“Me too,” he said, arching a brow. That piqued my curiosity.
“Who goes first?”
“Well,” he said, tilting his head with a smirk, “since you planned this little rendezvous, go first.”
He said it with a hint of amusement I wasn’t expecting. It threw me for a second.
I cleared my throat and leaned forward, keeping my voice low. “At lunch, I was in the hallway between our dorm and Reyes’.”
His jaw tightened. He didn’t just dislike Reyes. He loathed him. Maybe even more than he hated me.
“And I may have heard a phone call,” I continued. “Between the Hollowed Moon twins and… Goddess knows who.”
Derrick rolled his eyes. “Why are we turning into two old ladies gossiping over tea?”
“Don’t be an asshole. This is serious.”
“Serious like…?”
“Like, I think they’re planning something. Targeting Kai.”
That shut him up. He leaned in now, voice a little harsher. “Spill it. Everything. Every single detail.”
“After you spill your tea, Derrick. You said you had something too. Talk.”
He scowled, but he didn’t argue. Good.
“Reyes,” he said finally. “He’s too invested in his friendship with Kai, and I don’t like it. I don’t like how you look at them either, let’s be honest about that. But I hate Reyes more. The asshole spends all day looking for Kai, making them laugh, making them smile. And I swear, one of these days, I’m going to rip his head clean off.”
His voice was low, but there was venom in it.
“And Kai… Kai said they actually *prefer* him over us. Can you believe that sh.it?”
I couldn’t.
My blood ran hot. It wasn’t just anger. It was a storm. A sharp, pulsing pressure behind my eyes.
The kind that made you black out and come to with blood on your hands.
Reyes was a dead man walking. And the Hollowed Moon twins? Them too.
“What exactly did you hear?” Derrick snapped.
“Just fragments,” I admitted. “But they mentioned an abduction. And they mentioned a golden wolf. Something about a powerful path. About making it theirs. Obedient. And I know only one wolf with golden eyes.”
Derrick’s eyes darkened.
“We have a problem,” he muttered.
“No,” I corrected. “We have *several*.”
I leaned back, letting the tension sit between us like a third presence.
“So what now?” he asked, picking at the edge of his napkin.
“We keep watch. We figure out what the twins are planning. And Reyes? If he touches Kai again, we end him. Together.” He looked at me for a long moment, then gave a slow, deliberate nod.
Keep your friends close. Your enemies closer.
My biggest rival was becoming my only ally.
Strange. Unexpected.
Necessary.
When I uncover Kai’s secrets-when they finally turn eighteen-I’ll mark them so deep, their soul won’t remember a time when they weren’t mine.
And Derrick?
He can die screaming, for all I care.
Derrick was mid-rant about Reyes-again-when a sharp ping buzzed from my pocket, cutting through his voice like a scalpel. I didn’t react right away. Just chewed slowly, deliberately, my eyes fixed on him as he kept talking.
He didn’t notice. Too busy stabbing his fork into greasy fries like they’d personally offended him.
I pulled out my phone, flicked the screen to life.
One word lit it up like Christmas.
“Camera triggered – Bathroom Sensor Active.”
I stopped chewing. Time slowed.
My eyes flicked up to Derrick.
Still here. Still in front of me. Still dry.
Which meant only one other person had gone into that bathroom.
Kai.
A thrill slid down my spine-hot, electric, wrong.
I tapped into the feed.
No audio. Just the visual. Just the blur of steam and angles I’d told myself were for security. Just enough to justify setting it up in the first place. Just enough to let me sleep at night.
But now?
Now the fog clung to the mirror like breath against glass. The faint shadow of movement played behind the veil of mist. A towel dropped-out of frame, but close. Water ran, steady and unforgiving. And then-
There.
Just a sliver.
The barest outline of Kai’s silhouette moving under the stream. Their hair slicked back, clinging to their neck. Drops of water sliding down the curve of their shoulders. Of their ass.
A wonderful ass
Gorgeous. They were going to turn in three, two, oneee…
And I-
I bit down on my tongue until I tasted copper.
What the fuc.k was I doing?
My thumb hovered over the screen.
I wasn’t supposed to be watching this.
I had no right to watch this.
Not like this.
Not after everything.
Not if-
No.
Not if Kai was my mate.
The thought landed hard and fast, heavier than anything Derrick or Reyes could throw at me.
Because I felt it now. More than a suspicion. More than just the ache. Something inside me pulled tight every time they were near. My wolf had already started circling them like they were his. Every inhale around them felt like oxygen after drowning.
And this?
This would destroy it all.
If they ever found out-
They’d be so pissed off they’d never forgive me. Might even reject me on the spot.
And they’d be right to.
“Dalton?” Derrick’s voice cut in, sharp.
My thumb finally moved. I locked the screen and shoved the phone back into my pocket like it burned.
“What?” I snapped. Too fast. Too raw.
He narrowed his eyes. “You looked like you saw a ghost.”
“Just a text,” I muttered. “From the council. Boring shit.”
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