A growl built in my chest that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with the primal need to protect. Threat. Threat to her. Eliminate.
She wasn't mine. I knew that. She hadn't chosen me, hadn't even given me permission to want her. The instinct didn'tcare about logic. The instinct said: someone is threatening her territory. Fix it.
I started watching the property lines more carefully. Found survey stakes one night—orange flags with CRESCENT HOLDINGS LLC stamped on the tags—driven into the soft earth at the edge of her land. I pulled one out and examined it, memorizing the logo, the legal text, the threat implicit in every detail.
I wasn't the only one who'd noticed.
I caught Thibodaux's scent on the stakes too. River water and honey and something that made my hackles rise. The musician. I'd heard talk around town and met him once—people gossiping about how he'd been circling her, showing up wherever she went. Charming smile, pretty face. The kind of Alpha who knew how to make people want him.
The other scent was harder to place. Rain and moss and something feral underneath. It took me a week to figure out it belonged to the man who ran the wildlife rehabilitation center out by the preserve. Boudreaux. Ex-military, kept to himself, barely spoke to anyone. I'd seen him in town a handful of times—lean and sharp-eyed, moving like a predator who'd learned to walk among sheep.
Three Alphas. All circling the same Omega. All finding the same stakes on her property.
None of us had told her.
The realization sat heavy in my gut like a stone. We were protecting her without her permission. Making decisions about her safety without consulting her. It was instinct—pure, primal instinct—but I knew enough to understand that Artemis Delacroix would not appreciate being kept in the dark.
I should have told her. Should have gone to her cabin, knocked on her door, and explained what I'd found. Instead, Iwatched. And waited. And hoped she wouldn't hate me when she found out.
She showed up at the distillery three days later.
I heard the truck before I saw it—the rumble of an engine, the crunch of gravel under tires. I set down the jar I'd been inspecting and wiped my hands on my jeans, my heart already pounding against my ribs like it was trying to escape.
She didn't knock. Just pushed through the door like she owned the place, and the bell rang off-key, and she was there. In my space. Her scent flooding my senses until I could barely think straight.
She was angry. I could smell it—the way her apple cider scent had gone sharp at the edges, almost acidic, cutting through the warm spice like a blade. Her green-gold eyes were blazing, and she had a fistful of orange survey stakes clutched in one hand like weapons.
"You." She pointed one of the stakes at me, her voice flat and dangerous, her jaw set in a hard line. "You knew about these."
"Yes." I didn't insult her by denying it, keeping my voice level even as my pulse thundered in my ears.
"How long?" She stepped closer, and I could see the fury simmering beneath her skin, the way her freckles stood out against the flush of her cheeks.
"Few weeks." The words scraped out of me like they were being dragged across gravel. "Since I found the first ones."
"And you didn't think to tell me?" She threw the stakes on the counter between us, and they clattered against the wood, orange flags fluttering like wounded birds. "Didn't think I might want to know that some corporation is trying to stake a claim on my land?"
"I was—" I stopped, clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached. The words were there, tangled up in my chest, but getting themout was like trying to breathe underwater. "Trying to figure out. What they wanted. Before I?—"
"Before you what? Rode in on your white horse and saved me?" She laughed, sharp and humorless, her arms crossing over her chest like armor. "I don't need saving, Harper. I need information. I need to know when someone is threatening what's mine."
My name on her lips made something in my chest crack open. She'd said it before, that first day, but hearing it now—wielded like a weapon and a caress all at once—made my hands shake.
"I know." My voice came out rough, almost broken, and I gripped the edge of the counter hard enough to make the wood groan. "I know you don't need saving. I just—" I forced myself to meet her eyes, to let her see the truth in mine even if it damned me. "I wanted to fix it. Before you had to worry about it."
"That wasn't your call to make." Her voice was quieter now, but no less sharp, her eyes searching my face like she was looking for something specific.
"No." I held her gaze, refusing to look away even though every instinct screamed at me to submit, to bare my throat, to do whatever it took to make that anger in her eyes fade. "It wasn't. I'm sorry."
Something in her expression shifted. The anger didn't fade, but it softened around the edges, like storm clouds parting just enough to let a sliver of light through.
"The other two." She uncrossed her arms, gesturing vaguely toward the door. "They knew too." It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyway, my shoulders tight with tension.
"Their scents were on the stakes. All three of you, creeping around my property, keeping secrets." She shook her head slowly, and I caught the hint of something that might have beenreluctant amusement tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Y'all are terrible at being subtle, you know that?"
A sound escaped me—almost a laugh, rusty and unfamiliar, dragged up from somewhere deep. "Never claimed to be subtle."
"No." She studied me, her head tilting to one side like a curious bird, those green-gold eyes seeing too much. "You didn't."
