Still time. I still have time.
It had only been a couple of weeks since I stopped taking my pills. The little white capsule that I’d lived on every single day for nearly ten years. Ten years of white-coat secrecy, of hush-hush refills and behind-closed-doors blood work. I’d timed everything down to the minute.
It shouldn’t be shedding this fast.
My muscles felt lead-lined. My thoughts kept fracturing at the edges, every passing scent or sound pulling focus in ways I couldn’t afford. My nerves were lit like fuse wire.
I turned the corner near the east hall?—
And stopped short.
Jay was there.
Leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Casual. Sharp-eyed. Dangerous in a quiet, surgical way.
He pushed off the wall when he saw me, gaze sweeping me head to toe like he was assessing for injuries no one else could see.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, keeping my voice easy. Light. The kind of tone I used when I wanted people to think I was fine. “Shouldn’t you be upstairs icing Rhett and Roan’s bruised egos?”
“I could ask you the same,” he said. “You were supposed to be out of here hours ago.”
My lips parted as I glanced at my watch, then shut again. I hadn’t realized how long it had been.
He tilted his head slightly. Just enough that a lock of black hair fell into his eyes. “You okay?”
I blinked.
Normally, I would’ve laughed. Deflected. Told him I was insulted he’d even ask.
But something about the way he looked at me—sodirect, so unflinching—it short-circuited the script in my head.
“I’m fine,” I said anyway.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’tbelieveme.
That made something in my stomach tighten in a way I didn’t like. His scent, normally clean, neutral, just a whisper of spice beneath steel, hit me too hard. Like I’d stepped too close to a furnace without realizing it was on.
I swallowed.
Hard.
Jay was a beta. There wasn’t supposed to be a reaction. Not from me. Not from him. He was thesafe one. The one who didn’t crowd, didn’t posture, and didn’t pull at my instincts in that dangerous way alphas did.
But now?
Now I couldsmellhim.
Not just clean and sharp, but warm. Alive. Inviting in a way I had no business noticing.
I turned my head slightly, trying to blink the weight off my vision.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said.
“Like what?”
