Chapter 9
Mine
Roan
The meeting went well. Too well.
That’s the problem. If she’d been boring or distant or any of the things a sensible person should be on a first meeting with a man she barely knows, I could have walked away. Told myself the mate bond was a biological glitch, an instinct misfiring, something that would fade with time and distance.
Instead, she’d been sharp, funny, curious about everything, and utterly incapable of hiding her reactions.
When she’d laughed at something I said, tipping her head back and covering her mouth like the sound had escaped without permission, my wolf had gone so still inside me that for a moment I’d thought my heart had stopped.
I haven’t stopped thinking about her since.
I’m thinking about her now, in fact, while I’m supposed to be reviewing the patrol rotation I drew up for Rebecca.
The papers are spread across my kitchen table.
Boundary lines, shift times, the tactical logic that comes naturally to me and infuriates my father because I refuse to apply it in any official capacity.
I’ve been staring at the same page for twenty minutes.
Her scent. That’s the thing I keep circling back to.
In the forest, it had been partially masked by blood and antiseptic and the sharp edge of her own fear.
At the cottage, with tea and bread and the warmth of a closed room concentrating it, I’d been able to pick it apart properly for the first time.
Honey and warmth, yes. But underneath that, something else.
Something I can’t name because I’ve never encountered it before.
It’s not quite human. Not wolf either, not in any way I recognise.
It’s like catching a scent on the wind that you know you should be able to place but can’t, no matter how many times you pull it in.
My wolf responds to it with a certainty that outstrips my understanding, and I’ve been turning it over in my head for two days without getting any closer to an answer.
She doesn’t know. Whatever that thread in her scent means, she has no awareness of it. She moves through the world like a woman who has never questioned what she is, which means either I’m wrong about what I’m smelling or she’s carrying something she’s never been told about.
I fold the thought up and put it away. It’s not useful right now, and I’ve got enough complications without adding speculative biology to the list.
The Hare and Hound is quiet for a Thursday evening.
Graham is behind the bar as always, polishing glasses with the unhurried patience of a man who’s been pouring pints since before the smoking ban.
A few locals are scattered at tables, nursing drinks and conversations that have been running since before I was born.
I’m here because my cabin was making me restless, and the pub is the only place in Mistwood where I can sit without someone expecting something from me. Graham doesn’t ask questions. He pours my drink and leaves me alone, which is exactly the kind of social contract I can honour.
I’m halfway through my pint when the door opens and two men I vaguely recognise walk in.
Farmhands from one of the outlying properties, human, the type who come into the village on paydays and drink until someone drives them home.
They settle at the bar three stools down from me and order lagers, and I go back to my drink.
“Seen the new vet?” the taller one says, not bothering to lower his voice. “Moved into Ivy Cottage. Dark hair, nice figure. Bit standoffish, but that’s probably the London thing.”
My hand tightens on my glass.
“Mate of mine went in with his dog last week,” the other one says. “Said she’s fit. Single too, apparently.”
“Might have to take the terrier in for a check-up. Get a proper introduction.” The tall one grins into his lager. “She’s not going to meet anyone stuck in that cottage on her own, is she?”
My wolf surges forward with a force that makes my vision sharpen, my teeth ache, and my whole body go tight with something that’s closer to arousal than anger and worse for it.
The possessiveness isn’t rational. It doesn’t live in my head.
It lives in my blood, in my jaw, in the base of my spine where the wolf keeps the things he won’t let go of.
Every instinct I possess narrows to a single, primitive word: mine.
My wolf comes up snarling, possessive enough to make my vision sharpen.
I set my glass down very carefully. The motion takes more control than it should.
Graham glances at me from behind the bar. He’s human, but he’s been serving wolves long enough to read the signs. His eyes flick to the two men, then back to me, and he gives the smallest shake of his head. Not here.
He’s right. I know he’s right. These are two harmless blokes talking rubbish over cheap lager, and if I react the way my wolf wants me to, I’ll put one of them through the wall and by morning the whole village will be asking questions I can’t answer.
I leave my pint unfinished on the bar and walk out into the cold evening air, my hands shaking with the effort of keeping them at my sides.
Christ. This is getting dangerous.
The possessiveness has been building since the cottage visit, and it’s getting worse.
The more she settles under my skin, the harder my wolf pushes to claim what’s his.
I want to know where she is. Who she’s talking to.
Whether she’s safe. I want to piss on the boundary of her property like a territorial dog, which is exactly as undignified as it sounds.
These are not the impulses of a rational man.
This is the mate bond turning me into something I don’t recognise.
I walk until the village thins out and the forest takes over, then I keep walking. The night air cools my skin and slows my heartbeat, and gradually the red haze recedes enough for rational thought to take hold again.
I can’t keep doing this. I can’t sit in pubs and suppress the urge to fight strangers for saying her name.
I can’t walk past her cottage every night, telling myself it’s a security check.
I can’t see her again without telling her the truth, because every interaction built on omission makes the eventual revelation worse.
She needs to know what I am. What she might be. What we are to each other.
The thought makes my stomach drop, because telling her means one of two outcomes. She accepts it, which changes everything. Or she doesn’t, which means I lose her, and I already know with a certainty I can’t argue with, that losing her would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
Rebecca finds me the next morning at the boundary wall, checking the scent markers the rogues disturbed. She falls into step beside me without greeting or preamble, which is her way.
“Patrol rotation looks good,” she says. “Lewis and Jack took the first shift last night. Clean. No fresh rogue scent.”
“Good.”
“Your father wants to formalise the arrangement. Give you an actual title. Head of security, something like that.”
“No.”
“I told him you’d say that.” She’s quiet for a moment, stepping over a fallen branch with the easy balance of someone who’s spent her whole life in these woods. “He’s going to keep pushing, Roan. You’ve given him an inch, and now he wants the mile.”
“Then he can want.”
“Can he? Because from where I’m standing, you’re already doing the job.
You drew up the rotation without clearance.
You briefed the patrol teams directly, bypassing me entirely—which I will be having words with you about later, by the way.
You’re out here checking markers at seven in the morning.
You’re doing everything an Alpha heir does except admitting that’s what you are. ”
I don’t answer, because she’s right and we both know it.
We finish the boundary check in comfortable silence, and I head back towards the village with the morning sun on my face and two impossible problems turning in my head.
The rogues are getting bolder. Phoebe is getting closer. And I’m running out of time to deal honestly with either one.