I’m starting to understand why.
Even if I hated that smug bastard with every fiber of my being, I couldn’t deny the way he stood behind her like a silent wall of rage.
I’ve seen him more than once, while growing up, to kill without much of a second thought if someone touched a member of his pack.
Rogue, vampire, hunter. Without batting an eyelid.
Yeah. The guy was sick in the head.
Almost as sick as me.
And she needed that. Both of us.
Because sure as hell, the vultures were already circling.
I reached the buffet and grabbed three cups of coffee. Black. Hot. Bitter.
One of them I dusted with cinnamon. Just a whisper. Something she’d muttered once under her breath-something about her mother. I’d never forget that. Not when it came from her lips. Not when she’d said it with that rare softness that cracked through the armor.
I added it to the tray.
Then came the rest. Pancakes. Hashbrowns. Eggs. Bacon. Cookies. Cinnamon rolls. Whatever caught my eye.
I didn’t know what she liked yet.
But I would.
I would learn every goddamn thing there was to know about her. The way she took her coffee. The songs she listened to when she thought no one was paying attention. How she curled her fingers when she was pissed. The way her breath caught when someone touched her without permission.
She deserved everything.
And all I’d gotten so far was a tight-lipped glare and the kind of silence that made my want to crawl out of my skin and beg. wolf
gave that bastard Reyes a smile.
She
A smile.
And me? Electrocution.
I clenched the tray so hard I thought it might snap in half.
Onyx, growled low inside me. A warning. A demand.
‘She’s ours. Why hasn’t she looked at us like that yet?’
‘Because she doesn’t trust us. Not yet.’
‘Then make her.’
Oh, I would.
I turned back toward the table, scanning for her before I’d even made it halfway across the room.
She was still there.
Dalton was sitting just behind her, legs spread wide, one arm stretched over the back of her chair like he belonged there. Like she belonged to him. His eyes were half-lidded, lazy as always, but I knew better. That wolf inside him was coiled and ready to strike at the first sign of a threat.
Kai was glaring at someone across the room.
Someone who had the misfortune of looking too long. Too hungrily.
I bared my teeth without meaning to.
I wanted to carve my name into her skin. Let every single alpha here smell what she was. Who she belonged to. Mine. Ours. Goddess help them if they even breathed wrong in her direction.
I reached the table and dropped the tray down, sliding her coffee-her coffee-closer to her hand without a word.
She didn’t look at me.
Didn’t say thank you. Didn’t even blink.
But her fingers curled around the cup, and she took a sip.
That was enough.
For now.
Dalton glanced up at me, and we locked eyes. Just a second. Nothing friendly. Nothing warm. But there was something else. Understanding. Agreement.
Dalton reached for the coffee without taking his eyes off her.
He brought the cup to his lips and took a long, slow sip, then nodded. “You remembered the cinnamon.”
“Of course I did.” My voice came out lower than intended. “Lunch is on you. We’ll take turns.”
Dalton arched a brow but didn’t argue. He knew I wasn’t just talking about food.
This wasn’t a game anymore.
We were building something around her. A fortress. A pattern. Quiet little rituals of control wrapped in comfort. She didn’t need to know that yet. But we’d carve space into her life until she couldn’t breathe without us.
Kai didn’t even look up. She tore a chunk off a cinnamon roll and shoved it in her mouth like she was at war with the thing. When she finally spoke, her words came out muffled and sharp.
“It won’t be necessary. I can handle myself just fine.”
A pause.
Then I said it-soft, but firm. “I know.”
Dalton leaned forward, voice smoother. “But we want to.”
That got her attention.
She paused mid-chew, lips pursing into a tight line. Her golden eyes flicked between us, reading the undercurrent, the heat, the tension pulling tighter with every breath.
She didn’t say anything else.
Didn’t need to.
That single eyebrow raise, that annoyed twist of her lips-it was challenge, resistance, defiance. And the way she chewed that cinnamon roll? Daring. Rebellious. Infuriating.
Sexy as hell.
She had no idea what she was doing to me. Or maybe she did. Maybe that was the worst part.
She was wearing the simplest thing-a plain uniform-but she looked like the sharpest blade in the room. Raw and reckless.
Untouchable.
At least, to everyone but us.
Onyx stirred in my chest, his voice rough and dark.
‘Mate wants to fight. Let her. We’ll enjoy it. She’ll submit eventually. It would be fun chasing her into the woods’
Not because we forced her.
But because she’d want to.
And that was the difference.
She didn’t need protection. She didn’t need two overgrown alphas shadowing her every move. But she was getting us anyway. Because the second she let us in-really let us in-we weren’t letting her go.
Ever.
I leaned back in my chair, watching her lick icing off her thumb, completely unaware she was feeding the worst, most primal part of me.
Dalton smirked beside me, eyes dark with amusement. He saw it too. The fire in her. The storm brewing under that skin.
She wasn’t soft.
She was chaos wrapped in barbed wire.
My little mouse.
And I’d bleed for every inch of her.
Kai licked the last trace of icing off her thumb and pushed back her chair with a scraping sound that sliced through the tension like a blade.
“Okay,” she said, wiping her hands on a napkin. “That was fun and all, but now I need to go to class. See ya.”
She stood like she hadn’t just sucker-punched my entire nervous system, slung her bag over one shoulder, and turned as if we didn’t exist.
But I was already grinning.
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