Graeson needed our help. He was outnumbered. Aisha must have tricked him into coming out here and then sicced the other wolves on him. I summoned the dregs of magic still in my system, managing to sprout a layer of fine golden hair down my arms. The renewed strength allowed me to pry Dell’s hand away, but it fizzled before the pack bond rushed me.

Disappointment sifted through me. No. Not disappointment. Relief. I was grateful to be spared that intimacy twice in one night, right? That thrum of belonging, the warm feedback that hummed in the back of my mind like a lullaby sung to me as a child.

Fingers tight on Dell’s wrist, I was about to light into her when Graeson charged, his form a blur to my eyes as he attacked one of the wolves. The wrongness of it left me holding on to Dell for different reasons. This wasn’t right, wasn’t fair, wasn’t Graeson.

The four remaining wargs made no move to engage him. Unless they were blasting mental threats at him, the vicious attacks were unprovoked. A thin, brown wolf with ribs exposed hung limp from Graeson’s jaws, yet he didn’t twitch a paw in retribution. He took it, everything Graeson dished out, without a whimper to betray the gruesome damage inflicted upon him.

Fight, damn you, I willed the wolf, but the words bounced in my skull. I wasn’t pack. The bond didn’t hum for me without a fresh drop of their kin’s blood in my system.

Tired of his prey not giving him the fight he clearly hungered for, Graeson spat out the brown wolf and turned an eye to the next warg. This time when I strained against Dell’s hold, the effort was feebler. A final shake of her head was as good as a confession. There was no panic to rush in and help, only grim acceptance and stone-cold resolve not to interfere. She had known this was happening, and she hadn’t told me. For her to be so calm, Graeson must have known what he was walking into and prepared her for what might spill over the bond. No wonder she had jumped right in and distracted me with practice.

As the outsider, viewing the spectacle without being able to sift through Graeson’s head to find a reason for this calculated brutality, I tired of the scene quickly. The precise cruelty of his attacks disabled his opponents—or was that victims?—and watching him embrace his role as beta soured my stomach. I had seen enough.

Turning on my heel, I picked my way back home, not caring if Dell followed.

Isaac leaned against my trailer, sharpening a pocketknife against a whetstone, and glanced behind me with a frown pinching his brow when I returned alone. “Well?”

“I’m turning in early.” I breezed past him before he got a chance to respond. “Night.”