Everything stops.
The word slams into my consciousness with the force of a freight train.
MATE.
No. No, not again. Not now.
But my wolf doesn’t care about logic or timing or the absolute impossibility of what’s happening. He recognizes her instantly, six years of forced distance evaporating in a single heartbeat.
Violet.
She’s here. She’s actually here, sitting at my father’s table, staring at me with those hazel eyes of hers.
She’s not eighteen anymore. Not the girl who kept her head down at dinner, not the girl who carefully measured every word around her mother, not the girl who left the morning after her birthday while I stood at my window and watched her go. She’s a woman now, twenty-four years old and completely transformed. Slender in that simple, navy dress, her hair knotted at the nape of her neck, a few loose strands framing her face.
Beautiful. Devastating. Mine.
The fated mate bond roars back to life between us, destiny blazing with brutal clarity. I can feel it in my chest: the tug that has been dormant for six years, screaming at me now. The pull is magnetic, undeniable, demanding I go to her, touch her, claim her, complete what fate started.
Her scent engulfs me completely, and I realize the flowery perfume is a mask. Underneath it, buried so deep that only a mate could detect it, is the faintest whisper of her real scent. Wolf, yes, but barely. A ghost of what it should be, so suppressed that I almost miss it entirely.
Why is it so weak? Why can I barely detect what should be calling to me like a beacon?
My wolf howls, frantic and desperate. He wants to surge forward, to go to her, to press our face to her throat and breathe her in until we drown in her true scent. Wants to bite, claim, make her ours completely.
I lock my muscles, every fiber of my being fighting to stay still.
But I can’t stop staring.
Her pupils are blown wide, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her hands clutch the table, and she’s trembling. Actually trembling.
And her eyes. God, her eyes.
I see the shock reflected there. Pure, unfiltered shock. And confusion. So much confusion, it’s written across every feature of her face, like she doesn’t understand what’s happening between us, like she doesn’t recognize this pull that’s tearing me apart.
She feels something. I can see it in the way her body responds, in the flush creeping up her throat, in the way she can’t seem to look away from me, either. But the confusion in her expression is stark and undeniable.
The fated bond pulses between us, growing stronger with every second our eyes stay locked. It’s taking everything I have not to move, not to cross the room and touch her, not to give in to the howling need that is tearing me apart from the inside.
Her mother sent her away the day after her eighteenth birthday. The day after I first recognized what she was to me. The day after my world tilted on its axis and I realized my stepsister was destined to be mine.
I’ve spent six years building walls, creating distance, forcing my wolf into submission. Six years of brutal self-control, of denying every instinct, of pretending I didn’t feel the absence of her like a missing limb.
But now, she’s here. Right here. And the attraction is just about uncontrollable.
My stepmother shifts in her seat, her body going rigid. I catch the movement in my peripheral vision because I can’tlook away from Violet. Can’t tear my eyes from the way her lips part slightly, from the way her breathing stops as she stares directly at me.
My father says something. His voice is distant, dulled, meaningless.
I’m drowning in her scent, in the fated bond, in the impossibility of this moment.
Finally, my control cracks. If I stay in this room one more second, I’ll do something I can’t take back.
I turn and leave. I storm down the hallway, my footsteps echoing off the marble, my chest heaving as if I just ran a marathon. I reach the stairs and start to climb them. I have to keep putting distance between us because if I don’t, I’ll claim her. Right there in the dining room. In front of my father. In front of her mother.
I’ll complete the bond and ruin everything.
I make it to my old bedroom and stride straight into the bathroom. I don’t bother with the lights, don’t bother undressing. I turn the shower on full blast and step inside, clothes and all. The spray hits me like ice, shocking and brutal. But it does nothing to cool the fire raging through my veins.
