Chapter 6 Violet
Violet
My brain short-circuits as Alpha’s voice reverberates through the clearing, followed by a silence that somehow rings even louder. No murmurs, no whispers– just a collective intake of breath as my name hangs in the air like a mistake no one knows how to fix.
I feel hundreds of eyes swing toward me, but keep my own gaze fixed ahead.
On him.
Commander Kane starts forward with all the enthusiasm of someone being forced to shake hands with a firing squad. His jaw is clenched even tighter than before, shoulders stone. And when his dark eyes finally lift to meet mine, the resentment simmering behind them hits me like a shove to the chest.
Nothing in those eyes is subtle or apologetic– just pure, quiet fury. He does not look happy about this, and the feeling’s mutual.
My traitorous body reacts to him anyway, breath catching, heart skipping a beat.
He’s undeniably gorgeous in that dangerous, too-intense way I have a bad habit of being drawn to rather than running from.
His thick dark hair is shaved close on the sides and longer on top, a thin layer of stubble lining his jaw.
Shadows catch on the sharp angles of his face as he moves toward me with predatory grace, the little hairs on the back of my neck prickling in warning.
Instinctively, I want to shrink back, turn and flee. Instead, I take a step in his direction, meeting the monster head-on as he comes to a stop in front of me.
He’s even taller than I remember. Broader, too. His steely gaze holds mine just long enough to see the shimmering gold of his wolf in his irises before abruptly flicking down and away, dominance and frustration radiating off him in equal measure.
“Lucky,” a feminine voice whispers from somewhere behind me.
I grit my teeth against the urge to turn around and bite back.
No part of me feels lucky right now. Commander Kane is the pistol in Alpha’s arsenal; a soulless weapon he uses to enforce his self-serving agenda. Being Paired with this man isn’t a privilege. It’s a punishment.
Alpha barks orders for Dr. Aspen to dole out the mating serum, and he quickly starts moving down the line, passing out pre-filled syringes.
I’m handed one labeled with Kane’s name, and he’s handed one with mine.
We’re instructed to wait until Alpha gives the signal, and that’s when it hits me– he wants us to inject ourselves, as if we’re actually choosing this.
It’s a sick kind of cruelty that only adds insult to injury.
The syringe is cold in my hand, the liquid inside tinged red. My heart pounds out of rhythm as I stare down at it, my stomach curling in on itself.
Alpha starts in on some speech about the sanctity of mate bonds, but none of it gets past the sound of my own pulse pounding in my ears. A strange sort of numbness washes over me, my brain filling with static.
It isn’t until Kane pops the cap off his syringe that I realize we’ve been given the instruction to proceed. My fingers tremble as I remove the cap from my own, the needle glinting in the moonlight as I lift my gaze to his.
We lock eyes.
It’s not intentional– more like gravity tilting– but once it happens, neither of us looks away. My world narrows to him; to this man I don’t know. Don’t want. And can’t stop staring at.
“Let’s show them our support as they proceed with sealing their bonds!” Alpha booms, his voice rolling through the clearing like thunder. The crowd erupts in celebratory cheers.
This is it. The moment the rest of my life stops belonging to me.
Kane lifts his syringe first, pressing the gleaming tip to the curve where his neck meets his shoulder. He pauses there, dark eyes still pinned on mine, something dangerous glinting behind those twin voids.
A challenge. A taunt. A dare.
My own syringe suddenly feels far too heavy in my hand. Every instinct in me pulls taut, muscles tensing, wolf thrashing beneath my skin.
I can’t do it.
I can’t make myself move, can’t lift my arm. I refuse to be complicit in the loss of my freedom.
But of course, Alpha always has a backup plan.
All it takes is a second of hesitation for one of his enforcers to step into my space. It happens so fast that I barely register the movement– just the press of his body crowding mine, the sudden absence of the syringe from my grip, and the sharp sting of the needle piercing my skin.
My mouth opens on a silent scream of protest, but it’s too late. I feel the cool rush of the serum slide beneath my skin, the enforcer stepping back as quickly as he moved in. Kane watches me with lethal calm as he depresses the plunger of his own syringe, not even blinking.
The bond hits hard and fast.
Heat scorches through my veins, heart stumbling as something ancient and primal wakes in my chest. My inner wolf surges forward as an invisible tether snaps taut between us, Kane flinching like he feels it too.
His breath leaves him in a harsh exhale, eyes widening, then narrowing, as if he’s fighting the instinct crashing through.
I sway toward him before I even realize I’ve moved, and he steps toward me just as involuntarily, drawn by the same brutal pull. His dark irises flicker, then drown in molten gold as his wolf pushes to the surface.
I drag in a shaky breath, and suddenly I’m drowning in him. Citrus and spice, leather and pine. Everything about that scent calls to me, heat flooding my core like gasoline poured on a fire.
Mate.
The word thrums through me, not spoken but known, vibrating in my marrow.
The cheers around us swell as Alpha announces the start of the run by shifting. His massive wolf bursts forth in a ripple of fur and fangs, head tipping back on a low howl that shakes the clearing.
The energy ripples outward like a shockwave, snapping the pack into motion. Clothes hit the ground, bodies twist and reform, the air shimmering as a chorus of howls rise.
My wolf claws at my chest, frantic and insistent, and I finally stop fighting her.
The shift takes me fast. My bones pop and realign, my senses exploding. When my paws hit the earth and I lift my head, Kane’s already shifted to his wolf form– massive and black as night, eyes burning like wildfire.
With our wolves in control, there’s zero hesitation.
He steps forward and bumps his muzzle into mine, and a soft whine escapes me before I can stop it.
The reaction is instant. We slide into each other’s space like we’ve been moving as a pair for years, fur brushing, scents mingling, bodies circling in tight, instinctive patterns.
A nip to his cheek, a nudge to my shoulder.
It’s effortless, as natural as breathing.
The bond hums in my chest, bright and insistent and too big for my human mind to comprehend. That part of me slips back, fading to a dim echo while the wolf rises, alight with incandescent joy.
We bolt into the woods together. Trees whip past in streaks of shadow and moonlight, the forest floor thrumming beneath our paws.
Kane matches me stride for stride, letting me surge ahead before cutting me off with a playful shoulder-check.
I growl, and he snaps back, teeth flashing.
We’re a blur of momentum and heat, relishing the rush of the run.
I don’t know these woods, but he does. My wolf takes her cues from him without pause, trusting him in a way that makes my human self bristle somewhere deep beneath the surface.
We leap a ravine, weave between fallen logs, and tumble in a clearing, rolling through dirt and leaves until we’re breathless with exhilaration.
For as long as the run lasts, I feel weightless. Free. Like this could almost be something beautiful instead of a prison.
The frenzy tapers slowly. Our strides shorten, the wild joy easing into something softer and more controlled. The forest grows quieter as the pack winds down, the moon dipping low and bleeding silver across the trees as we return to the clearing.
My wolf resists at first, still drunk on the run and high on the bond.
The shift pulls me under anyway, bones rearranging until I stumble back into my human form and collapse onto the cold grass, breath rushing out of me in sharp bursts.
My muscles ache in that bone-deep, satisfying way that says I gave everything I had, heart still hammering with the leftover thrill of running beside my mate.
Kane shifts a few feet away. The change ripples through him smoothly, and when he rises to stand, he’s all hard lines and danger wrapped in moonlight.
Our eyes lock, drawn together like magnets. Then, like we’re both fighting the same instinct, our gazes drop– slowly, shamelessly, and greedily.
He is… obscene.
Hard muscle ripples beneath tan skin, abs flexing with every labored breath.
My gaze traces the v-lines of his Adonis belt to the hard, heavy length of him hanging between his thighs, heat flashing through me so fast it’s startling.
My lips part, fingers twitching with a sudden, vivid urge to take him in my palm, to climb into his arms, to press up against every inch of him…
No.
It's the bond. Still humming, still pushing instinct through my veins like wildfire– but the longer I’m shifted back, the more the haze lifts. My wolf recedes, rational thought fighting its way to the surface.
The attraction is real, but this pull, this hunger? It’s biology. The primal magnetism of the bond at work.
I jerk my gaze away and push upright, curling in on myself to cover my nakedness as I scan the ground for my clothes. Panic winds its way up my chest, my pulse ticking in my throat.
Kane locates his own clothes easily, stepping into his pants and shrugging on his shirt with efficient movements that I try very hard not to watch. I keep my eyes down, scanning the grass, pretending my heart isn’t trying to punch its way out of my chest.
Once he’s dressed, he moves, circling behind me and stooping to grab something off the ground. When he steps back into view, my clothes are in his fist.
Of course.
He drops them onto the grass beside me, my head snapping up, lips parting on a sharp inhale.
For a fraction of a second, something flickers across his face– barely there, then gone, locked behind that cold, impenetrable armor.
“I’ll… be in touch,” he murmurs flatly, as if we just wrapped up a meeting.
As if we didn’t just forge a bond that changed the architecture of my entire life.
Before I can react, he turns and walks away without a single backward glance.
The cold hits me immediately like a gut punch of emptiness. My wolf whines in the back of my mind, confused and hurt, while my human half burns with humiliation and anger, both sharp enough to cut. I grab for my clothes, clutching them to my chest as I push up to my feet.
My mind trips over itself, scrambling for something– anything– to yell after him. But all I can manage to do is stare as his silhouette disappears into the trees, the shadows swallowing him whole.