Chapter 35

Aria stepped into the room and froze. The air was thick with iron and rage. Cole wasn’t fully wolf, not fully man. He was something in between; towering, fur rippling over muscle, his claws elongated and slick with blood.

His amber eyes burned like dying suns. Just as she walked in, Ferro was slammed against the far wall, chains rattling uselessly as Cole’s clawed fist drove into him again, the sound wet and final, like meat meeting stone.

“Why,” Cole snarled, voice layered with something feral, something ancient, “…would you drag her into this?”

He seized Ferro by the throat and lifted him clean off the ground. Ferro choked, both from blood and from Cole’s strangling hand, his feet kicking weakly, blood trailing from his mouth.

“You could have run alone,” Cole continued, breath hot against Ferro’s face. “I would have let you live if you’d gone alone. But you planned it. You pointed her toward danger.” His grip tightened. “Toward enemy land. Do you have any f