The shrill whistle cut through the forest like a rocket's hiss. It seemed to get caught in the trees and glide between them before fading into the usual loud silence.

Alert as a predator, Ryker's gaze roamed, taking in everything surrounding him. There was a rustling there—no, it was too small. It was more likely a mouse, maybe another tiny rodent. Leaves trickled to the ground.

The ground was still damp from the recent rain, but the abundance of leaves made it impossible to spot a trail and guess where the boy might have gone. Only Chief's loud, steady bark showed which direction Liam had run off. A bark that ended so abruptly with the commanding whistle that his throat tightened with growing panic.

As calm as he tried to appear, appearances were deceptive. Ray struggled to keep his composure and clear his head. With every minute that passed, his chest grew tighter, the storm inside him louder and more booming. Between all the wild roaring, a single thought inside him was as sharp as a blade: 'It's all your fault!' it hissed through his subconscious, hitting the walls of his self-control again and again like swirling debris.

The guilt weighed heavy as lead on his shoulders and wrapped itself around his chest like claws, squeezing the breath from his lungs. Fear and worry ran like an icy shiver down his spine, and the muscles beneath the thick layers of fabric tensed anew with every step. With the tension, he felt the tremors running through his fingertips, pushing the pain of the shrapnel into his burning nerves. It was as if he had pebbles in his body that impeded his every breath. It mingled with the dull throbbing behind his forehead where the small stone had hit him. Blood smeared his skin and caught in red drops in his eyebrow. He resisted the reflex several times to keep wiping his forehead and eyes.

Instead, he kept blinking into the maze of leaves and trees, hoping to hear the rapid drumming of paws somewhere.

Everything looked the same wherever he looked: a sea of yellowish and orange colors, punctuated by the mighty columns of the old guardians, whose sparse canopy of leaves stretched into the sky.

His gaze slid unobtrusively to Eve, whose hand clung desperately to his as if he were her lifeline.

What had he been thinking?

How could he have been so... stupid?

He should have been thinking about Liam instead of just... himself and Eve. Ray couldn't believe it and wanted to shake himself that this woman had made entirely him lose sight of everything else.

Weeks had passed, yet he had known one thing with absolute certainty from the moment he entered the cottage: Liam adored his father. Otherwise, the little man would hardly have spoken of Dylan so gleefully (much to Eve's annoyance) at their unfortunate reunion.

The boy loved his soldiers, and in his childish naivety, he couldn't be blamed for that. It was only natural for a child to admire his father, who was fighting for his country. He himself had been absorbed in this patriotism and, as a boy, loved nothing more than his toy soldiers. That's why Ray had smiled when Liam played with the pots and the confetti cannon on the lawn in front of the boarding house and cheered loudly or when he had been absorbed in their little game of cowboys and Indians. He didn't judge it.

Liam loved his father; there was no doubt about that.

And that was a good thing. But then he arrived. A stranger, breaking into the new little world Kaylen and her son had built for themselves in this remote place, forced his way into the new beginning for which they had given up everything. To Liam, Ray was an intruder. He stole Liam and Dylan's mum and was someone who could bring the child's world crashing down. And all because Ray had fallen in love.

Ryker felt his jaw muscles tighten beneath his freshly trimmed beard and his teeth grit as he closed his eyes for a brief heartbeat.

Damn, he had tried to pull himself together. To fight back the feelings that had sprouted inside him and that Eve's manner and Liam's endearing personality had only made them grow. No matter how many times he plucked out the shoots, the roots went too deep.

He knew it was wrong. Very well, in fact. Eve was his mate's (still) wife, and Liam was his son. Damn it, no matter what had happened... It still sucked. But he couldn't change it.

The problem was... Liam wouldn't understand.

"Traitor!" Liam's reproachful exclamation echoed through his head as if that one word would only add to the gnawing guilt. The torn, sickening feeling inside him almost drove him mad—a mixture of consuming despair and growing self-hatred.

Liam's words had hit the nail on the head without the boy realizing it.

Ryker was a traitor. A wolf in sheep's clothing who had snuck into the family and fallen in love with the sheep of all people.

When Ray opened his eyes again, he looked at the beautiful woman beside him.

The one who had taken him in her arms and had not moved away from him as if she had burnt herself. The one who listened to him and, despite everything that had happened to her, reached out to help him. A virtual stranger.

Eve was so incredibly endearing that she touched something in him and had burnt her name into his heart with that gentle touch, like acid into stone.

Although she was struggling with the shadows of her past, the young woman had reached out to him, putting the sea of broken pieces he represented back together and giving him something he hadn't experienced or allowed in his life for an eternity: love.

And not only that. Riona, Edana, Eve, and Liam offered him a place where he felt safe. Something he could call home and not just a place to sleep that meant nothing to him.

And how did he repay them? With a betrayal that couldn't have been crueler.

Was that what he wanted?

Hurt Eve just when she was slowly regaining her self-confidence?

Was he going to risk everything he had been given and everything he had found here?

His free hand clenched so tightly that his fingernails pressed painfully into his palm, no doubt leaving marks on his skin and flesh. His features hardened as a determined glint entered his eyes.

NO!

Although it hardly seemed possible, the muscles beneath his skin tightened even more.

He wasn't prepared to risk everything.

He wasn't ready to lose everything he'd found here.

He wasn't prepared to lose Eve because he'd made a stupid mistake.

He had to come clean - and as quickly as possible.

But first, there was something more important.

"No barking," the voice beside him snapped him out of his thoughts. "Ray, why can't we hear Chief anymore?"

Eve's voice trembled under the emotions raging inside her like a hurricane: despair, guilt, panic, and worry. He didn't just hear them in her words; he also saw them in her posture, the tense trembling of her shoulders, the way she bit her red lips restlessly, and the way her gaze kept gliding restlessly over her surroundings.

The sight of Eve was like a gust of wind that hit a house of cards and brought it crashing down. It tightened his stomach, and Ray couldn't - and wouldn't - suppress the impulse. As quickly as the stern expression had slipped onto his features, it disappeared again as the tense figure slumped a little. He gently stroked the back of Eve's hand with his thumb, massaging the tense tendons and feeling them loosen before releasing his hand from hers. But only to place it against her cheek.

"Eve," he raised his voice, forcing it not to tremble. "We'll find him," he tried to ease her worries, sounding confident as his thumbs slowly stroked her cheeks. "Chief will have heard the whistle and be coming to us. That's probably why we can't hear him," he explained, fervently hoping that his hunch was correct. "If he's here, he can direct us to Liam. The little one is just confused... Everything will be fine."

For a moment, his grey-blue eyes met her green ones, streaked with blue speckles like small lakes in a vast meadow landscape. Even now, as the moist lustre shimmered in these beautiful mirrors of the soul, he was in danger of sinking into them. If eyes were the mirrors of the soul, then you could tell from Eve how beautiful hers was.

Ray had to swallow harder and felt his Adam's apple bounce in his throat before he leaned forward. Tenderly, he rested his forehead against hers.

"We'll find him," the promise rolled softly from his lips again as he gently brushed one of the red strands behind her ear. "I promise."

A loud rustling sound came out of nowhere as if fate wanted to emphasize his words.

As if stung by a tarantula, Ray jerked his body around. He grabbed Eve and pulled her behind him for protection in case of an attack. To Eve, this reaction might seem exaggerated, and if he was honest, he even hoped she didn't understand.

The young mum had no idea about the words 'HOME' on the red box or about this stalker who had been on her tail the whole time... Damn, he shouldn't have just trusted Dylan. All psychopaths had relatives or friends who would never have trusted them to do that.

All at once, the muscles in his body tensed again, and one hand gripped the penknife he'd slipped into his jacket pocket to mark their path.

A shadow flitted through the light undergrowth toward them. Its paws kicked up leaves, and its pink tongue hung out of its large mouth, panting.

"Chief!" Eve's hoarse cry came from her soft lips as the tension in his body gave way to a wave of relief. At the same time, some of his tension eased, and he let the knife slip from his hand back into his jacket pocket.

Eve broke away from him and stormed past him, sobbing, towards the male to receive him. Chief's pink tongue hung out of his mouth as he stood before them, his faithful black eyes staring alternately at Eve and Ray.

The young woman dropped to her knees to praise the male dog. She was baffled, which became apparent when her fingers first reached past Chief because of her disability, and then she had to grope for the dog. Her fingers reached for him, and Ryker saw the trembling on her fingertips. Her mistress stroked the dog's forehead and patted the sheepdog.

"Good boy ... good boy ..." his mum stammered.

But he was breathless.

The faithful companion was stiffly and tensely digging his paws into the thin layer of leaves. The dark fur on the male dog's crest was erect, and his tail was no longer wagging with joy and delight as it had all along. Without the collar, you could almost have thought you were looking at a completely different, strange dog. But it was undoubtedly Chief. And his body language signaled one thing very clearly:

DANGER!