Mate.
My hand stilled midair, the dagger hovering inches from my chest, my grip slackening as if the air had been pulled from my lungs. I blinked once. Twice. But the monster looming above me didn't disappear.
Neither did the word.
Mate.
I'd never heard anything sound more terrifying.
It wasn't just the way he said it—low and filled with emotions, like it came from somewhere deeper than language. That was what came after. The silence that pressed against my ears, the tremble in my fingers that didn't come from fear this time. The word didn't echo aloud again.
But the same word repeated in my head, like confirming that it was all real. Like a secret my body had known long before my mind could name it.
Mate.
I swallowed hard, but the taste of blood and dirt clung to my tongue. My thoughts scattered, trying to make sense of what had just happened and what was still happening. I knew the voice that answered from inside me; it was not my wolf...it was my own.