“Fine.”
“You’ve been staring at me for like two minutes.”
“I wasn’t staring.”
“Okay.” Her smile widened. “You were contemplating the wall directly behind my head with unusual intensity. My mistake.”
He growled softly—he couldn’t help it—and her eyes brightened with something that looked dangerously like satisfaction. She’d been teasing him all morning, pushing right up against the boundaries of his control like she was testing the fence for weak spots.
And she kept touching him.
Not obviously. Not aggressively. Just… casual contact that shouldn’t have meant anything. Her fingers brushing his when she handed him a report. Her shoulder bumping his arm when they walked down the hall. Earlier she’d reached up to fix his collar—his collar, like he was a pup who couldn’t dress himself—and her knuckles had grazed the side of his neck.
He’d nearly pinned her to the wall right there in the hallway.
“I brought you food.” She gestured to a plate on the corner of the desk. “Irene said you missed breakfast.”
“I don’t need?—”
“Turkey sandwich. I remembered you don’t like tomatoes.” She turned back to her screen like feeding him was no big deal, like his eating habits were just another piece of data she’d catalogued and filed away. “The bread’s a little stale, but I figured you’d survive.”
He stared at the sandwich, his chest tight. Offering food was an act of submission, of caring. No one had brought him food since… he couldn’t remember. His mother, maybe, when he was young. Certainly not Vivienne, who’d barely acknowledged his existence unless she needed something from him. And the pack members who prepared communal meals didn’t think to check whether the Alpha had eaten. They assumed he could take care of himself.
Which he could. Obviously.
But she had noticed. She had remembered. Harper had made him a sandwich without tomatoes because she’d paid attention to his preferences, and now she was sitting there pretending it meant nothing while his wolf howled with possessive satisfaction.
She provides for us. She CARES for us. Claim her. Claim her. CLAIM HER?—
“I’m going for a run.”
She glanced up. “It’s one in the afternoon.”
“I need air.”
“Adrian—”
He was already moving, striding through the pack house fast enough that the wolves he passed pressed against the walls to let him through. They could feel it—the restless energy crackling off him, the barely-contained wildness of an Alpha on the day of the full moon. Smart wolves got out of his way.
He shed his clothes behind the oak at the edge of the yard. The shift came easily, almost eagerly, his body flowing from man to wolf with a familiar ripple of sensation. Four paws hit the ground. He threw back his head and ran.
Wind rushed through his fur. Pine needles crunched beneath his feet. The world narrowed to sensation—the rich smell of earth and growing things, the distant chatter of squirrels, the steady pound of his heart as he pushed himself harder, faster, farther.
But even here, he couldn’t escape her.
Her scent clung to him. Not physically—he’d run far enough that the pack house was miles behind him—but in his memory, his imagination. That clean, sweet smell with the undertone of something warmer. It had invaded his office, his clothes, his very skin. He’d caught himself pressing his nose to his own shirt yesterday, searching for traces of her.
This is madness.
His wolf disagreed violently. His wolf thought the madness was in the not-claiming, the denial, the constant painful restraint. She wanted them. He could smell it on her—the spike of arousal when their eyes met, the flutter of her pulse when he got too close. She was ready. She was willing. She kept offering herself up in tiny, devastating ways.
And he kept pulling back.
Because she was human. Because the elders would never accept her as Luna, and the pack would splinter if he chose her over tradition. Because Vivienne had seemed perfect too, once, and look how that had ended.
He skidded to a stop at the edge of a rocky outcrop, chest heaving. Below him, the valley stretched out in shades of green and gold, beautiful and indifferent to his turmoil. Harper would like it here.
Stop thinking about her.
