Dominic’s voice sharpened, “Theodore.”
Her brother’s head tilted slightly, “Why don’t you tell me, then, Dominic?” His tone was calm, conversational, and all the more dangerous for it. “What exactly happened last night?”
Layla felt the blood drain from her face. The warmth of the bond beneath her skin turned to ice.
Dominic didn’t answer immediately. His silence said enough.
Theodore exhaled, a bitter sound somewhere between a laugh and a snarl. “That’s what I thought.”
Layla’s voice cracked. “Theo—”
He looked at her again, softer this time, and somehow that was worse. “Tell me I’m wrong,” he said.
The room was too quiet. Even the sea seemed to still outside, waiting.
She couldn’t speak.
Theodore’s eyes closed briefly, as if confirming something to himself. When he opened them again, the gold ring of his wolf flickered in the dim light. “You have no idea what you’ve done,” he said.
“I slept with my mate, Theo,” Layla said, “why do you care?”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he hissed, staring dead into Dominic’s eyes, “I was talking to him.”
Dominic moved slightly, instinctively protective. Layla could feel the change in the air, the invisible pull between them shifting, coiling tighter.
“Don’t,” she whispered, “Please, don’t do this.”
But the moment had already passed. The silence was gone, replaced by the kind of stillness that lives only a heartbeat before a storm.
“It’s too late, Layla,” Theodore took one more step forward, “you always resented me for climbing above my station. For spendingyearstrying to build something better. But all you had to do was open your legs.”
Dominic didn’t move.
The air cracked between them.
Layla could feel it, the tension thick enough to taste, sharp as iron on her tongue.
Theodore’s hand flexed at his side. Dominic’s shoulders drew tight, every inch of him coiled with power. Neither spoke. Neither had to.
She knew what came next.
Dominic stepped forward, the movement measured, heavy with warning. Theodore met him halfway.
The first sound was the scrape of boots on the floorboards, then a dull thud, a shoulder catching another, a table jolting against the wall. The silence of The Anchor shattered.
Layla flinched, “Stop!”
They didn’t.
Theodore struck first, a shove, hard and unthinking. Dominic barely shifted under it, but his head turned slightly, and the look he gave could have frozen the tide. He hit back, not with his fists, not yet, but with a brutal, flat-palmed push to the chest that sent Theodore stumbling into a chair.
Wood splintered. Theodore came back swinging.
Layla darted sideways as they crashed into one of the tables, mugs scattering, tea spilling in long, golden streaks across the boards. Dominic caught Theodore’s arm mid-swing, twisted, but Theodore dropped low, broke free, and drove his shoulder into Dominic’s ribs. The air left him in a grunt, and he retaliated with a short, vicious shove that slammed Theodore against the bar.
“Stop!” she shouted again, the word cracking.
Neither heard.
