He’s still holding me.

Nora shivered in his arms as tears burned the back of her eyes. He was showing more care and concern for her than Slade ever had. The way he wanted her it wasn’t just lust, it was passion. Sleeping with him was a mistake. If anything, it only made her trust him more.

“Are you… regretting lying with me?” He asked his thumb sliding under her eye and catching a tear she didn’t know how he could have seen it. His fingers curled around her chin and turned her face back toward his so that he could look at her.

“I’m scared,” she admitted to him something she never admitted to Slade or anyone else in the faction. “This isn’t how I thought I would feel.”

Ian didn’t get angry with her though she wasn’t sure why not. He continued to smooth her hair from her face. “I know you don’t want to care about me, Nora but you have no choice. You and I are meant to be.”

Nora sat up then with a soft smile on her face.

He’s a romantic, in a time of nothing but bloodshed and violence. How lost he must feel.

“How do you come to know what is meant to be, Ian? Are you psychic as well as a wolf?”

“There is one in our pack who can see glimpses into to the future. She is the healer’s wife, Angeline. She warned me that the woman I was destined to fall for would cause my pack to be angry. Your lack of trust must cause that reaction in them.”

“Angeline? Did she tell you what I look like? How can you know it’s me she’s speaking of?” Nora climbed quickly to her feet and pulled up the bodice of her dress and she pulled down the skirt.

Ian caught hold of her ankle. “Where are you going, Alexandra?”

“I need to go and get some air.”

“We’re already outside.” Ian stood doing nothing to cover his nakedness. “You are letting your fear guide you instead of your heart.”

He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her again reminding her just how much his lips against hers melted her into a pool of butter at his feet. She couldn’t stop herself from pressing up against him and feeling his hard chest against her tender breasts.

“You undo me, Nora. You make me feel like I’ve finally come to life. As if everything before was all preparation for you.”

Nora swallowed hard. She didn’t know why his words meant so much to her. They shouldn’t. He was the enemy, not her friend, or her lover. “Can you tell me what Angeline said about me?” If Angeline knew the future then she could see what was coming, she’d know that Nora was the one who would betray them, wouldn’t she?

“Truthfully, I do not know all that she knows of you, Nora. I have been spending most of my time in Freebasin to be close to you. I know only that my pack will struggle to accept you, she said that I would struggle to accept you too.” Ian laughed at that but his words made Nora tremble.

All the more reason why I cannot fall for the enemy. Ian is my enemy.

Ian ran his hand up her thigh, squeezing her bare ass beneath her dress. “Where are you going inside that busy mind of yours trying to find a way to push me away?” He grinned as she gasped and let out a moan when his finger brushed against her slick center. “I don’t intend on letting you slip away so easily.”

Nora found herself clinging to him tightly as if afraid to let go.

I am afraid to let go. When I do, I’ll have to be me again a traitor instead of the woman who loves Ian’s touch, his words, and his open heart.

The bell started ringing the sound coming from Freebasin. The ferocious howl Nora now recognized as Darian’s call.

“Stay here, Nora. I have to go and protect the city with the pack,” Ian said pushing Nora down into a seated position on a fallen tree trunk. “Stay safe.”

He took off running and when he leaped up into the air Nora watched as his body shifted. His bones moved under his skin, rolling on joints that humans don’t have. Since Nora was present at more than one dissection of a dead shifter she knew just how his bones moved, but she still marveled at the speed in which the shift took place.

The blond and white wolf looked back at her before racing off.

Be safe, Ian. Please, be safe.

Knowing that Ian will track her if she moves, Nora begins to walk deeper into the forest. She pushes back her heavy red hair from her face and neck. It’s hot and her hair is sticking to her skin. The rock mountainside she saw from Freebasin is up ahead.

If she climbs the rocky mountain she might be able to see what’s going on inside Freebasin.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Slade’s angry hiss surprises her. “I had to activate your beacon. You were supposed to meet me.” He reaches for Nora but she scrambles up the rocky incline several feet.

“He can smell it when you touch me and he doesn’t like it,” she says when he starts climbing up to drag her back down. “You can’t touch me.”

“Fine. That’s fine.” He smiled up at her. “You fucked him then? He’s attached to you?”

How can he be so happy about me having sex with another man?

“Yes, I did. It was a lot different than it is with you,” Nora couldn’t help saying wanting to reach out and hurt him like he was hurting her with his indifference.

Slade’s eyes narrowed slightly but he gave no other indication that he was in anyway distressed. “He’ll trust you now. Does he care about you?”

“Yes, he does,” Nora said more out of anger than anything else.

“Perfect. We’ll capture you both, torture you and he’ll give information to us.”

You want to use his feelings for me against him?

“…I’ll have to really hit you otherwise he won’t believe it. If torturing you doesn’t work we’ll simply torture him.”

“You won’t be torturing him,” Nora said beginning to climb back down. “You said it yourself that he’ll tell me more if he cares for me he does. So, you aren’t going to touch him.”

Slade snorted, “Shit Nora, if I didn’t know you better I’d think you were actually trying to protect a shifter. You’re not getting feelings for this thing, are you?”

“No. I’m trying to do my job and you’re stomping all over my feet,” Nora snarled at him.

“Give me something we can use then, Nora. Rafi and his pack found our last base, they dug it out of the ground and killed everyone inside. The kids too. We can’t afford for you to be so leisurely about getting information.” Slade wiped his brow. “I mean, how could they have known about that base? It was so well hidden.”

Angeline can see into the future.

“There is a shifter who has visions of the future. Angeline, they call her.”

“I know of this woman. She is the one who used to live in Freebasin before she joined the shifters.” Slade said with a huge smile that made Nora feel sick to her stomach with dread so heavy it felt like she was carrying an oversized boulder in her gut. “Good work, Nora. Keep digging. Have you learned what has become of the Herod pack?”

Nora shook her head because she already felt bad about the information she gave away. The way that he took this information, what he wanted to do with it. How could she have been so blind to his lack of humanity? The lack of caring and empathy that all of the leaders of the HRAF had for each other and the shifters.

I don’t deserve any sort of affection or love from Ian. I have betrayed him when all he’s ever shown me is kindness.

“I will meet you in the barn in two days unless you see the flag up like today. Then you come earlier.”

She didn’t respond but he didn’t seem to expect her to. Slade drug a plant that looked like long dirty noodles or roots. “Soaks up my smell,” He said giving Nora a thumbs up. “He’ll never know I was even here.”

I wish he never had to meet me. I wish I was never here to ruin him and hurt him.

Slade was walking the wrong way to reach the base. Nora watched him walking away hoping he would get lost because then she could pretend she had not betrayed Ian.

He’s going to hate me for this. I hate me for this.