The question I’d dreaded since meeting her and bringing her to pack territory.
“It will be a problem. Alphas are naturally drawn to omegas, darlin’. And since you’ve been around a pack…” Hated to have to break this to her. “Your body will go through a change, whether or not you want it to. And maybe sooner than later.”
Spine rigid, she shot a look at me. “What kind of change, Bronc?”
“Called going into heat. And it’s exactly what you’re thinking. I’m not gonna sugarcoat this for you, sweetheart. Your body will produce supercharged pheromones and prepare itself to receive your alpha’s knot. It will call to every alpha in every pack around here. They will kill to get to you. And I will kill to keep them away. Unless you are claimed. They will do everything they can to take you for themselves.”
The tears started again. She was on information overload. “I didn’t ask for this. And now it seems like my choices have been removed just like when I was in New York.”
I wrapped her tiny body in my arms.
“Even if you rejected me, I couldn’t stay away from you. That’s the damn truth of it. I chose you. My wolf chose you. Your scent’s in my lungs. Your name’s etched in every beat of this blackened heart. I’ll sleep on your front porch if you ask. Guard your back door from coyotes. Whatever you need. Wherever you’ll have me. That’s where I want to be.”
Silence stretched. A pickup rumbled by on the county road below. Downstairs, Pearl started singing along to Patsy Cline drifting from her kitchen radio.
Juliet looked up. Slow. Deliberate. She turned and re-opened the folder. Those canyon-dark eyes locked on mine. Flipped past pack records and land deeds until she found the photo I’d tucked in back—Iris Ashbourne astride a massive gray wolf, head thrown back mid-laugh.
“You’re sure?” she asked, tracing her great-grandmother’s face.
“DNA tested twice. Doc verified the records.”
“Not that.” She slapped the photo down. “About us. This… bond.”
I stepped into her space. Let her see the truth on my face. “Never been surer of anything. Not when I enlisted. Not when I took the club presidency. You’re it for me, Juliet. Wolf or not.”
Her palm hit my chest. Right over the patch. Right over the scar from a bullet meant for my VP I didn’t move.
“I need to see.”
Her palm burned through cotton and leather straight to bone marrow. “I need to see” wasn’t a request—it was a dare carved from twenty-five years of mistrust and several weeks of stolen glances across Pearl’s diner counter, through a greasy office window, and any number of other places. I caught her wrist before she could pull back, pressing those slender fingers harder against my cut. Let her feel the thunder behind cotton and bone..
“Need space,” I growled, kicking chairs aside with more force than necessary. Kitchen light caught the tremble in her throat when I ripped my shirt off, then everything else. Not fear—anticipation. The kind that makes saints sin and soldiers desert.
My skeleton cracked first. Collarbones snapping outward like rifle reports. Hips realigning sent white fire up my spine that’d make grown alphas weep. Didn’t flinch. Couldn’t. Juliet stood frozen as cartilage reshaped my face, her reflection warping in my widening pupils—a funhouse mirror version of the woman who’d haunted my dreams since the first whiff of ginger andvulnerability. What seemed to take minutes in reality only took seconds.
Fur erupted in black waves. Should’ve hurt. But the magic of transformation made it painless after the first shift. Her gasp hitched halfway between wonder and recognition, sweet as Sunday hymns, and suddenly I was the goddamn phoenix.
When the last claw unsheathed, she crept closer. Bare toes curling on cold hardwood. “You… I’ve seen you. In the canyon shadows when I couldn’t sleep. Under the mesquites during the hailstorm. I’ve drawn you. And in my dreams, I run with you.”
My wolf preened. Tail sweeping. She didn’t jump. Brave little omega. My wolf was head high to her.
Elegant fingertips grazed my muzzle. “Same scar.” She traced the notch above my left eye—shrapnel souvenir from Fallujah. “Same stupid blue eyes.”
A rumble built in my chest. Not a growl. Never at her. The sound she’d heard echoing through dream canyons, distorted by sleep and longing. Her nails dug into scruff when Menace’s F-250 roared into the drive.
“Boss?” My VP’s boots pounded upstairs. “Tyler’s home early. Breezed past the gate guards.”
Juliet jerked back. Pupils swallowing whiskey irises whole. “Your son?”
The shift ripped back faster than a bandage. Ribs stabbed lungs. Knees hit hardwood.
“Bronc!”
“Don’t.” I caught her reaching hands. Skin still fever-hot from the change. “He’s infantry. Sees threats in shadows.”
She yanked free. “I’m not—”
“You’re everything.” Jeans bit hot flesh as I stood. “Let me handle this.”
