Cody is a Montana rancher and a vet to the outside world, in reality he is a rancher who is a werewolf and emergency medic to other werewolves traveling across 9 point, the area where 9 pack borders meet and is nuetral ground. One day a human runs onto his ranch for help, his farmhands dont know what to do so they call for Cody who is stunned hes been called to help a human man. The human man is being hunted by rouge werewolves, Sebastian dosen't understand he is being helped by a werewolf. Sebastian stays on the farm to work as repayment for Cody's help, even though Cody says its not necessary. The workers on Cody's ranch are not all werewolves but all the humans know that and understand that...except Sebastion who starts having dreams about a dark figure stroking him and caressing him. Cody dosent know why but he shares erotic dreams with Sebastian, though Sebastion dosent know whats happening, As more time passes, Cody wants more and more to knot Sebastian. When a deadly winter storm breaks out everyone knows the rules of sharing beds to conserve body heat. The large winter bed is full, so Sebastian bunks with Cody and its getting harder and harder, pun intended.

Chapter 1: Blood in the Hay

The wind came slicing down from the mountains, carrying ice and the smell of pinesap. It whistled through the gaps in the old hay barn, making the single propane heater cough. Cody Blackwood’s hands were steady, the curved suture needle flashing in the beam of his headlamp as he pulled the last stitch tight.

Beneath him, the young wolf shuddered, a low whine vibrating in its throat.

“Almost done, Eli,” Cody murmured, his voice a rough calm in the gloom. “Just breathe through it.”

Eli was in his human skin now, face pressed into a horse blanket, the ugly gash across his flank weeping slow, dark blood. He’d crossed into Nine Points territory chased by a territorial dispute he had no part in. Cody’s job was to patch up the casualties of pack politics, to keep the neutral ground truly neutral. To the outside world, his veterinary practice was quiet, serving a few local farms. This was the real work.

The scent of infection—sweet and rotten—mixed with the deeper, musky odor of werewolf blood. Cody smeared a thick paste of silverwort and yarrow over the closed wound. It would sting like hellfire, but it would prevent sepsis and speed healing beyond human capability. Eli hissed through clenched teeth.

“Don’t shift for at least forty-eight hours,” Cody instructed, wiping his hands on a rag. “The stitches won’t hold. There’s a cabin at the north tree line. Stay there. I’ll bring food.”

Before Eli could grunt a thanks, the barn door crashed open.

A figure blotted out the grey twilight, snow swirling around him. Hank, Cody’s foreman, a werewolf with a grizzled beard and eyes that saw too much. He didn’t bother with preamble.

“South pasture. Now. It’s a human.”

Cody was already moving, snapping his medical kit closed. “Injured?”

“Bleeding out, I’d reckon. Tore up pretty bad. And he’s babbling, Cody.” Hank’s voice dropped, a gravelly whisper. “He’s talking about wolves that stood up and laughed.”

A cold deeper than the mountain winter settled in Cody’s gut. His own wolf, usually a dormant presence in his chest, lifted its head. Mine? it seemed to question, confused by the sudden spike of adrenaline that wasn’t theirs.

“Rogues,” Cody said, the word flat and final. He was already shrugging into his heavy coat. “They’re hunting on my land. And they let their prey run.”

The south pasture was a white expanse, fences barely visible in the dying light. The wind here was a physical force, stealing breath. Cody saw the dark splash against the snow first, a violent Rorschach blot leading into the lee of a broken stone wall.

The man was curled there, trying to become part of the stone. He was lean, all sharp angles under a torn jacket. Dusty blonde hair was matted with blood at the temple. His face, pressed into the frozen ground, was pale as wax except for the startling streak of crimson from his nose.

But it was the shoulder that was the worst. The jacket and flannel beneath were shredded, the fabric pushed into the wound itself. Claw marks. Deep, raking gouges that promised tendon damage, maybe bone.

Cody approached slowly, making noise. “Hey. Can you hear me?”

The man flinched, a full-body seizure of terror. He tried to push himself up, failed, and rolled onto his back. His green eyes were wide, glassy with pain and shock, reflecting the bleak sky. They locked onto Cody. For a second, there was pure, animal panic. Then something in them shifted, focusing.

“They… they weren’t normal,” the man stammered, his voice raw. “They were wolves, but they… they stood up.”

“I know,” Cody said, kneeling. The scent hit him then—blood, yes, fear-sweat, and beneath it, the singular, clean scent of the man himself. Pine and river clay and something uniquely, indefinably Sebastian. The name popped into Cody’s head from nowhere, and with it, a visceral, unwelcome sense of recognition. A feeling of skin he’d never touched.

His wolf surged forward, a rumble so deep in his chest he feared the man would hear it. MINE. The thought was not a question this time, but a declaration, primal and absolute. Cody shoved it down, hard.

“What’s your name?” he asked, his voice tighter than he intended.

“Sebastian. Vance.” He gasped as Cody probed the shoulder wound. “I was… hitching. Truck dropped me off at the highway. Thought I’d cut across… bad idea.”

“Yeah,” Cody agreed softly. “It was.” The claw marks were unmistakably werewolf, but made by someone playing with their food. This was torture, not a straightforward attack. Rogue behavior. The kind that started wars.

“We have to move. They’ll follow this blood trail right to you.” Cody didn’t wait for agreement. He slid his arms under Sebastian, one behind his back, the other under his knees.

“I can walk—” Sebastian protested, trying to stiffen.

“You can’t.” Cody lifted him as if he weighed nothing. Sebastian was all wiry muscle, but shock had made him limp. He cried out once, a bitten-off sound of agony, then went silent, jaw clenched so tight Cody heard his teeth grind. His head lolled against Cody’s shoulder.

The scent of him was everywhere now, in Cody’s nose, in his mouth. It was the scent from his dreams. The impossible, erotic dreams of shadows and touch and a low voice that wasn’t his own. This was the man whose subconscious had been tangled with his for weeks. The human his wolf had, on some profound level, already claimed.

It was a disaster of astronomical proportions.

Hank met them at the porch of the main house, his face grim. “I’ll salt the blood trail, lay some false scents west toward the river. Won’t hold ’em long if they’re determined.”

“Do it,” Cody said, shouldering his way inside. He carried Sebastian straight through the living room, past the stone fireplace and the worn leather couch, into the small room he used as a clinic. He laid him on the stainless steel table.

Sebastian’s eyes were fluttering, shock claiming him. “Don’t… hospital…” he mumbled.

“Not an option,” Cody said, pulling on fresh gloves, snapping on a brilliant LED light. The truth was, a human hospital would ask questions he couldn’t answer, and the rogues would find him there anyway. Here, at least, he had a chance.

He cut away the shredded clothing. The wounds were worse under the light—jagged, filthy, leaking. He worked quickly, mechanically, pouring saline that made Sebastian arch off the table with a strangled shout.

“Hold him,” Cody ordered Hank, who’d reappeared in the doorway.

As Hank pinned Sebastian’s good shoulder, Cody began the meticulous process of cleaning, debriding, and stitching. His veterinarian’s hands were precise, but his mind was a riot. His wolf was pacing, agitated, fascinated by the vulnerable human on their table. Every pained sound Sebastian made sparked a confusing urge to both soothe and protect. And beneath that, a deeper, darker current: the urge to claim. To bite. To knot. To make this hurt, terrified man irrevocably his.

It was an instinct older than reason, and it horrified him.

Sebastian passed out halfway through, which was a mercy. Cody finished in a heavy silence, the only sounds the howl of the wind and the whisper of suture through skin.

Finally, he bandaged the shoulder, injected a powerful antibiotic, and covered Sebastian with a wool blanket. In the stark light, unconscious, Sebastian looked younger. The sharpness of his face softened. The green eyes, now hidden, had been so vividly afraid.

“What now?” Hank asked quietly, looking at the sleeping human.

“Now we wait. For him to wake up. For them to come looking.” Cody ran a hand through his hair, exhaustion hitting him. “He can’t know what we are, Hank. You understand? Not a hint.”

“And the dreams?” Hank asked. He was the only one Cody had told about the confusing, shared visions.

Cody looked at the rise and fall of the blanket over Sebastian’s chest. The scent in the room was a mix of blood, antiseptic, and that haunting, specific fragrance that was Sebastian Vance. It already felt familiar. It already felt like home.

“He can’t know about those either,” Cody said, but his voice lacked conviction.

He turned off the bright exam light, leaving only the dim glow from the hallway. Outside, the storm redoubled its efforts, shaking the windows. Somewhere out in that swirling darkness, wolves that walked like men were following a scent trail of blood, leading right to his doorstep.

And inside, the object of their hunt—and the sudden, terrifying focus of his own wolf’s desire—slept fitfully mere feet away, utterly unaware that the man stitching his wounds was more dangerous than anything that had chased him through the snow.