Human male: probable security risk, but the odds of a direct threat to the pack or company slim.
Infant wolf: impossible to place, but the main question was whose and why it was here?
“Armed pursuit” could mean anything from a botched extraction to a freelance job gone bad.
I rehearsed the interrogation in my head, mapped out contingencies. Had the usual protocols at ready.
The office doors opened.
Human.
My first impression—height: 5’6” at most. Weight: 115. Clothing, cheap denim, an olive canvas jacket two sizes too big. The hair was light brown, cropped close, but it was the eyes that clocked me first: wide, intelligent, with the flicker of a survivor.
And the scent—Jesus Christ. It hit before I could even draw breath.
Cherry blossom. Not the synthetic kind, but the memory kind. Spring afternoons on the grounds as a boy, the old trees blowing petals across the grass, before my father made the world so small with his rules and expectations.
I’d seen betas go under to the mate bond before. History called it “imprinting.” The real thing was more like a head-on collision. There was no negotiation with instinct.
You could taste it in your own blood.
The human’s eyes snapped to me, quartering the room for exits before the doors even finished opening. Lollipop in cheek, wolf pup bundled inside the jacket, he looked like he’d just madea decision that would get us both killed, and was ready to see it through.
My wolf locked onto him like gravity had reversed.
“Mate.” The word came out of me raw, low. Not for the room, not even for the man in front of me. It was the first honest thing I’d said in years.
The human heard it. Something flashed across his face—a hairline fracture in the cynicism, a shiver in the mask. It was gone by the next breath, replaced by a barbed suspicion so hard I could almost feel it brush the underside of my jaw.
My knuckles whitened against the edge of the desk. It took real, deliberate effort not to close the twelve feet between us and confirm the bond with touch. Biology clamored for it, a pressure behind the teeth and the base of my skull.
Instead, I went through the sequence: assess, catalog, prioritize. The pup was small, fur pale with a white slash up the muzzle. The man holding her—the mate, because there was no use fighting the word now—cradled the animal with a care that was both professional and unconscious.
Every other detail sorted itself into the background.
There were three priorities: secure the pup, ensure Flynn’s safety, manage the explanation. I repeated them in my head, a liturgy to keep the wolf from clawing its way through the language center of my brain.
Instinct wanted to cross the office, haul the human into my arms, and drown him in a thousand years of DNA. The other part—the part with an MBA, three degrees, and a standing seat on the World Forestry Council—insisted on order.
I started with the pup.
“Ashe,” I said, not taking my eyes off Flynn, “get her to medical. Run the battery. Full panel.”
He was already moving. Wilson’s efficiency was its own kind of silence, the practiced choreography of a man who’d spent his adult life managing the fallouts of my biology.
He scooped the wolf pup up and didn’t so much as look at her face; all that mattered was her pulse, her lungs, the wound on her side. He paused just past the threshold, and I saw his gaze flick between me and Flynn, the briefest moment of curiosity.
When he spoke, it was for my ears alone. “I’ll keep her out of the public view.”
“Do that,” I said. “And Ashe—” I let the tone go a shade dryer than necessary. “Try not to lose any more doctors this month.”
His mouth twitched. That was as close to a laugh as he got. “No promises,” he said, and was gone.
The door shut, the click resonating in the room like a challenge.
Now it was just me and my mate.
He hadn’t moved. Not a millimeter. His hand stayed loose by his jacket, the exact placement that would cover a concealed carry if I hadn’t already frisked him by proxy in the lobby. There was no gun. There was, I’d bet, a blade, maybe two.
