The safehouse was a dilapidated cabin tucked behind a wall of overgrown pines, twenty miles north of the city. To anyone else, it looked like a structural hazard; to Andrea, it was the place where her life was going to officially end.
"Get out," she commanded, though her voice cracked as she killed the Corolla's engine. The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the rhythmic tink-tink-tink of the cooling metal and Viktor's shallow, rattling breaths.
Viktor didn't move. His head was slumped against the window, his dark brown hair plastered to his forehead. The heat coming off him was so intense she could see the condensation forming on the glass.
"Viktor! Don't you dare die in my passenger seat. I haven't even finished paying the car insurance!" She grabbed his shoulder, shaking him.
His blue eyes snapped open, glazed with fever and pain. "Inside... go... inside."
Hauling him out was a nightmare. He was a dead weight of muscle and heat, and by the time she got him through the door and onto a moth-eaten sofa, Andrea was drenched in a mix of rain, sweat, and his unnervingly hot blood. She kicked the door shut, locking it with a rusted bolt that offered zero comfort.
"Okay. Okay, Andrea. Assessing. Airway, breathing, circulation," she whispered, her hands trembling as she tore open her medical bag. "Patient is a massive Russian mobster who might be a dog. Diagnosis: gunshot wound with... whatever the hell that smoke is."
She ripped the rest of his shirt away, and her breath hitched. The wound wasn't just bleeding; it was glowing. A faint, sickening silver light pulsed from deep within the charred tissue. The smell hit her then—burnt hair and ozone.
"You're smoking, Viktor. Humans don't smoke unless they're on fire. Why are you smoking?"
"Silver..." he choked out, his fingers clawing into the sofa's fabric. "Must... get it out... or I won't... turn."
"Turn? Turn into what? A pile of ash? Because that's the direction we're heading!" She grabbed a bottle of high-proof vodka she'd found in the glovebox and a pair of forceps. "I don't have anesthesia, Viktor. I have a half-empty bottle of Smirnoff and a nursing student who is currently failing her mental health check."
"Do it," he growled. His eyes flared gold for a second, a desperate, animalistic plea. "Now."
"Fine. Bite on this." She shoved a rolled-up towel into his mouth. "And if you bite my fingers off, I'm leaving you for the shadow monsters."
Andrea poured the vodka over the forceps and then over the wound. Viktor's body buckled, a muffled roar echoing through the towel. His back arched off the sofa, his muscles corded like steel cables.
She didn't let herself think. She didn't let herself freak out about the fact that his blood felt like boiling water against her skin. She dove in.
The forceps disappeared into the hole in his side. She could feel the resistance, the way his flesh seemed to be fighting the metal. The charred edges of the wound hissed, more of that acrid smoke curling into her nostrils.
"I found it," she whispered, her green eyes fixed on the task. "I've got it. Hang on, you big idiot."
She gripped the object—a small, jagged piece of metal—and pulled.
Viktor's scream was a primal, chest-deep sound that shook the walls of the cabin. His hand shot out, catching Andrea by the throat. He didn't squeeze, but the sheer size of his palm swallowed her neck. His blue eyes were wide, the pupils blown into black voids.
"Let... go!" she managed to wheeze, even as she yanked the bullet free.
It clattered into a metal tray, a jagged shard of silver that smoked as soon as it left his body.
The change was instantaneous.
The smoke stopped. The silver glow died out. Before Andrea's eyes, the charred, blackened edges of the wound began to pink over. It wasn't human healing; it was a time-lapse video of a forest fire recovering in seconds. The skin didn't just close; it knitted itself back together with a wet, slithering sound that made her stomach turn.
Viktor slumped back, his grip on her throat loosening. He spat the towel out, his chest heaving as he stared at the ceiling.
Andrea sat back on her heels, her hands covered in his blood, her scrubs ruined. She stared at the tray, then at the man whose side was now smooth, save for a faint, silver-white scar that hadn't been there a minute ago.
"You... you just healed," she whispered, the 'normal person' part of her brain finally fracturing. "That's not... that's not possible. Biology doesn't work like that. Cells don't divide that fast. You're a medical impossibility. You're a freak of nature."
Viktor turned his head, his blue eyes clear now, focused on her with a terrifying intensity.
"I am a Volkov," he rasped. "And you... Andrea... you are very loud for someone so small."
"Loud? I just performed surgery in a shack while being hunted by shadows!" She stood up, her sass returning as her fight-or-flight response chose 'fight.' "I should be screaming at the top of my lungs! I should be calling the Guinness World Records! I should be—"
He moved.
In the blink of an eye, he was off the sofa and standing in front of her. He was a head taller than her, a wall of tattooed muscle that smelled of rain and something wild. He didn't look like a dying man anymore. He looked like a god of war.
"You should be quiet," he whispered, his voice a low, velvet threat. He reached out, his thumb catching a drop of blood on her cheek. "The hunters are still out there. And now that you have tasted my blood... they can smell you, too."
Andrea froze. "Tasted your blood? I didn't taste anything! I just got it on my hands!"
"It is in your pores, Kotenok," he said, his hand sliding into her hair, his fingers tangling in the dark brown strands. He pulled her head back just enough to force her to look at him. "You are marked. To them, you are no longer a human. You are mine."
"I am not 'yours,'" she hissed, though her breath hitched as his thumb brushed over her lower lip. "I am a nursing student with a midterm on Monday. I have a cat named Mittens who needs to be fed. I am not a 'mark,' and I am certainly not a 'kitten.'"
Viktor's eyes darkened, a flash of something hungry and possessive crossing his face. He leaned down, his lips inches from hers.
"Mittens will have to wait," he murmured. "We leave for Russia in an hour."
"Russia? I don't even have a coat, Viktor!"
"I will keep you warm," he promised, his voice dropping to a lethal, primal rumble.
Before she could retort, the sound of a distant howl echoed through the trees. Viktor's jaw set, his entire body tensing like a coiled spring.
"Go to the back room," he commanded. "Find the bag under the floorboards. There are clothes. Change."
"And if I don't?"
He leaned in closer, his heat radiating through her damp scrubs. "Then I will carry you across the border exactly as you are. And I don't think the Russian winter will be as kind to you as I am."
Andrea glared at him, her green eyes sparking with fury, but she turned and stomped toward the back room. "I'm billing you for the scrubs, Viktor! Top-tier brand! And I want a grilled cheese on the plane!"
Viktor watched her go, a small, dangerous smile playing on his lips. His wolf was quiet for the first time in years, settled by the scent of the woman who had dared to swear at an Alpha. She didn't know it yet, but the cage door had already slammed shut.