“Good.”
“I’ll send her up to Moonstone next week.”
“Fine.”
He started moving towards the doors, suddenly desperate to get out of this building, away from his brother’s knowing eyes and the faint traces of Harper’s scent that still clung to him. He needed to run. Needed to shift and let his wolf chase deer through the mountains until this restless energy burned itself out.
“Adrian.”
He paused at the door.
“Give her a chance. That’s all I’m asking.” Derek’s voice was softer now, the businessman giving way to the brother Adrian remembered from childhood. “Not every clever woman is Vivienne. And not every attraction is a trap.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snapped and left before his brother had a chance to respond, taking the elevator down to speed his exit.
He stood rigid in the center of the car, watching the floor numbers tick past, trying to breathe through his mouth to avoid her scent. It didn’t help. The memory of it was already imprinted, already wound through his neural pathways like ivy through old stone.
His wolf was nearly purring now, the bastard. Contentedly reliving the moment when Harper had pressed her hands to his chest, when her pulse had jumped under his fingers, when she’d looked up at him with those enormous eyes and her lips had parted slightly, unconsciously?—
The elevator doors opened and he stalked out. The orc at the security desk looked up, clearly aware of the barely contained aggression rolling off him in waves.
“Sir? Is everything?—”
“Fine,” he growled, not slowing.
He pushed through the front doors and into the cool morning air. The harbor stretched below him, boats bobbing gently, seagulls crying overhead. Normal. Peaceful. Monster Island going about its day, oblivious to the storm building in his chest.
Two months, he reminded himself. She’ll be in pack territory for two months. Working. Keeping to herself.Nowhere near me.
He could handle two months. He’d handled eight years of leading the pack, of fighting off challengers and navigating council politics. He’d handled loneliness and responsibility and the constant, grinding weight of being Alpha.
He could handle one small human with pink hair and too-big glasses and a scent that made his wolf want to howl.
Couldn’t he?
Chapter Four
Harper sagged against the cool metal of the elevator doors, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She closed her eyes, replaying the encounter in her mind. The feel of those strong, warm hands on her arms. The sheer, overwhelming size of him. The predatory focus in his gaze that had made her feel simultaneously like prey and… something else. Something she couldn’t name but which resonated deep in her bones.
And the way he’d said her name. Not just a word, but a command. A claim.
She squeezed her thighs together, a sudden, unexpected heat pooling between them. This was not good. She didn’t react like this to men. She didn’t react like this to anyone. Her body was usually a neutral territory, a tool for transporting her brain from place to place. Now it was staging a full-scale rebellion over a thirty-second hallway encounter.
He smelled good. Her brain, ever the pragmatist, tried to file that under “irrelevant data,” but her body refused to comply. She wanted to find out what that scent was. She wanted to press her face against his chest and just breathe. She wanted to…
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, jolting her back to reality. She headed back to her office, determined to lose herself in code, but for once she couldn’t get her brain to obey, it kept circling back to that hallway and the feel of that hard chest beneath her hands…
“Harper?”
She jumped and looked up to find Elise hovering outside her door. The pretty young girl was one of the interns from the Moonstone pack, and she was showing considerable promise.
“Elise. Hi.”
“I was just coming to show you the anomaly I found in the server logs—” The girl came to an abrupt halt, her nostrils flaring. “Has the Alpha been here?”
Her pulse started to race.
“Alpha?” she asked, playing for time as she tried to come up with an explanation.
