Jai wasn’t pack. He didn’t feel the bond—not the way I did. I’d watched that play out before: the mate who doesn’t recognize it, doesn’t want it, runs so hard they leave skin on the pavement. For some wolves, that was an invitation. For me, it was a warning.
Every time he’d looked at me, it was with the hard, appraising stare of a man used to being cornered and fighting out. He’d answered the phone, yes, but he’d also come back on his own terms.
The cherry blossom scent hadn’t been for me; it was just what happened, a chemical accident with my brain as the victim. I’d never been prey to a craving before. Now, it was constant. Even now, hours later, I could feel the want under my tongue.
And the problem was, the world was full of men with better aim and fewer rules than me. I could station a guard on every bridge in the city, but unless I got Jai under my roof, it wouldn’t matter.
I lay back, fully dressed except for the jacket, and locked my eyes on the ceiling. The suite was engineered to resist outside light, but a trace of the city still found its way through.
I listened to Grace breathe in the bassinet, the sound barely a tick above the air system. There was peace in that. Or at least the shape of it.
From there, I worked through the last, unsolved variable: why kill for a baby? Wolves, even the most territorial, didn’t go after pups. Not unless they were less interested in the pup and more in what she could do.
There was no precedent for what Grace had done. Shifted on day zero, imprinted on a human, survived the flight. All three put together made her a data point so far off the bell curve I’d have needed a new axis to plot it.
Someone knew what she was. Someone had moved fast enough to erase both parents, and cleanly enough that even Ashe couldn’t find a trail. Whoever it was, they were coming for her, and for anyone she’d touched.
My hand closed on the edge of the duvet. I made a fist, held it until the fabric cut a seam across my palm, then let it go. Rage was useful only if it fueled the right move.
I would get him back. Not by force, not by pressure. That was what the wolves of the last century did, and they were all dead or in exile. If I wanted Jai Flynn, I had to make him want to come. That was a trick I’d never bothered to learn.
I stared at the ceiling and pictured him: feet up on the coffee table, lollipop at half-mast, eyes scanning the window for the next threat. He was already running through the probabilities, probably pacing in socks and pretending to be annoyed instead of scared.
I’d seen that look in a mirror, once, back before the world decided to put me on the top shelf and see if I could stay there.
He’d come back. He had to. If not for me, then for the kid. For Grace. The bond was set, no matter what he wanted to believe.
The city kept its secrets. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for years. I just needed it to keep one more night.
I rolled over, not bothering to undress, and fixed my eyes on the rectangle of window that framed the mountain. Even in the dark, I could see the lines of the ridge, the snow capping the top like a crown. I’d always liked that view. It had never felt like a promise before.
Grace made a soft sound. Not a cry, not even a whimper. Just a noise, the kind that says: I’m still here.
So was I.
And as long as we both were, nobody was getting through.
Not tonight.
Chapter Five
~ Jai ~
I’d spent the night back at my place above the bakery—door triple-bolted, the baby’s powder scent still jammed in every one of my sinuses, and a seven-hour loop of old jazz records just loud enough to cover the echo in my head—but when the elevator opened to Braham’s penthouse the next morning, it was a different space.
First clue: a new crib, pale wood, tucked against the far wall beneath the windows. Not a pack-n-play, not a hand-me-down. Sleek, custom, probably worth more than my last car. In front of it, a bench stacked with supplies—diapers, wipes, rows of sterilized bottles lined up like artillery shells.
Second clue: the view. Morning light off Mt. Hood cut cold amber across the walnut floors and sank deep into the black leather furniture, made everything look both more expensive and less forgiving.
Third clue was Ashe Wilson, stationed just left of the door, arms loose at his sides, brown eyes already cataloguing me before I’d even crossed the threshold. I could see how fast he ran the math: my posture, my hands, whether I was carrying, the faint red at the edge of my left sleeve from last night’s creative exit.
But the main event was Braham Wolfe, standing in the center of the room in a dark suit that looked vacuum-sealed to his body, and the newborn pressed against his chest in one big hand. She was screaming, a raw, tearing sound that filled the glass-walled space and made it feel like the sky was going to break.
I stepped in, popped a new cherry sucker, and tried to look like a man who hadn’t spent the last ten hours debating whether to torch his apartment for insurance and start over in Wyoming.
The second my foot hit the tile, the baby’s howl dropped out. Not gradually, not like she was catching her breath. It went from banshee to nothing in a single heartbeat, the kind of silence you can feel in your teeth. Her fists unclenched. Her eyes found me and locked on, like she’d been waiting for me to show up and fix the world.
Braham’s gold eyes were already on me, that same deadpan predatory frequency I hadn’t located a countermeasure for. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just shifted his grip on the kid with enough gentleness that I felt a muscle in my jaw twitch.
