cheek. You might have a fever. That could explain a few things.”

Even though she’d warned me she was about to do it, nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. Rowan ran her fingers along my jaw. There was heat, but it wasn’t coming from me. My heart skipped. My wolf tried to tear out of me. Eyes blazing, I gripped her hand and cast it off me.

“What have you done?”

She let out an exasperated breath. “Quit asking me that. I told you. Not a thing. Oh, except for the part where I tried to save your ass. Get a grip, Jagger. Did you forget where you are?”

I’d forgotten nothing. Heartland. Just a few miles from the Alpha’s lair. That had to be the reason for all of this. I knew what the Pull of the Pack felt like. This was different though. That was like an undertow. You could swim in and out of it. This was something else. This seemed to be coming from inside of me. I hadn’t felt an ache like this since…

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Just checking on you. Are you touched in the head or something? Man. That’s my act, remember? I wrote that little play.”

Her words came out in rapid-fire succession. Undaunted by my earlier reaction, Rowan reached for me again. This time, she took my arm and flipped it over, feeling along the corded veins until she found my pulse. She closed her eyes for an instant and swayed on her feet. Then, her eyes snapped open and she dropped my wrist.

“I don’t think it’s a fever. Your chest looks all but healed. How do you feel?”

How did I feel? How did I feel? I stood there dumbstruck. This woman had me at a complete loss for words. I flat out didn’t know what to make of her. She was bold. Strong. Beautiful. She had the strength of a shifter, but her scent was purely human. She’d shown no fear around me or any of Able Valent’s shifter patrols. She lived in the backwoods of Kentucky and as far as I could tell, had never been around anyone who wasn’t Pack. And she’d stirred something in me I hadn’t felt for years.

“I’m fine,” I said through a clenched jaw. I could hear Keara’s voice in my head. She’d cluck her tongue and run through a list of all the reasons I wasn’t fine and wasn’t fooling anybody. For the first time in almost three years, the memory of her made me smile. What the actual fuck was happening to me?

“I have to go,” I said. A fresh panic quickened my pulse. There was something about this place. It had to be the Pull. Just another one of Able Valent’s tricks to make me feel safe here. To make me not want to leave. It meant he was getting stronger, more ingenious.

“You’re right about that,” she said. “The Pack’s going to tear these woods apart trying to find you.”

“Are they still looking?” Dammit. I’d bungled this little recon mission on every level. I’d found the house from Lena’s vision, but little else of use. Unless…

“They’ll never stop looking. And for the record, I have no idea why I decided to help you. It’s just...I don’t like them. The patrols. They’re mean. I’ve seen what they do to people who trespass. Good people.”

“But they leave you alone,” I said.

Rowan took a step back. Her eyes took on a haunted look that tore at me. I went to her, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Not. Not...all the time,” she answered. Then, she pulled away from me and headed toward the mouth of the cavern.

“I have to go,” she said. “It’s time for me to get back.”

“Rowan…”

She had her back to me but went rigid as I approached. “I didn’t say thank you.”

She tilted her head toward me, meeting my eyes. “You’re right. You didn’t.”

“And I know I have no right to ask you for anything else. For that matter, I’m not even sure I should trust you. But, like you said, if you wanted to turn me in to the shifter patrols, you’ve had about twenty chances to do that already. So again, thank you.”

She shifted her weight. “And why do I get the feeling you’re about to ask me for a big favor?”

“Not a favor. Just information. You know these woods. You watch the patrols all the time, don’t you?”

She chewed her bottom lip, regarding me. “Jagger, I have to go. I’m already way past too late.”

“For what?”

“That’s my business.”

“Fair enough. Before I go, I want to know more about the patrols. Because, you’re right. They’re more than mean. They’re killers. They’ve done things to good people I know too. Not just in Heartland. All over the state.”

She blinked rapidly, taking a backward step toward the cave entrance. I didn’t think I was telling her anything she didn’t already know. But she’d never seen it. Her entire world was Heartland. I had a million more questions, but the main one was why.

“They won’t just kill you. I’ve heard rumors. Jagger, I’ve heard things.”

“Why haven’t they already? Why didn’t those men who attacked me call down the Pack?”

I’d taken a shot in the dark, but the flicker in Rowan’s eyes gave me my answer. It was her. She’d done something. I bit my own lip past the urge to repeat a question I’d already asked her more than once. What the hell was she? I knew I had one answer with cold certainty. Rowan had saved my life.

“I have to go,” she said. “I can come back. If you want.”

My answer was instinctual. Yes. I wanted her to come back. But instinct gave way to unbidden anger. She saw it flash in my eyes and her face fell.

“Suit yourself,” she said. “The patrols are heaviest during the day. You leave this cave by yourself, you’ll likely bring the whole Pack down on your head. So, do me a favor. Wait at least an hour, preferably more before you go outside. I don’t need you leading them to my doorstep.”

“I would never do anything to put you in danger,” I said. I meant it, but it rang hollow. I knew a hell of a lot more about the world than she did, but Rowan knew Heartland.

“Right,” she said, giving me a weak smile. “Anyway. Just give me a healthy head start, will you?”

Silence fell heavy between us. I knew I should say other things. Thank her again, maybe. Maybe she should have said something else. We grew instantly awkward with each other. A small kernel of truth rose up inside me. Rowan and I might have more in common than I first realized. For our own reasons, we’d both led solitary lives. Being around other people and knowing the right things to say were no longer second nature to me.

She waited a beat. Up against my silence, Rowan finally just turned and dashed out of the cave.

A blast of cool air hit me in the chest. The cave spoke like all caves do. Hollow breaths and ancient creaks. I hadn’t noticed them about this cave before. Since the moment Rowan brought me here, my head had filled with noise. Pain from my wounds. Keara’s ever-present pain, the Pull, and something else. Something I couldn’t name.

Now, everything fell silent and I was truly alone for the first time in two years, ten months, and five days.