POV: Evelyn

Silas locked every door in the clubhouse and then stood outside mine.

He did not enter.

That was how I knew he was terrified.

When Silas was angry, rooms bent around him. Men stopped laughing. Wolves lowered their eyes. When he was afraid for me, he made himself smaller and waited for permission.

I opened the bedroom door.

He stood in the hallway with rain on his shoulders and blood on one cuff. Not his. Briar had already called to say Dana and her son were safe, the driver was alive, and the transfer binder had been secured.

She had also told me about the words written in red.

Wolf indicators.

“Is Sophie asleep?” Silas asked.

“Maeve is reading to her.”

“Pack a bag.”

The order struck an old place inside me.

His face changed as soon as he saw mine.

“No.” He dragged one hand over his mouth. “That came out wrong.”

“Very wrong.”

“Briar found evidence that someone outside Grant’s circle is identifying women with wolf blood. This location may be compromised. I want—”

He stopped.

“What?”

“I want you somewhere no one can reach.”

“That place does not exist.”

His jaw flexed.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I know because I have spent the last hour imagining every wall I could build around you and understanding you would hate me for every one of them.”

The honesty took the heat out of my anger without erasing it.

“You could ask what I want.”

“What do you want?”

“I want the security plan explained. I want to decide where Sophie sleeps. I want to know who has access. And I want you to stop looking at me like the kidnappers already won.”

His eyes closed for one second.

“The guest cabin across the property has one road, a reinforced safe room, and no address in public records. Maeve can take Sophie through the tunnel. You and I can walk aboveground so anyone watching believes she is still here.”

“Better.”

“You can choose another place.”

“The cabin works.”

He nodded, but did not relax.

I looked at the blood on his cuff. “Whose?”

“Harlow’s. He grabbed Briar during transport. I moved him.”

“How far?”

“Far enough.”

“Is he alive?”

“Unfortunately.”

I should not have laughed.

The sound escaped anyway, strained and breathless. Silas stared at me as if laughter were the one danger he had not prepared for.

“That was almost a joke,” I said.

“It was a statement of medical disappointment.”

“Ronan is contaminating you.”

“I’ll have him removed.”

The smile faded between us, leaving something warmer and more dangerous.

Silas filled the doorway. Rain darkened his hair. His shirt was open at the throat, and a vein moved beneath the skin where his wolf pressed close. The bond carried too much of him: fear, fury, hunger, relief that I was standing in front of him.

And desire.

Not the careful suggestion I had felt before.

This was deep enough to make my body answer.

He stepped back.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“Because you felt it.”

“I always feel it.”

“Not like that.”

“No.”

His hands closed at his sides.

“Evelyn, men put your name in a trafficking ledger. Tonight is not the night for me to want anything from you.”

“You think wanting me is another thing being done to me.”

“Sometimes it feels too close.”

The answer hurt because I understood it.

Grant had wanted obedience. Nolan had wanted a diagnosis. North County had wanted a patient number. Each man had looked at me and seen a use.

Silas looked at me and saw a choice he was afraid to influence.

“Come inside,” I said.

He did not move.

“That was permission, Silas.”

He crossed the threshold.

I closed the door but did not lock it. The room held a half-packed bag, Sophie's yellow sweater, and the courthouse shoes I had kicked beneath a chair. Nothing about it was romantic.

Maybe that was why the moment felt real.

“I was almost taken,” I said.

“I know.”

“Not tonight. Before. The ambulance. Darla. Nolan. Grant kept building doors and calling them treatment.”

Silas’s gaze stayed on my face.

“I keep thinking that if one thing had gone differently, Sophie would be with strangers and I would be in that old wing.”