Chapter 7: The Morning After Realization
The vacuum sealer whined, a high, insectile buzz that drilled straight into Coyle’s temples. He fed the heavy-duty plastic bag into the machine, watching it suck tight around a brick of pale, chalky tablets.Medical-grade suppressants. The irony was a rotten taste in the back of his throat. His hands moved on autopilot, efficient and cold—bag, seal, box, repeat. The repetitive motion was usually a kind of meditation, a way to quiet the wolf and the memories both.But not today.
A scent ghosted through the warehouse’s usual stink of oil, metal, and wet dog. It was just a memory, but it hit him with the force of a physical blow.Copper. Sun-warmed pine needles.Dark, rich earth after a rain. Bunny’s scent, true and unmasked, as it had been for one fleeting second outside the Lucky Clover when the wind had caught her hair.
His hands froze on the next bag.The sealer finished its cycle with a hiss.
The truth didn’t dawn.It detonated.It wasn’t just attraction.It wasn’t curiosity. The compulsive pull, the hyper-awareness, the way his every instinct had howled mine and protect in equal measure. The suppressants she’d been on—Kellan’s “vitamins”—they hadn’t just hidden her wolf. They’d hidden this.She was his mate.
The sealer’s buzz became the hum of fluorescent lights in a white-tiled room. The scent of plastic twisted into the sterile, antiseptic stench of Facility 9. For a second, he wasn’t in the warehouse; he was on a cold steel table, straps biting his wrists, a face in a mask hovering over him, a voice saying, Subject 001 shows aberrant bonding behavior.Note the physiological obsession with the pain stimulus. It's a faulty imprinting.He slammed back into the present with a gut-churning lurch. A snarl ripped from his throat, low and vicious.His vision tinged amber at the edges. He grabbed the sealed box, his fingers denting the cardboard. Then his claws punched through, shredding it, the sound a violent tear in the warehouse’s steady rhythm.He wasn’t furious at her. He was furious at the wasted time, at the blindness, at the monster who had kept her muzzled and in the dark.At himself, for walking away.“Whoa. Bad batch?”
Coyle’s head snapped up. Cain was leaning in the doorway to the back office, a chipped mug of coffee in hand. His sharp blue eyes took in the ruined box, the tight line of Coyle’s shoulders, the faint tremor in his claws before they retracted.
“No,” Coyle growled, his voice gravel.Cain sipped his coffee, unfazed.“Okay. So it’s the other thing. The girl from the bar.” He walked in, his boots scuffing on the concrete. “You’ve been about as subtle as a heart attack since last night. Diesel’s worried you blew a gasket on the ride back.”
“I need to find her.Now.” The words were bare, stripped of any pretense.
“Find who?Sennia? She’s a sweetheart, but I don’t think she’s your type.”
“Bunny.” The name felt like a live coal in his mouth.
Cain’s casual demeanor evaporated. He set the mug down on a workbench with a quiet click.“The complicated one.The one with the ex who sounds like a real piece of work. The one Sennia explicitly said was off-limits.” He moved closer, his voice dropping. “Coyle.Think.You’re the Alpha. We’re in the middle of a deal with the Cascadians. We can’t have you chasing some terrified girl who’s probably halfway to Mexico by now.”
“She’s not.” Coyle turned, facing his Beta fully.The amber hadn’t left his eyes.“She can’t be. She doesn’t know.”
“Doesn’t know what?”
The warehouse felt too small, the ceiling too low.The words clawed their way up, foreign and absolute. “She’s my mate.”
Silence.It swallowed the distant clank of Diesel’s forge. Cain didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. His gaze just grew more intent, assessing, calculating the ramifications like a tactical problem.“You’re sure.”
“Last night. I caught her true scent. The suppressants were hiding it.” He dragged a hand over his face, the scars on his knuckles stark.“He’s been doping her, Cain. Keeping her from shifting, from feeling her own strength.From feeling this. Do you know what that does to someone?”
A muscle ticked in Cain’s jaw.He knew. They all knew something about being caged, about having your nature twisted.“Yeah. I do.” He sighed, the sound whistling through his teeth.“Shit.Okay. This changes the geometry.”
“It changes everything.” Coyle started pacing, a caged predator.“I left her there.I walked away. He could have her again.He could be…” The thoughts were sawtoothed, slicing inward. Images flashed: Bunny flinching from a pool cue, the tremor in her hands, the way she’d looked at him like he was another kind of storm.“Okay, cool the jets. Sennia’s smart.She’s got her hidden away somewhere. A safe house, probably.” Cain folded his arms.“But you can’t just go crashing in. If this Kellan is even half as connected as Sennia implied, he’ll have eyes. You show up as a unknown Alpha sniffing around his property?That’s a war. And not just with him.The Cascadians get spooked, they pull the deal. We lose the territory buffer.We lose the revenue.The pack suffers.”
Coyle stopped pacing. The logic was solid, ice-cold. It was the same logic that had kept him alive in Facility 9, that had built the Daggerbacks from nothing. It warred with the raw, screaming instinct in his blood.The wolf didn’t understand territory deals or revenue. It understood mate, danger, claim.
“So what’s your play, Beta?” Coyle asked, his voice dangerously quiet.Cain met his stare.“We find her.But we do it quiet. You don’t go in as a raging Alpha.You go in as… a neighbor. A concerned stranger from the bar who happened to see something.We use the network. I’ll put feelers out, see if anyone’s heard of a Kellan holding a wolf against her will. Sennia trusts Diesel. Maybe he can get a location from her.” He stepped forward, his gaze unwavering.“But you have to promise me you won’t go off half-cocked. You let the pack help.This isn’t just your fight anymore.She’s yours. That makes her ours.”
The words landed, a weight and a relief. Coyle forced air into his lungs.The wolf paced, but the man reasserted control.For now. “Alright.”
“Good.” Cain picked up his coffee mug again. “Now, maybe try not to destroy any more product. We need that Cascadian money to fund this rescue operation.” A ghost of his old smirk returned.“Never a dull moment with you, 001.”
Coyle didn’t smile back. His mind was already tearing through possibilities, plans forming in the shadows of his skull. He looked at the ruined box, then at his scarred hands. The addictive, familiar ache for speed—for the blur of the highway and the punishing roar of his motorcycle—surged up. It was a different kind of pain, one he could control. One that could maybe outrun the screaming in his blood for a few hours.
“I’m going for a ride,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument.Cain just nodded, understanding the unspoken need. “Don’t get pinched. And keep your phone on.”
Coyle was already grabbing his jacket from a hook, the leather cool and heavy.He shoved his arms into the sleeves, the action purposeful, ritualistic. Every second was a taunt.Every mile between him and her felt like a failure. But Cain was right.A blunt-force attack would put her in more danger. He had to be smarter than his instincts.He had to be the Alpha, not just the wolf.
He pushed through the heavy side door, the damp night air hitting his face. His motorcycle stood a few feet away, a sleek, dark beast of chrome and polished black. He swung a leg over, feeling the engine thrum to life under him with a kick.The vibration traveled up his spine, a grounding, physical shock.
As he roared out of the warehouse lot, the wind whipping at his jacket, one thought cycled over and over, keeping time with the pounding of the engine.Hold on. Just hold on.@The lab number