Chapter 4 Feral Pact: Lucian

When finally waking up, I find myself staying within a cave, a cave that was either good or very bad.

The man sitting directly across from me massive. Taunt muscles and dangerous grace, with eyes that were still half-golden, and a scent that made my wolf sit and take notice. The man watching me with an expression that was equally part curiosity and hunger, like he was trying to figure out if I was a threat or a meal.

My body trained to read people. Years of serving the Directorate taught me how to assess threats, identify weaknesses, and calculate whether someone would break or hold. Yet when seeing this man. I knew he was something else entirely. Because he didn’t fit into any category I’d ever been taught. Not one.

“Good, you’re awake,” he says. His voice rough, like gravel and smoke.

“Where am I?” I ask. My throat feeling like it was scraped raw, like I’d been screaming and couldn’t remember. And maybe I did. The last thing I remembered was running through the forest, bleeding, half-shifted, and a pain so intense it consumed everything else.

“Safe,” the man counters. “For now.”

For now. Not exactly a reassurance. But a statement of fact. A reminder that safety was temporary, and the Directorate would keep hunting, and no place was truly safe.

“Who are you?” I ask instead.

“Raze.”

A word. No elaboration. No further explanation. Just a name, delivered like a fact, like that was all the information I needed or deserved.

My eyes still locked upon his, still trying to know exactly what I was dealing with. The man clearly an alpha. The scent, the dominance, the way he carried himself all screamed it. But he wasn’t a Directorate. No. There was something feral about him, something wild that the regime couldn’t stamp out. Something that refused to be stamped.

I recognized the refusal. I chose it earlier.

“You saved me,” I state. Not a question. I could piece together what happened, the ravine, the half-shift, the bleeding. I should’ve died there. By all rights, I should have died in that ravine and became food for the forest.

But I didn’t.

“I did.”

“Why?”

Raze’s jaw soon tightening. The muscles along his neck rigid. “Don’t ask questions.”

Yet I needed to push. Every instinct. Every operative instinct. That need to understand my environment, to assess threats and opportunities all told me to push back. That something in Raze’s expression, something in the way his eyes flashed gold for only a second, told me that pushing him to far would be a huge mistake.

Instead, I sit up slowly, taking inventory of all my injuries. My ribs wrapped tightly, professionally. Someone who knew what they were doing had bound them together. My wounds cleaned and bandaged with a precision that suggested medical training. Someone had taken care of me. Someone deciding I was worth saving.

That someone now sitting across from me, watching me like he couldn’t quite figure out what he’d done or why.

“How long was I out for?” I ask, that need to know present.

“Two days.”

Two days. The Directorate would have already declared me dead. They’d soon be hunting for my body, or they’d have moved on to the next big target. Either way, Lucian Thorne was gone. The operative who refused a direct order. An asset who physically escaped. And a problem that needed to be solved. Stat.

A thought that should’ve terrified me yet didn’t. Instead, it felt like instant relief. And for the first time, I was finally free.

“I need to get to the city,” I say. “There’s a resistance cell. They’ll take me in.”

“The resistance,” Raze says, and suddenly, there’s something like contempt along his voice. Like he’d tasted the word and found it bitter. “You’re going to trade one master for another.”

“No,” I counter. “I’m going to fight back.”

Raze studying me for a long, hard moment. His eyes fully gold, his wolf close to the surface. I could practically feel the power radiating against him. Raw, uncontrolled, and very dangerous. This was a man who never accepted a leash, who never bowed to anyone other than himself, and carved out his own territory and defended it with violence.

“You’re going to die,” he says sternly. “The Directorate doesn’t let people go. They hunt them until they’re dead.”

“Then I’ll die fighting,” I tell him. “It’s better than living upon my knees.”

Something flickering across his face. Recognition. Or possibly understanding. The look of someone who’d made the same choice I did, who decided that freedom was worth the cost, even if the cost itself was death.

“The resistance cell is in the industrial district,” Raze offers. “I’ll take you there. But after that, we’re done. I don’t do groups. I don’t do packs. I don’t do anything that requires me to care about anyone but myself.”

The words harsh, but I could hear the lie beneath them. A man who didn’t care wouldn’t have saved me. A man who didn’t care wouldn’t have spent two days nursing me back to health. A man who didn’t care wouldn’t be sitting here, watching me with that mixture of hunger and something that might’ve been concern.

“Okay,” I say, even though I didn’t quite believe it myself. Even though I could feel something shifting between us, something that felt like the beginning of a bond, and the start of a pack.

Thus, the moment night hits do we instantly leave the cave. Raze moving along the forest like he owned it—because he did. The trees all seeming to part ways. While the undergrowth didn’t tangle around his feet. The forest itself recognizing Raze as king.

Quick to follow, I trust my instincts completely. The man once saving my life. That alone had to mean something. That alone had to be the start of something much greater.

Eventually, we make it to the edge of town by dawn. The sun rising over the industrial district, painting the sky in shades of orange and red. The warehouses gradually coming into focus, the resistance cell somewhere along those shadows.

Raze stopping along the tree line, refusing to go further. His jaw clenched. His hands fisted along his sides. “The warehouse district,” he says, pointing. “That’s where you’ll find them.”

His tone giving me the exact moment I could feel him pull away. Could feel his walls starting to go up, and the defenses reinforcing themselves. This was the moment when he was going to leave, when he was going to return to his forest and solitude and pretend the last two days never happened. But above all, I didn’t want him to go.

“Come with me,” I offer.

“No.”

“You’re running from the regime just like me. You could—”

“I said no.” His voice now a growl, his eyes fully golden, his wolf near the surface. “I don’t need the resistance. I don’t need anyone. Not even you.”

Still, I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him that no one needed to be alone, that pack was strength, and together we could do far more than we could apart. Wanting to tell him that I felt something within the cave, something that felt like the beginning of a bond, and I didn’t want to lose it.

But I could see it was pointless. His walls were up, reinforced and impenetrable. Raze deciding that solitude was far safer than bonds, and no amount of argument was going to change that.

Instead, I nod and turn towards the city. My ribs aching as I move to walk away. An ache saying I lived. An ache saying survival.

“Lucian,” Raze calls.

Pausing, I slowly turn. Raze standing along the edge of the trees, his silhouette against the rising sun, his appearance wild, untamed and naturally beautiful.

“Don’t die.”

His words ringing along my ears. No promise. No commitment. Not even a declaration that resembled a pack. Just a few short words, delivered by a rough voice. His golden eyes watching, watching as though he cared and whether or not I lived or died.

A simple gesture.

And one I take in small strides.

Nodding, I turn and continue heading towards the city and away from everything, away from Raze, and the possibility of a pack I felt slipping through my fingers.

From behind, I could hear Raze moving back towards the trees. Could feel the distance growing between us. Could feel the bond that formed beginning to fray. And still, those two simple words continued to stay alongside me: Don’t die.

Words I held too like a promise.