"Spending the night here," Zade says, stretching his back, "Not a good idea for our back." They had to sleep on the couch, eating nothing but disgustingly soggy noodles. Abir on the other hand was trying to look for a signal on his cell phone but couldn't find any. The last time he called Ivory was yesterday.

"All the more reason to make it comfortable for our girls," Abir says stuffing his phone in the pocket and gathering some firewood. It was awfully cold at night.

"Our girls?" Zade almost snorts at that description.

"What?" he asks, grinning like a madman, "My Ivory and your Inara." He teases.

Zade angrily snatches the wood he was carrying and kept it on his shoulders, ignoring whatever Abir was saying.

"Come on, haven't you thought about it?" Abir wasn't going to leave the topic alone.

"About what?' Zade replies, still minding his own business.

"You know what," Abir says knowingly. Zade takes a deep sigh and keeps the wood on the floor.

"I am under a treaty with the Silver Bows. I cannot break that." He says and goes towards the kitchen to fix himself breakfast. Again, with soggy noodles.

"Fuck the treaty." Abir stops Zade from avoiding the situation. "Inara is your mate. Not everyone in this world is lucky enough to get a mate. You don't have to forcefully make someone your mate and Inara gets to have a second chance to a happy life, with a person she loves!"

"Well, life would have been a lot easier if I thought the same. But the last time when a treaty was broken, I was there to see the destruction with my own eyes. I won't repeat that. Not to get a perfect life I have always been dreaming about. Not to have that perfect life with Inara when I can save both her and my pack from utter destruction." Zade has a calm tone to this voice, showing that he has thought about this over and over.

"Inara likes you Zade," Abir says emotionally.

"Guess what, I like her too. I have a dream too. I want to have the love of my life. I want to meet someone that's like fate. And that someone is Inara but you know what is stopping me from achieving that dream? My scared, protective self. I cannot risk anyone's life anymore just to fulfill that dream of mine. At least not now, when we have Victor chasing us. Not when Inara doesn't have her memories."

He turns to Abir and looks directly into his eyes. Abir could say he was hurt by saying all this but he knew it was the truth.

"And what happens once she gets her memories back, huh? She will get her feelings back for her old mate too, right?"

Zade leaves a much devastated Abir in the kitchen

───── ❝ Next day, in the evening..... ❞ ─────

"But those creepy fuckers have eight legs! And they crawl on your skin like they are climbing the Himalayas!" Zade tries to find an excuse for his inexplicable fear of spiders. While they were cleaning for the past few days, he encountered a lot of them. Needless to say, Abir recorded him while trying to run from it, jumping on the table and almost breaking it.

He was playing those videos when they were driving back to the town.

"It's just a spider." Abir is still trying to suppress his laughter. "Have you seen a centipede and the insane amount of legs they have?"

Zade just glares back at him and tries to threaten him to delete those videos, only if they worked on Abir.

"Don't worry, I won't show them to Inara." He winks at him.

They had reached Inara's house but Zade was feeling a sense of uneasiness. It wasn't his own so he thought that Inara was distressed about something. Abir leaped off the car and opened the door in haste. This man who always clings to Ivory hasn't seen her in two and a half days. He clearly missed her!

Abir hugs her, inhaling her scent.

"I missed you!" he says but he smells her distress. As if something is wrong. Zade wasn't too behind of him when he is hit with that familiar Omega scent he was forced to live with.

"Evelyn." He says with a shock.

"So, you do remember me!" she was standing in a fashionable pose, dragging a knife off the armrest of the chair, to which Inara was tied. Ivory looks at both Abir and Zade and that's when they notice. Her lip was bleeding and her left cheek was a bit swollen.

"Did she do this?" Abir asks softly, holding Ivory's face. She nods, sniffling a bit. Abir looks at Evelyn and launches at her but she knocks him with the base of her knife.

"You should surround yourself with a stronger lot. Not minion wolves and a wannabe wolf." She points at Inara who was unconscious, tied to the chair.

Zade doesn't say another word. He paces towards Abir and helps him get up. He looks at Ivory for some help. Next, he moves to Inara but Evelyn stops him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"What do you want?" Zade was releasing his pheromones and Evelyn drops down, feeling weak. This gives Zade some time to help Inara.

"I see," Evelyn says, "You have got your wolf back. Is it because of her?" she smirks even though she was weak.

"What do you want?" Zade's voice roars around the house.

"Sign this. Permission to nullify our treaty. To nullify our marriage." She throws the paper at him.

Zade takes it and signs it without even looking at it. "Happy? Now leave! And do not dare to show your face here again!" he pushes her out of the house and bangs the door on her face.

Evelyn clutches the paper in her hand. She knows where to go next.

"He has signed it. My work here is done with you." Evelyn throws it at Brent's desk. "Now my pack is free to go."

"But you aren't. You are still indebted to fulfill the consequences of nullifying the treaty." Brent says calmly. Now that he has both the signatures of the concerning parties, getting a signature from Victor wasn't a big deal.

"I know that. But I'll be leaving Alaska in a few days." Evelyn sits down. Brent looks at her with shock but doesn't react. He always knew this was a one-time thing. But his wolf, Titan was surely upset.

"Good. We will call you when we need you." He gets up to escort her out of his office. "Thanks for the maps too." He smiles at her.

Evelyn nods and smiles back. Whatever this was, she did have fun with Brent, she won't forget that. "Don't forget your promise with me though." She hugs him one last time but before saying her goodbyes, she whispers one last thing.

"I hope this is a juicy secret." She winks and leaves.