Chapter 003 Rooftop Confessions
Julian took the stairs. All sixteen flights.
He hit the landings hard, pivoting around the railings, letting the burn in his quads distract him from the itch under his skin. It didn't work. His wolf was pacing inside his skull, agitated, snapping at the bars of his control.
Mate. Found. Ours.
"Shut up," Julian muttered, shoving open the heavy fire door to the roof.
The penthouse occupied the southeast corner, a glass-and-steel fortress surrounded by formal terraces. The rest of the roof was a sprawling, enclosed garden where Silas’s wolf could run. In the middle of the city. It was a cage, no matter how expensive the landscaping was, but it was a safe one.
Silas was waiting at the door. He held a finger to his lips.
"Outside," he said, his voice dropping to a murmur. "Julie’s still sleeping."
Julian nodded. He stepped out onto the pool terrace, the cool morning air hitting his sweat-dampened shirt. In the distance, the mountains that split Monster Island down the middle jagged against the pale sky. Dark. Green. Home.
Not this concrete anthill.
Silas led him to a table on the far side of the terrace, away from the master suite. A carafe of coffee waited there. Silas poured two mugs, his movements fluid, easy. The contented movements of a male whose mate was safe in bed a few yards away.
Julian took the mug. Black. Bitter. He drank it scalding hot, hoping it would burn away the taste of ozone and rain that seemed stuck to the back of his throat.
"Quinn Bailey," Julian said. It came out as a low growl.
Silas raised an eyebrow. He leaned back against the stone railing, studying Julian with eyes that were too perceptive by half.
"You ran into her."
It wasn't a question.
"What makes you think that?"
"I can smell her on you." Silas took a sip of his coffee. "Why is that?"
Julian’s grip on the ceramic mug tightened. There was a note in his brother's voice—protective. Wary. Silas was devoted to his mate, but he was also the CEO of TalkToMe, and Quinn was his star employee. His asset.
Julian’s wolf bristled, hackles rising. Mine.
Silas’s wolf was an Alpha, too. If he hadn't left the pack at eighteen, leaving a twelve-year-old Julian to navigate the wreckage of their family alone, Silas would be the one running Moonstone. They were good now—mostly—but put two dominant males in a small space, add the scent of a female, and the air got thin very quickly.
Julian forced his shoulders to drop. "Like you said. I ran into her. Or she ran into me. Literally. In the hallway." He looked out at the city skyline, avoiding his brother's gaze. "Why the hell is she alone in the building at this hour?"
"This building is a fortress because of her," Silas said. "She’s brilliant. Obsessive, but brilliant. She rebuilt our entire threat detection system in two weeks. The team before her couldn't manage it in six months."
"That doesn't mean she isn't fragile."
The image flashed in Julian’s mind. Pink hair. Big eyes behind thick lenses. The way her breath had hitched when he said her name.
"She needs to be protected," Julian snapped.
"Are you volunteering?" Silas asked. Mildly. Too mildly.
Yes.
The word slammed into Julian’s brain. Ours to protect. Ours to keep. Ours.
He shoved the beast down. "She's human," he ground out. "And she's my brother's employee. What the hell do you think?"
"I think I know exactly what that feels like." Silas moved to stand next to him at the railing. He didn't push. He just stood there, a solid, anchoring presence.
"That was different," Julian said. "You don't have the same... responsibilities."
Responsibilities. The word tasted like ash. The Pack. The Council. The legacy of a father broken by a woman who knew exactly how to use his instincts against him.
"The Elders are still fighting our investment tooth and nail," Julian said, shifting gears. "They'd never accept a human ma—"
He bit the word off.
"Mate?" Silas finished.
"No." Julian turned, pacing away from the railing. "I have no intention of taking a mate."
"Ever? As you said, you have responsibilities."
"We should discuss the investment."
Silas watched him for a long moment, then nodded. "Fine. The investment."
It was a good deal. On paper. The Moonstone Pack held a ten percent stake in TalkToMe. Shares. Dividends. A lifeline for a community that was slowly bleeding out as logging and hunting revenues dried up. In exchange, the pack sent young wolves to the city for internships. Integration. A future.
But logic didn't work on old wolves.
"The Elders aren't happy," Julian said.
"The Elders are never happy."
"They're calling the internship program 'corruption.' Selling our young to the city." Julian rubbed a hand over his face. "Elder Sterling gave a two-hour speech yesterday about 'evil pleasures' and 'the seduction of human technology.' I had to physically stop Coleman from walking out."
Silas snorted. "Sterling's still on the council? I thought he would have retired by now."
"He thinks retirement is a human weakness."
"Of course he does."
Sterling was a problem. He had always been a problem. He’d been one of Morgana’s loudest supporters before everything fell apart.
Morgana.
The name surfaced like a corpse in a bog. His stepmother. The beautiful, intelligent, poisonous creature who had dismantled his father piece by piece. She had played the perfect Luna while whispering venom in the pack's ears. She had nearly destroyed them all. She had kidnapped Silas’s mate.
Julian had exiled her, but the scars were etched into the marrow of his bones.
Never trust a beautiful woman. Never let them close. Intelligence is just a weapon they use to find the chinks in your armor.
"Are you going to back out?" Silas asked.
"Of the deal? No. We need this. No matter how much they bitch."
"Good. Then we need to protect the investment." Silas set his mug down on the stone railing. "We need to upgrade the pack's infrastructure. Your technology is prehistoric, Julian. You're still using dial-up in the main lodge, for God's sake. If we're going to make this partnership work, you need secure networks. You need connectivity."
Julian sighed. "I know. We've been meaning to upgrade for years."
"Then we'll take care of it." Silas turned to face him. "I'm sending Quinn."
"Absolutely not."
The refusal was instantaneous. Visceral.
"I am not bringing a human woman out to the pack lands," Julian said, his voice rising. "Especially not her."
"Why not her?"
"Because..."
Because she smells like wildflowers and my wolf wants to roll in her scent until I can't smell anything else. Because she looked at me with those grey eyes and I wanted to carry her off to a cave.
"Because she's not pack," Julian said. "She's a city girl. She wouldn't last five minutes out there."
"She's tougher than she looks," Silas said. "She grew up in the system, Julian. Bounced from foster home to foster home until she aged out. She put herself through MIT. She can handle a few grumpy werewolves."
Julian winced.
Foster homes. No pack. No family.
The scent of wildflowers and ozone suddenly made sense. It wasn't a perfume; it was resilience. Something fragile that had managed to bloom in the cracks of the pavement.
"She's the most qualified person I have," Silas pressed. "And frankly, she's the only person I trust to set up your security systems properly. If you want this done right, you need Quinn."
"Find someone else."
"There is no one else." Silas’s voice hardened. "Quinn is good at her job, she keeps to herself, and she won't cause problems. She's not Morgana, Julian."
The name hung in the air between them. Cold. Heavy.
"You don't know that," Julian said quietly.
"Actually, I do." Silas leaned forward. "She's not going to seduce your pack into rebellion. She's going to hide in whatever room you give her, build you the most secure network on the island, and probably never make eye contact with anyone for the entire time she's there."
Julian looked at the mountains.
Two months. That was the timeline for the install.
Two months of that scent. Two months of pink hair and nervous rambling. Two months of his wolf throwing itself against the bars of its cage, screaming Mate, Mate, MATE.
No.
"Two months," Julian said finally. "She stays two months. She sets up the systems, and she leaves. No socializing with pack members. No..."
No touching. No looking.
"No unnecessary interaction. She does her job and she goes."
Silas smiled. It was the smile of a predator who had just closed a trap. "Agreed. Though I think you'll find Quinn doesn't want unnecessary interaction. She's practically allergic to people."
"Good."
"I'll send her up to Moonstone next week."
"Fine."
Julian pushed away from the railing. He needed to leave. Now. The air on the terrace felt too thin, too full of things he couldn't control. He needed to run. He needed to shift and tear through the underbrush until his lungs burned and his wolf was too exhausted to whine.
"Julian."
He paused at the door.
"Give her a chance," Silas said softly. The CEO mask was gone; this was just his brother. "Not every clever woman is Morgana. And not every attraction is a trap."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Julian didn't wait for a response. He yanked the door open and took the elevator this time. He needed speed.
He stood rigid in the center of the car as the numbers ticked down. 16... 15... 14...
He tried to breathe through his mouth.
It didn't help. Her scent was still there. A phantom presence in the confined space. It was wound through his neural pathways like ivy choking out a stone wall.
His wolf was practically purring. The bastard. It was reliving the collision. The feel of her small, soft body against his chest. The pulse jumping in her throat. The way she’d looked up at him, lips parted—
Stop.
The elevator doors slid open at the lobby. Julian stalked out.
The orc at the security desk looked up, eyes widening as he felt the wave of aggression rolling off the Alpha.
"Sir? Is everything—"
"Fine," Julian growled. He didn't break stride.
He pushed through the glass doors and into the morning sun. The harbor stretched out below, seagulls crying, boats bobbing on the water. Normal. Mundane.
Two months.
She would be on pack territory for two months. Working. Hiding in a server room. Nowhere near him.
He could handle two months. He had handled eight years of leading a dying pack, of fighting off challengers, of navigating the treacherous waters of Council politics. He had handled the loneliness that came with the title.
He could handle one small human with pink hair and combat boots and a scent that made his blood run hot.
Couldn't he?