“Everything okay over here?”
I jumped.
Raphael stood in the doorway, arms crossed, leaning like he owned the place. His eyes roamed over me with that same intense, possessive look — like I was something he’d lost but still believed belonged to him.
“I’m fine,” I said quickly, pasting on a smile.
His eyes narrowed. “Your eyes are red.”
“Onions,” I lied, gesturing to the cutting board.
He laughed, stepping into the kitchen like he hadn’t just inserted himself where he wasn’t wanted. “Still such a bad liar. You always cried when we fought, remember?”
I turned back to the stove, my hand tightening on the wooden spoon.
“You need help?” he asked, his voice softening.
“Bethany’s got it.”
A pause.
Then I felt him behind me — not touching, but too close. Invading. Like always.
“You look really good tonight,” he said, low and loaded.
My jaw clenched. “Thanks.”
“I mean it. Seeing you here again… it’s like old times, like coming home.”
“It’s not.” I turned to face him. “Old times are over, Raphael.”
He smirked like I’d told a joke. “I made mistakes. I got jealous. But I was just trying to protect us. You were everything to me.”
“No. I was just yours. Your project. Your possession.”
His face shifted, defensive. “That’s not fair—”
“You hated when I talked about my past. You hated my friends. You tracked my location ‘just to be safe.’ You didn’t protect anything — you controlled me.”
“I was scared of losing you.”
“You did. The second you stopped listening to me.”
He stepped closer. “I can change. You said you weren’t ready for something serious, but maybe now—”
“Raphael.”
My voice was sharp, final.
“There is no maybe. I’m not that girl anymore — the one who kept her mouth shut just to keep the peace. She’s gone.”
His smile faltered. “So this is it?”
“This is me choosing myself.”
“Because of him?” he snapped.
“Because of me.” My voice didn’t waver. “Because I know what love should feel like. And it’s not fear.”
His mouth opened — probably to argue, or deny, or blame — but footsteps interrupted.
Brad stepped into the kitchen, calm as ever, holding two wine glasses.
“Everything okay?” he asked, gaze flicking from Raphael to me.
I nodded.
“Perfect timing,” I said. “We’re done here.”
Raphael’s jaw twitched as he looked Brad up and down.
“We were just catching up.”
“Didn’t look like it.”
Brad handed me a glass and placed a warm hand on the small of my back. A small touch — grounding, quiet, and everything Raphael never was.
Moments later, we were all seated at the table—me, Brad, Bethany, and Raphael—plates piled high with pasta and sauce.
Brad took a bite, chewed slowly, then looked at me with something tender in his eyes.
“You cook like your mother.”
I froze.
Just for a second.
Then I smiled, a tight, quiet thing.
“That’s the best compliment I could ever get.”
But inside, I was unraveling.
My mother was the female beta, she had ruled the pack kitchen. Calm. Generous. Fierce. She made meals feel like home—even during war.
And now Brad sat at her table.
Ate her food.
Spoke to her daughter.
He lived the life I ran from.
A part of me—some deep, wounded piece—ached with envy.
Envy that he still had that world.
Envy that I missed it so damn much.
As Brad handed me his dish, our fingers touched.
And the spark that jumped between us nearly dropped me to my knees.
His scent hit me hard—raw pine, warmth, leather. It curled into my lungs and wrapped around my spine.
My wolf surged forward like she was breaking through a cage.
My thighs clenched.
My panties were soaked in an instant, and my breath stuttered out of me.
I looked up.
Brad’s eyes glowed in the low light.
His hands pressed against the table—white-knuckled.
His chest rose and fell in slow, shallow waves.
The whole room held its breath—
Until Bethany scooped up the wine glasses and broke the spell.
I followed her into the kitchen, trying to steady my pulse.
I turned on the water and started scrubbing plates like my life depended on it. Without Brad in the room, I could finally breathe again—almost.
The others moved in and out of the kitchen, dropping dishes, boxing up leftovers. Eventually, Bethany and Raphael drifted back to the living room.
I thought I was alone.
Until I felt him.
Brad stepped behind me, silent as a shadow.
He placed a glass beside the sink.
And then—
I gasped, bracing against the counter.
His cock throbbed against me through his jeans—thick, firm, impossible to ignore.
My body lit up like fire.
My head dropped. My eyes fluttered shut.
“You need to fix this soon,” he whispered into my ear, his breath hot against my skin.
Then—just as quickly—he stepped back.
Gone.
The heat of him vanished, but my body still burned.
My hands gripped the edge of the sink like it could anchor me.
I stared into the water, panting, pulse pounding in my throat.
And behind my eyes, my wolf whispered one word, over and over—
Run.
I spent the whole day trying to forget the way Brad looked at me last night.
The way my body had reacted to his touch.
I told myself it was just instinct.
A moment. A surge of suppressed biology.
I told myself I was stronger than that. That I was done with wolves, with the pack, with all of it.
But my body told a different story.
Every step I took felt heavy. Like something deep inside me was dragging at my bones.
But none of that mattered, it was not that I wouldn’t shift, I didn’t feel I deserve to.
When I stepped out of the office that evening, the air was cool and sharp. I let out a long breath. I just needed to go home, shower, and—
“You’re late,” a voice said.
I froze.
My head snapped up.
Brad leaned against the hood of a black SUV parked across the street. Arms crossed. Relaxed. But his eyes burned. His ocean-blue eyes were devouring me, and my knees nearly buckled under the weight of his gaze.
Broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his dark button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbows, forearms roped with muscle. His jaw was sharp, dusted with a short beard, and his mouth—God, that mouth—looked like it had been carved for sin.
And those eyes.
Cold fire and thunder. Intense. Intelligent. Dominant.
It was hard to breathe around him.
“I said I’d pick you up at six.” His voice broked my inner dialogue.
My chest tightened.
“You were serious?”
“I usually am,” he said, straightening. “Get in.”
“Brad…”
“Don’t fight me on this.”
“I told you—I left that life behind. I buried her. My wolf—she’s not part of this world anymore.”
I stood frozen, torn between instinct and fear.
“You don’t understand—”
“I do,” he said. “You think if you shift, you’ll feel everything you’ve been running from. The grief. The guilt. The mate you lost.”
I flinched.
“But bottling that up? Hiding her?”
He stepped closer, voice quiet, deadly sure.
“It’s killing you.”
I looked away. My throat thickened. “I don’t deserve to shift. I survived when he didn’t.”
The guilty eating me alive.
I felt my heart broke again.
Brad didn’t speak right away.
When he did, his voice was velvet-wrapped steel.
“Your survival doesn’t dishonor him, Alice. But pretending you’re something you’re not? That’s what does.”
I wans’t expecting that.
I blinked back tears.
“You don’t know what it felt like.”
“No,” he said. “But I know what it feels like to watch a wolf destroy herself.”
I met his eyes.
He didn’t look angry. He didn’t even look smug.
And something inside me cracked.
“We’re not shifting to chase deer or howl at the moon,” he said. “This is about letting go. Just for one night. Just you and her.”
He reached out, not touching me—but waiting.
“Come with me.”
I looked at his hand. Then at the SUV.
Then at the street behind me.
I could turn and run.
I could pretend none of this had happened.
I could keep pretending.
But my wolf was clawing against my ribs.
Not just aroused. Not just angry.
I took his hand.
And everything shifted.
The moment our skin touched, a jolt ran through me.
I felt it in my bones, in my blood.
His breath caught. His grip tightened.
“There you are,” he whispered.
“What?” I breathed.
Brad leaned in, his voice low and certain. His eyes glowed with something ancient.
“Your wolf. She just said yes.”
She was there—fully there.
No more hiding.
I didn’t know what this run would do to me.
But Goddess help me…
