Behind me, I hear an engine start. The SUV. Darius.
I don’t look. Not even when I hear the tires crunch on the gravel as he drives past, slowly enough that I know he’s watching me. Waiting for me to change my mind.
I stand perfectly still, my eyes on the guard making the call, until the sound of Darius’s car disappears down the road.
Only then do I allow myself to breathe.
Chapter Four
Darius
I can’t stop watching her.
My office has floor-to-ceiling glass walls overlooking the main floor of the Supernatural Affairs Division. Normally, I keep the blinds pulled halfway down for privacy, but today, they’re open. I tell myself it’s to monitor department operations.
It’s a lie. I’m watching Violet.
She sits three rows back from my office, her desk positioned near the window. Sunlight streams through the glass, catching in her hair and turning it almost golden. She is bent over her computer, completely absorbed in whatever she’s working on, her fingers flying across the keyboard with surprising speed.
My wolf paces restlessly beneath my skin like the caged animal he is. He wants out. Wants to go to her. Wants to claim what’s ours.
I take a deep breath.
Two days. This is her second day working here, and every minute has been torture.
She sits right there, close enough that I can catch traces of her scent when she walks past my office. Close enough that, if I focushard enough, I can hear her voice through the soundproof glass when she speaks to colleagues. Close enough that it’s driving me absolutely insane.
But not close enough to touch. Never close enough to touch.
My wolf snarls, frustrated. He doesn’t understand why we’re denying ourselves. Why we’re sitting in this office when our mate is right there, breathing the same air, existing in the same space.
Because she doesn’t know, I remind him savagely. She doesn’t feel it.
She should, though. Even without her wolf fully surfacing, the mate bond shouldn’t only be felt on my end. But there’s nothing in her eyes. That’s the part that’s been eating at me: the complete lack of recognition. The way she looks at me with nothing but cold indifference—and sometimes, outright hostility.
Maybe she’s hiding it after overhearing what I said to my father. My jaw clenches at the memory.
“Clumsy.” “Shy.” “Sheltered.” “Can barely function in normal society.”
The words echo in my head like a curse. Every vile thing I said, every cruel observation meant to convince my father that Violet doesn’t belong in this division, in this building, anywhere near me.
She heard all of it.
I saw her face when I opened that door. Saw the way the color drained from her cheeks, the indifference that slid over her expression like a mask. And then, she walked past me like I was nothing, keeping space between us so deliberately, it felt like a slap.
“You don’t like me, right?”
Her question from that night cut me deeper than any blade could.
“I’m not interested in spending any amount of time with you, either.”
I deserved that. Deserved worse, probably.
But what I didn’t deserve was the way she looked at me when I cornered her against my car the next morning. Like I repulsed her. Like my touch made her sick.
“Your smell makes me nauseous,” she told me. The memory causes a hollow ache to spread through my ribs.
But she was lying. I know she was. I saw the way her pupils dilated when I got close. The blush in her cheeks, the slight tremor in her hands. Her body responded to me even though she tried to pretend the opposite.
