I stare out at the road, jaw working once. “Fine. Yeah.” I swallow, irritated at myself for even saying it. “Every time she smiled at me, I wanted to close the distance. When she got close, I had to tell my hands to behave. And then she left…” I exhale hard through my nose. “I’m not thrilled about it.”
Kai’s grin turns sharp and satisfied. “There we go. That’s the truth.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m making it better.” He leans back, smug. “You’re welcome.”
I glance at him. “Go fuck yourself.”
Kai laughs like he’s already planning how to do exactly that and call it a team activity. “After we figure out what June’s hiding.”
His fingers are drumming against his thigh, that endless energy looking for somewhere to go. I know the feeling. My whole body is humming with it, restless, unsatisfied, wanting something I can’t have.
“Here’s the thing,” Kai adds, and the playfulness drops out of him. “I can still smell her.”
He glances down at his shirt. “On my clothes. My skin.” His throat works once. “It’s… bad in the best way. Like she got under me without even meaning to.”
I return my attention to the road. “You want me to pull over so you can rub your face on your own sleeve?”
Kai lets out a short breath that might be a laugh. Might be a growl. “Don’t start.” Then he sobers again. “But her scent. It wasn’t steady. You caught that, right? It got stronger as the night went on.”
“Yeah.” My grip tightens on the wheel. “Early on, I barely got a trace. Later, after the games, after she stopped bracing every second… it hit.”
“Exactly.” Kai shifts in his seat, restless. “Like there’s a lid on it. And when she relaxes, it slips.”
Silence stretches for a beat. The kind that means we’re both hearing the same thing in our heads.
Kai says it first. “She’s not a Beta.”
“My instincts clocked that the second I saw her,” I admit. “They haven’t backed off once.”
“Betas don’t do that to Alphas,” he says, voice rough. “They don’t make your whole body go alert. Like you’re on duty. Like you’re… owned.”
I exhale slowly. “So why pretend? Why hide?”
Kai shrugs. “Because somebody told her to, or she’s hiding something?”
I think of the way June answers too fast when designation comes up. The way she redirects. The way her scent flares for one breath, then vanishes like she shoved it back down.
“If she’s masking,” I say, “it’s not new. That takes discipline. Constant attention. You don’t keep that up unless you’re scared of what happens when you stop.”
Kai nods once. “Fear or experience.”
I glance at him. “And then there’s her ex, who’s a problem.”
“Fucking dick,” Kai states. “I doubt he knows, or he would have revealed it. I don’t think she’s hiding it from him, as he’s only a Beta.”
“Which means it’s bigger than him,” I murmur.
Kai’s voice goes quiet, dangerous. “Pack. Family. Somebody who didn’t protect her when they should’ve.”
The thought lands heavily in my chest. “Or somebody who convinced her hiding was the only way to survive.”
Kai stares out the windshield, eyes hard. “That’s not survival. That’s a cage.”
My fingers flex on the steering wheel. “And cages make people bite.”
Kai finally looks at me. “So we don’t corner her.”
