Chapter 3

Carolynn POV:

Colt's booming roar echoed down into the bar below, and within seconds, heavy biker boots thundered up the steps. Patched riders and prospects poured into the narrow corridor from the pool tables, choking the passage to the yard.

Harper stepped in front of me to block the shoving crowd, her voice tight with worry as riders cursed and shouted around us.

"What happened? Did Jetta's silver wound flare up again?" a burly rider wearing a Gamma patch—the pack's third-tier enforcers who handle highway brawls—barked as he shoved two younger prospects out of his way.

The front rank hit the top of the stairs, found the office empty, and swung around to pile back down after their Alpha. Down at the foot of the stairwell the mob split down the middle, and every wolf in the hall dropped his chin, angling his throat away, yielding the path to their Alpha President out of pure genetic instinct. Colt had carried Jetta down before the rush and was still shouldering his way toward Doc's iron door through the jam of bodies.

Half-carried down the last steps by the crush, I fetched up against the cold brick wall at the bottom landing and watched Colt's jaw clench as if he wished he could take her pain into his own body.

Right as he reached the clinic door, a panicked rider shoved backward into my shoulder. My boot slipped off the bottom step, and I pitched sideways toward a pile of scrap transmission parts stacked by the back door.

I threw my hands out to catch the wall, grabbing nothing, and my right knee slammed hard onto the jagged teeth of a rusted iron gear.

The heavy metal tore straight through my canvas work pants, splitting the skin down my shin. Warm blood gushed out instantly, sending a wave of nausea up my throat as my leg throbbed like it had been hit with a sledgehammer.

I gasped for air, gripping my torn knee on the concrete floor as the thick, metallic smell of fresh blood rose into the air.

Werewolves live by their noses, and an Alpha's sense of smell is sharper than a hunting hound's. Fresh blood in a pack house is like a flare fired in the dark.

I raised my head and looked at Colt, less than three paces away. His heavy boots faltered for a split second.

His nostrils flared, and his icy blue eyes shifted half an inch toward my shadow against the wall. He smelled my blood. He knew I was down on the floor.

Then Jetta let out a soft, pathetic moan against his collar. Colt snapped his gaze forward.

He did not stop, he did not look down at his bleeding wife, and he did not slow his stride. He kicked open the heavy iron door to Doc's underground clinic and disappeared inside with the woman who had saved his life.

The rest of the pack surged after him, crowding the clinic entrance. Nobody looked twice at a wolfless mechanic bleeding in the dirt. In a society ruled by bloodlines, I was just a spare wrench left on the floor.

"God, Carolynn—you're bleeding everywhere!"Harper dropped to her knees beside me and dug a folded cotton handkerchief out of her jacket pocket, pressing it hard against my shin.

Staring at the closed clinic door, I bit down hard on my lower lip, my mouth twisting into an ugly, bitter curve.

"Leave it," I muttered, pushing Harper's hand away and using the brick wall to haul myself up onto one good leg. "It's just skin."

Compared to the freezing hole in the center of my chest, a torn shin barely registered.

I limped out into the moonlit courtyard alone. Twenty custom choppers sat parked in neat rows across the gravel, their chrome pipes gleaming coldly, with Colt's massive black bike holding the sheltered spot right by the main porch.

Pushing open the corrugated iron door of the back garage, I limped past the grease pit where I rebuilt the pack's engines and went straight to the rusty metal cabinet in the corner.

No pack Healer was coming to close my wound, and no Alpha was here to lick the cut clean. I uncorked a bottle of cheap antiseptic powder and dumped it straight onto the torn flesh.

My whole body jerked at the searing heat. I bit my lower lip until I tasted copper on my tongue, refusing to make a sound in the empty shop.

Grabbing a roll of gauze, I wrapped it tight around my calf, tied off the ends with shaking fingers, and leaned my damp forehead against the cold iron lift until my breathing slowed.

The single yellow bulb hanging from the rafters buzzed overhead. I had lived in the grease and shadows of this garage long enough.

Pushing off the lift, I limped over to my scarred wooden workbench and swept a pile of carburetor blueprints onto the concrete floor.

From the bottom drawer, I pulled out a sheet of thick, yellowed parchment—the traditional contract paper outlaws used to seal pack oaths that carried the weight of blood.

I uncapped a heavy black pen and pressed the nib to the top of the sheet, writing in steady block letters: CONTRACT OF SEPARATION AND TERRITORY RELEASE.

Every stroke of the pen felt like a heavy weight dropping into my stomach, yet my hand did not shake once. If Colt would not let me walk out the front gate, I would carve my own exit.