I smelled her a second before she appeared.
The sweet vanilla of her scent was so thick it coated my lungs, making it hard to draw a clean breath. But it wasn't just hers anymore. It was laced with him. Her hidden scent, cedarwood was now wrapped around her like a shroud, a brand, a permanent mark of ownership.
My alpha snarled.
Presley walked in, laughing. The sound was light, genuine, the kind of laugh I used to pull from her with stupid jokes and terrible French puns.
“Hi,” she whispered, staring at me.
Fritz was right behind her, his hand resting lightly on the small of her back. They were sharing a private joke, their voices low and intimate. She turned to him and said something I couldn't hear. Fritz threw his head back, his laughter filling the room.
A sharpness hit me between my ribs.
I turned away, focusing on the coffee mug in front of me.
“She said hi,” Hastings growled.
“I’m tired.”
“Then sleep it off and be better later,” he muttered under his breath.
Better?
I’d been her protector. I was the one whosawher first, cared for her first, made sure she was safe and fed and happy.
"Etienne." Her voice was soft and hesitant as she searched for the man who usually gave her aboyish grin and a wink. The man who called her Princesse and made her blush.
That man wasn't here right now.
"How are you feeling?" I muttered, my voice clipped.
"I didn't sleep well."
"I bet."
The words were out before I could stop them. Cruel and sharp. Enough to make her flinch. I didn’t have the connection that Hastings did, but I felt her hurt spike.
Good. Let her hurt. Let her feel a fraction of what I was feeling.
Except it didn't feel good. It felt like I'd kicked a puppy.
"Merde," I muttered under my breath.
"God, it smells like a locker room in here," Fritz chirped, sliding into his chair with an ease that made me want to throttle him. He reached for the eggs, piling them onto his plate like we were having a normal family breakfast. "And can we dial back the testosterone? I'm trying to eat."
Only Fritz could walk into a room full of alpha aggression and act like it was a minor inconvenience.
He reached out and tucked a stray lock of damp hair behind Presley's ear. It was a bold move.
Hastings's jaw tightened.
At least I wasn't the only one suffering.
Fritz didn't care about the four-scent math. He didn't care about biological destiny or rare genetic matches. He just saw Presley. The woman who made terrible jokes andstole our shirts for her heat, and cried over a ginger cat named after cheese.
Maybe that made him smarter than the rest of us.
"Now that we're all here," Hastings said, his voice dropping into that professional, efficiency-focused tone I currently hated.
