Stop it. Stop cataloguing his physique like he is a specimen under examination.
He is your roommate.
Your roommate's pack mate.
Possibly adjacent to your childhood trauma.
This is not the time for inconvenient attractions.
But his laugh.
Fuck, his laugh is hypnotic.
It was so mellow. So genuine. So completely different from the sharp, mocking laughter that haunts my memories of sixth grade. The cruel snickers that used to follow me down hallways. The jeering chants that echoed in bathrooms where I hid to cry.
He is definitely different from the other two.
Rafe is all sharp edges and barely contained aggression, a storm wrapped in muscle and bad decisions. Cal is warmer but carries that eager-to-please energy, the follower's need for approval, and the desperation to belong.
But Etienne?
Etienne is quiet. Observant. The kind of person who watches from the edges and sees things others miss. The kind of person who offers his jersey to a slushie-covered stranger without being asked. Who creates escape routes from pushy Alphas without making a big deal of it.
Why did he join their pack if he seems so different?
What is his story?
Why do I care so much about answers I have no right to demand?
My nose wrinkles before I can pursue that thought further.
A new scent is drifting toward me from somewhere behind. Familiar, but wrong. Like a song I know being played in the wrong key. Like looking at a painting that has been slightly tilted on the wall.
Evergreens, yes. But sharper. Colder. Missing that warmth of old books and quiet safety that I have unconsciously started associating with Etienne.
Bitter notes underneath. Something acidic and aggressive that makes my Omega instincts prickle with warning.
I look up on instinct, some prey-animal part of my brain screaming alert before my conscious mind catches up.
And freeze.
Because it is like looking at an older, angrier version of Etienne.
The same dark curls, but shorter. Buzzed close on the sides in a style that screams I take myself very seriously, and I will end you if you disagree. The same pale skin and constellation of freckles across the nose. The same storm-blue eyes.
But where Etienne's eyes are soft, curious, a little uncertain...
These eyes are cold.
Hard.
The eyes of someone who has spent years cultivating anger like a prized possession and enjoys watching it grow.
Bastien Laurent.
The actual bully. The one I should have been angry at all along. The one whose cruelty I have been misattributing to his younger brother for thirteen years.
He is taller than Etienne, I realize. Broader in the shoulders. Built like someone who has been playing varsity hockey for years and enjoys throwing his weight around both on and off the ice. His posture radiates barely contained aggression, like a bomb with a faulty timer that could go off at any moment.
