Specifically on me. The Prime. The leader. The man whose designation means that the pack’s trajectory follows his decisions and whose personal history with twin betrayal makes him the narrative candidate most obviously suited for the role Hawk is about to articulate.
“Which right now, you’re the best fit.” He holds my gaze with the particular directness of someone who is aware that what he’s about to say will provoke and has decided to say it anyway. “Since at least your twin brother’s a betrayer, so if you really hate this, you can bail and act like a villain.”
I roll my eyes.
The gesture is involuntary and justified—the physical response of a man who has been compared to his treasonous twin in the context of a bonding assignment and finds the comparison equal parts offensive and strategically sound, which is the most irritating variety of insult because it doesn’t give you clean grounds for objection.
“Funny.”
Lucien speaks from the cutting table, his voice carrying the particular register that indicates his analytical function has produced a conclusion that his social function has decided to deliver with characteristic precision.
“But that’s not whom you think she’s compatible with.”
Hawk looks over at him. The amber-gold eyes narrow by a fraction—not with suspicion but with the particular attention of a man whose Omega has just been the subject of a compatibility assessment by someone who met her five hours ago.
“Why do you say that?”
“You’re her bonded mate, at this rate.” Lucien’s smirk is present but muted—the charm receded, the edge softened, the observation delivered with more sincerity than performance. “You know exactly who’s compatible with her. Or at least you’ve been around her long enough to.”
Hawk shrugs.
The gesture is his most communicative—the full-body, rolling lift and drop of shoulders that saysyou’re not wrong and I’m not confirming it but I’m not denying it eitherwith a physical eloquence that his verbal register doesn’t always achieve.
He begins to walk toward the door.
The movement is unhurried—the pace of a man who has said what he came to say and is now transitioning from the role of narrator to the role of exit, the particular stride that communicatesthis conversation has reached its natural conclusion and I’m leaving before you realize I’ve given you more than I intended.
“Well, if you want honesty.” His voice carries over his shoulder, the words arriving in the silk-draped room with the casual delivery of a man tossing grenades behind him as he walks away. “You two will be smitten with her if you give her a shot to kick your asses. Or if she wears one of your creations.”
He stops at the doorway. His hand finds the frame—fingers wrapping the wood with the unconscious grip of a man who is about to deliver the part he’s been holding in reserve.
“But that’s up to you guys, if we have enough time. Now that we have five days before the masquerade.”
Five days.
To prepare wardrobes and disguises and tactical plans for a masquerade that the people who sent thirty operatives to steal our invitations clearly don’t want us to attend.
Five days to get to know an Omega whose kill count exceeds ten thousand and whose idea of small talk is putting a blade to a stranger’s throat.
To determine which of us is going to form a bond that the invitation requires and the woman in question may or may not consent to.
The timeline is impossible...
Which, in my experience, is the only kind of timeline that ever produces results.
Hawk pauses at the threshold.
His back is to us. His amber-gold eyes are directed somewhere beyond the door frame—into the corridor, into the future, into whatever private space he inhabits when the vulnerability he’s showing reaches the limit of what his composure can sustain in the presence of men who are not yet his pack.
“But the true beauty,” he says quietly, “and why it’s so easy to fall for Victoria?—”
His voice drops to a whisper. The kind that fills a room by making you lean forward to receive it.
“—is her silent company. And the blanket of peace she delivers with her existence.”
The words settle into the underground atelier like silk being draped over something precious—carefully, deliberately, with the intention of protecting rather than concealing.
“She’s talented, sure. Gifted, plenty.” He exhales—not smoke this time, just breath, carrying the weight of a man who has found the thing he values most and is trusting strangers with the knowledge of where it lives. “But her true radiance is her presence. Maybe you’ll get a glimpse of it before we enter this challenge.”
