Chapter 13
CASSIAN
The house is too small for her scent. A week with her under this roof and it’s like the walls have started breathing her in.
Sweet like honey and vanilla left in summer sun mingled with jasmine. Warm like skin. It hits like a fist to the sternum every time I breathe—and I can’t stop breathing.
I make it as far as the porch before my jaw aches from clenching. Need air that doesn’t taste like her. Need distance before I do something fucking stupid. The door shuts behind me even though I want to slam it, but I don’t need any of them chasing me down.
So I eat up the yard in four long strides, straight into the trees.
The fresh air helps. Barely.
Branches snap under my boots. The ground’s still damp from the storm a few days ago, slick enough that I have to watch my footing.
My thigh gives a dull throb along the old scar, the shark bite that always complains when the weather decides to hang around.
Good. Gives me something to fight that isn’t this clawing thing under my ribs.
This is just biology. Has to be.
Biology explains the want. The magnetic pull that makes my skin feel too tight. The way my hands remember the curve of her from that morning she came to wake me, when I was half-asleep and she ended up in my bed, under me, close enough that instinct overrode sense.
I shove the thought out before it grows roots.
Eli’s the calm one—the one who keeps us from tearing ourselves apart. Rowan’s got control down to a science.
Me? I’m the one they both watch when things go bad—the one they expect to lose it first.
They’re not wrong.
And I haven’t felt steady since she walked through that door with eyes that saw too damn much.
The trees close around me fast. Old pine and oak, thick enough to swallow the house whole if you step far enough in. Sunlight filters through in strips, hitting damp leaves that smell like rot and rain. Quiet except for my boots and the pulse in my ears.
Quiet’s supposed to help. Usually does.
Not today.
She’s still here. In the air. In my head. That scent sticks like sugar on my tongue, daring me to taste her.
I push harder. Faster. Let my body burn it out.
Branches whip my shoulders. Something small darts through the underbrush—a flash of eyes, then gone.
Everything out here knows when to keep its distance.
I climb until the ground starts fighting back—rocks slick under the mud, slope steep enough to make my thighs shake. By the time I hit the ridge, my lungs are burning.
It helps. A little.
Up here, the air smells different. Cold. Clean. Untouched. I brace my palms against a fallen trunk and bend forward, trying to shake the noise out of my head.
Movement catches my eye—downhill, near the creek.
A shadow glides between the trees, fluid and low. Gray fur catches the last of the light.
A wolf. Alone.
He pauses in the open, maybe fifty yards off, and lifts his head. We lock eyes. No pack scent. No collar. Just muscle, scars, and the kind of silence that knows the world doesn’t owe you a damn thing.
I don’t move, and neither does he.
The wind shifts, carries my scent down to him. His ears flick once, and for a second, he bares his teeth—not threat, not fear. Recognition.
I know that look. I’ve worn it. Hell, I’m wearing it now. The kind that says I don’t want a fight, but I’ll finish one.
We stare each other down until the light breaks and he fades back into the brush. No sound. No trace. Just gone.
Figures. Lone wolves don’t stick around. They don’t get soft. They don’t want a connection. They survive.
That’s the rule. It’s the only reason I’m still standing. Last time I let someone in, she vanished.
The silence he leaves behind hits harder than it should.
I curse, push off the log, and keep moving. The creek’s just below the ridge, narrow but fast. I crouch, scoop a handful of water, and splash it over my face.
It’s cold, but not freezing. I wish it were.
Pain’s honest. Pain doesn’t lie the way scent does. I used to sneak onto Dad’s Coast Guard boat before dawn, hide behind the emergency kits until we were too far out for him to turn back.
The first time he caught me, I was nine and already staring at a surfboard bitten clean through. Saw more shark bites, including a guy lucky to have his arm. Real teeth, real damage. What the ocean does when it decides you’re in the wrong place.
Sharks don’t lie. People do.
Another handful over my neck. Get it together.
The last time I lost control, it cost us everything— Meredith dead, Blake’s jaw shattered, months of Eli and Rowan looking at me like I was a loaded gun with a broken safety.
And now Jess shows up, smelling like sunlight and trouble, and my whole body forgets every rule I ever made.
I stand, water dripping down my collar. My pulse slows. Barely. The Alpha in me settles half an inch below the surface.
Told myself that she’s just another Omega. Temporary. Ninety days and she’ll leave. Like she should.
But that lie doesn’t stick.
Because the image still slips in—the way her hand brushed mine when I showed her how to brace the fence boards, her fingers lingering half a second too long. The way she looked up at me after. Not scared. Not submissive. Just seeing me—the me under the snarl.
It shouldn’t have mattered. But it did.
I grit my teeth and head back down the ridge before that thought breeds more.
By the time I reach the property line, the sun’s bleeding out behind the trees. The porch light’s on. Windows glowing gold—the kind of warm that looks like safety if you’re far enough away.
I don’t step into the light. Not yet.
From here, I can hear pans clatter, Eli’s voice low and steady. Rowan’s probably upstairs, pretending not to listen for her footsteps.
I rub a hand over my face. Skin tight. Chest full.
This is just biology.
Has to be.
Except I don’t buy it anymore. Not when every nerve in my body’s memorized her name.
My thumb finds the band-aid she wrapped around my knuckle. The sting grounds me just enough. I push off the railing and reach for the door.
The hinges creak when I open it.
Lust rolls over me, thick with scent—Eli’s clean linen and bergamot, Rowan’s rain and sandalwood, and under it all, that faint sweetness that belongs to her. It’s not even strong anymore, but my body finds it first.
“Subtle,” Eli says without turning.
I flip him off and grab a glass from the cabinet. The fridge air hits my face when I open it, cold relief for half a heartbeat.
Last time I said a woman’s name, it was Meredith’s, and I swore I’d stop giving any female that power. Then Jess walked in, and my throat forgot the promise.
“You gonna stand there all night or drink something?” he asks.
I shut the door hard enough to rattle the magnets. Fill the glass. Half gone in one swallow. Doesn’t help.
Eli stirs a creamy Alfredo sauce on the stove. “I’m taking bets on how long you last before you crack.”
“Fuck off.”
“Three weeks,” he says, grinning. “Maybe less.”
I stop. Set the glass down too hard.
He finally turns. “What? I’m just saying, Cassian—you’re wound tighter than barbed wire. It’s obvious.”
“Drop it.”
He lifts both hands, lazy, unbothered. “Alright, alright. No need to bite.”
Then he glances back over his shoulder, and his voice drops—softer, no bullshit: “But you should know—she looks at you the same way.”
The words stick.
I stare, but he doesn’t flinch. Not teasing now. Not even close.
He turns back to the stove like he didn’t just land a hit. “We skipped lunch. Early dinner for everyone.”
I grab my glass and walk out before the air can get heavier.
The hallway’s dim. Her door’s cracked an inch, just enough for scent to spill through—soft, sweet, threaded with exhaustion.
My fingers tighten around the glass until it could crack. I stop halfway down the hall and lean a shoulder against the wall, press my forehead to the paint, and exhale slowly through clenched teeth.
This is just biology.
Has to be.
But it doesn’t feel like biology when my pulse kicks at the thought of her sleeping in that room.
This is supposed to be temporary—a trial, an Omega living with us after years without one.
I’m not supposed to get attached. Kept everyone at arm’s length, and that’s worked fine.
No Omega’s ever gotten this close to me, even when I’ve fucked and knotted them. Never bite. Never claim.
I stand there for a long minute, count my breaths until my voice works again, and head for the shower.
Freezing cold water that’ll make my balls and cock shrink. Anything to drown out what’s not supposed to be mine. Because in less than ninety days, she could walk out and never look back. Tell Nexus this was a mistake. Ask for another pack.
And something deep inside me tells me if that happens, I won’t survive it. And waiting until the trial is up is only going to make it fucking hurt more.
She’s not supposed to be mine, but every atom in my body’s already claimed her.
Jess
Ican still feel Rowan’s mouth on mine: the pressure, the heat of him, the way his breath stuttered against my lips before he pulled away. My fingers drift to my mouth without permission, tracing where he’d been, and I jerk my hand down with a curse.
Every time I blink, it’s there. Not just the kiss, but the moment right before, when his eyes went dark and I knew what was coming and I let it happen anyway.
I pace the length of my room, heartbeat still hammering. I’ve fought off bigger threats than a kiss before, but this? This has my hands shaking.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I’ve been here, what, about a week? And I nearly climbed him like a damn tree.
He kissed me. I kissed him back. And if I hadn’t stopped—God, if he tried again, I don’t think I could’ve stopped.
I swallow hard and stare at the door like it might bite me. Nope. Not facing him tonight. Not facing any of them.
So I hide.