Chapter 26 · The Second Heartbeat

"Take your hand off me, Rayne."

His fingers stayed locked around my wrist.

Not hard enough to bruise. Just hard enough to remind me that he could.

Behind him, two soldiers dragged open the steel doors of the medical wing. The room beyond was all cracked glass, rusted tables, and dead white lights. My stomach turned before I even stepped inside.

Rayne looked down at my wrist, then back at my face. His thumb rested over the thin scar hidden beneath my sleeve.

"You want me to let go?"

"I want you to stop treating me like I’m the prisoner."

"You are the prisoner if that door closes behind you."

I yanked once. His grip tightened.

His scent hit me at close range—cold smoke, iron, and the sharp pine bite that always made my wolf press toward him. The bond between us pulled low in my ribs, ugly and hungry.

I hated it.

I hated that my body recognized him when my mind still remembered him rejecting me in front of half the camp.

"You dragged me into