I groaned and flopped back onto the deck, staring up at the sky. This was pathetic. Remington Thibodaux, brought low by an Omega with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue. My family would laugh themselves sick if they could see me now.
The thought of my family made my chest tight. I hadn't been home in two weeks—kept making excuses, kept finding reasons to stay on the boat. Papa was doing better, the doctors said. Didn't need me hovering. My sisters had it handled.
The truth was simpler and uglier: I couldn't sit at that table, surrounded by all that love and forgiveness, and pretend I deserved any of it. Luc's empty chair. Mama's eyes that still went sad sometimes when she looked at me, even though she'd never say why. The way my youngest sister had his laugh.
I sat up abruptly, shaking off the memories like a dog shaking off water. Enough. Enough wallowing. I needed to do something, anything, besides sit here and think about ghosts and green-gold eyes.
I needed to find her.
If you want to show me more of the real you... you can follow the rumors and gossip to find me.
It had taken me less than a day. Artemis Delacroix—everyone in the parish knew about her, even if they'd never met her. The fortune teller who lived alone in the bayou. Old Marguerite's girl. The Omega who kept a nine-foot alligator as a pet and didn't give any Alpha the time of day.
The more I heard, the more I wanted to know.
So I'd done what she told me to do. I'd followed the rumors. Found the turnoff to her property. Drove past it a dozen times before I worked up the nerve to actually take it.
The first time I saw her cabin, I understood. Wood weathered silver by sun and rain, perched on stilts above the water like it was part of the bayou itself. Plants everywhere—hanging from the porch, climbing the railings, spilling out of every available surface. A pirogue tied to the dock. Lights glowing warm through windows at dusk.
It looked like her. Wild and beautiful and completely itself. I didn't knock. Couldn't make myself do it. Instead, I watched from a distance like some kind of creep, telling myself I was just making sure she was okay. That I was protecting her, not stalking her.
The lie tasted sour even in my own head.
Then I found the stakes.
Orange flags with corporate logos, driven into the soft earth at the edge of her property. Crescent Holdings. I pulled one out and stared at it, my gut going cold. I knew that name—everyone in the parish knew it. They'd been buying up land for months, pressuring families who'd been here for generations. And now they were sniffing around her place.
A growl built in my chest, low and possessive. Mine, something primal whispered. Protect what's mine.
She wasn't mine. I knew that. She'd told me to find her if I wanted to show her the real me, and instead I'd been lurking in the shadows like a coward, too scared to face her again.
I started checking the property lines regularly after that. Pulling up stakes when I found new ones, looking for any sign of the developers getting bolder. I wasn't the only one—I caught other scents on the stakes. Moonshine and cedar, sharp and familiar. Rain and moss and something feral that made my hackles rise.
Other Alphas. Circling her. Protecting her.
Just like me.
I should have been angry. Should have felt territorial, possessive, ready to fight. Instead, I felt something closer to relief. At least I wasn't the only fool who'd fallen under her spell.
I was sitting on the deck, trying for the hundredth time to finish that melody, when I heard the truck. The engine sound was wrong for this part of the bayou—too rough, too rattling, like it was being held together by spite and prayers. I set down my guitar and stood, shading my eyes against the afternoon sun.
Her truck. I recognized it from all those nights of watching from a distance. My heart slammed against my ribs. She parked at the edge of the water, where the road gave way to the dock where La Belle Menteuse was moored. The door swung open, and she stepped out, and I forgot how to breathe.
Cutoff shorts. Tank top. Wild auburn hair loose around her shoulders. Green-gold eyes locked on me like a heat-seeking missile.
She was furious. I could smell it from here—her apple cider scent gone sharp and acidic, cutting through the humid air like a blade.
She had a fistful of orange survey stakes clutched in one hand.
Oh. Oh no.
She walked down the dock toward my boat, her sandals slapping against the wood, her stride eating up the distance between us. I stood frozen on the deck, watching her approach, my mind racing through excuses and explanations and coming up empty.
She stopped at the edge of the gangplank, looking up at me. The fury in her eyes could have stripped paint.
"Permission to come aboard, or do I need to drag you onto dry land?" Her voice was sweet poison, her smile sharp enough to cut glass.
"Come aboard." The words came out rough, my accent thickening the way it always did when I was nervous. I stepped back to give her room.
