Chapter Two
~ Braham ~
I owned the city at forty-one stories. The desk was glass and sharp as a guillotine; the chairs, two feet in front, squared off like old adversaries. Smell of cigar smoke still clung to the upholstery, no matter how many times the cleaning service promised it was gone.
Outside the windows, the Willamette River bled gold under the evening cloud cover, and Mt. Hood, that ice-crowned relic, hovered at the horizon like a dare.
It was always cold up here, even with the geothermal piped under the floor. I liked it cold. Kept the mind awake and the body on edge.
Tonight, the air was heavy with the promise of a problem. I’d spent the better part of a decade watching my betas fall into the mate bond like it was a shark trap—one second, all business; the next, kneecapped by biology.
I’d spent the same decade calculating risk: the political arithmetic of succession, the risks of diluting lineage, the probability of a true mate ever actually materializing outside a myth. There were so many more pressing things than desire.
So I did what any reasonable Prime Alpha does: I arranged partnerships, checked boxes, consolidated fractured packs, all the while keeping my distance from the biology that made lesser men combust in elevators and rental cars and, once, the middle of a city council meeting.
It’s possible I’d gotten cocky.
I’d stopped expecting anything but the maintenance of order and the flavorless routines of dominance. I didn’t want the bond. Didn’t need it.
Then Ashe Wilson, who never called without cause, buzzed my cell with: “Sir. Problem inbound. Unknown male, human. Wolf pup. Armed pursuit.”
He set a file in front of me.
I’d composed the rest before he’d even given me the floor number.
Human male: probable security risk, but the odds of a direct threat to the pack or company slim.
Infant wolf: impossible to place, but the main question was whose and why it was here?
“Armed pursuit” could mean anything from a botched extraction to a freelance job gone bad.
I rehearsed the interrogation in my head, mapped out contingencies. Had the usual protocols at ready.
The office doors opened.
Human.
My first impression—height: 5’6” at most. Weight: 115. Clothing, cheap denim, an olive canvas jacket two sizes too big. The hair was light brown, cropped close, but it was the eyes that clocked me first: wide, intelligent, with the flicker of a survivor.
And the scent—Jesus Christ. It hit before I could even draw breath.
Cherry blossom. Not the synthetic kind, but the memory kind. Spring afternoons on the grounds as a boy, the old trees blowing petals across the grass, before my father made the world so small with his rules and expectations.
I’d seen betas go under to the mate bond before. History called it “imprinting.” The real thing was more like a head-on collision. There was no negotiation with instinct.
You could taste it in your own blood.
The human’s eyes snapped to me, quartering the room for exits before the doors even finished opening. Lollipop in cheek, wolf pup bundled inside the jacket, he looked like he’d just made a decision that would get us both killed, and was ready to see it through.
My wolf locked onto him like gravity had reversed.
“Mate.” The word came out of me raw, low. Not for the room, not even for the man in front of me. It was the first honest thing I’d said in years.
The human heard it. Something flashed across his face—a hairline fracture in the cynicism, a shiver in the mask. It was gone by the next breath, replaced by a barbed suspicion so hard I could almost feel it brush the underside of my jaw.
My knuckles whitened against the edge of the desk. It took real, deliberate effort not to close the twelve feet between us and confirm the bond with touch. Biology clamored for it, a pressure behind the teeth and the base of my skull.
Instead, I went through the sequence: assess, catalog, prioritize. The pup was small, fur pale with a white slash up the muzzle. The man holding her—the mate, because there was no use fighting the word now—cradled the animal with a care that was both professional and unconscious.
Every other detail sorted itself into the background.
There were three priorities: secure the pup, ensure Flynn’s safety, manage the explanation. I repeated them in my head, a liturgy to keep the wolf from clawing its way through the language center of my brain.
Instinct wanted to cross the office, haul the human into my arms, and drown him in a thousand years of DNA. The other part—the part with an MBA, three degrees, and a standing seat on the World Forestry Council—insisted on order.
I started with the pup.
“Ashe,” I said, not taking my eyes off Flynn, “get her to medical. Run the battery. Full panel.”
He was already moving. Wilson’s efficiency was its own kind of silence, the practiced choreography of a man who’d spent his adult life managing the fallouts of my biology.
He scooped the wolf pup up and didn’t so much as look at her face; all that mattered was her pulse, her lungs, the wound on her side. He paused just past the threshold, and I saw his gaze flick between me and Flynn, the briefest moment of curiosity.
When he spoke, it was for my ears alone. “I’ll keep her out of the public view.”
“Do that,” I said. “And Ashe—” I let the tone go a shade dryer than necessary. “Try not to lose any more doctors this month.”
His mouth twitched. That was as close to a laugh as he got. “No promises,” he said, and was gone.
The door shut, the click resonating in the room like a challenge.
Now it was just me and my mate.
He hadn’t moved. Not a millimeter. His hand stayed loose by his jacket, the exact placement that would cover a concealed carry if I hadn’t already frisked him by proxy in the lobby. There was no gun. There was, I’d bet, a blade, maybe two.
I could smell the metal.
His breathing was even. I watched the slight expansion under the cheap shirt, the slow in-out that told me he was not panicked, only waiting for the other shoe to drop. The lollipop on the desk rolled to the edge and teetered, but he caught it before it could fall.
Impressive reflexes.
I catalogued everything: the faded scars on his knuckles, the calluses at the base of his fingers, the line of his jaw. The way he never broke eye contact, not even to blink. He was running the same assessment on me, and doing it faster.
There was a line from a book: The most dangerous animal is the one who has survived the hunt. I’d always assumed that meant wolves. But Flynn’s eyes said: I’ve met worse than you, and I’m still here.
The cherry blossom scent filled the office, a chemical solvent for my rational brain. If I’d known that true mates would smell this good, I might have invested more effort in finding one.
Now it was too late to hedge.
Flynn shifted in the chair, muscles coiling and relaxing. The move was deliberate—telegraphing tension, but not fear. He didn’t ask questions. He just watched.
I cleared my throat. “You were military.”
It wasn’t a question.
He nodded once. “Ranger.”
The wolf in me preened. Of course you were.
I pressed on. “The child. She’s not yours. Not biologically.”
He grinned, but it was sharp. “I don’t usually date outside my own species.”
I found myself smiling back. First honest laugh in weeks. “Fair. She’s pack, though. Whether you meant for it or not.”
“Yeah, well.” He looked away for the first time, eyes tracing the skyline. “The world’s full of orphans.”
I wanted to reach for him. Instead, I pulled the conversation back to safe ground. “You have a name,” I said. “Jai Flynn.” I pronounced it right: Jay, not Jy. I saw the surprise flicker behind his eyes.
“Braham Wolfe,” I said, offering the other half of the equation.
He considered it, then nodded. “Alpha?”
“Prime Alpha.” I watched the words land.
He made a low sound, unimpressed. “That why you sent the goons? Or is this just a personal hobby?”
“Neither. Security protocol. Once your face hit the cameras, every rival in the territory got your plate. The bikes on Belmont? Not mine. They were freelance. Lucky for you, I pay my people better.”
He let the logic unfold in silence. Then: “What happens now?”
I told the truth. “You’re safe here. Anyone comes for you, they answer to me.”
“Generous,” he said, but it was hard to tell if he meant it.
I leaned forward, hands folded. The glass desk caught the light, projected our two faces together in the surface. I looked at his reflection, the fine bones and stubborn mouth, and let myself feel the gravity of the moment.
“I have questions,” I said.
He shrugged. “I’ve got answers. Some of them are even true.”
We stayed like that for a minute, no one moving, each measuring the other.
He licked the lollipop, a slow, deliberate move, and I watched the tip of his tongue. The wolf in my head wanted to taste it, to see if it would coat my teeth the way his scent coated my brain.
I said nothing.
Finally, he broke the silence. “So this is it?” He gestured to the office, the glass, the city below. “Is this where you… what, interrogate me? Eat me?”
I arched a brow. “Depends,” I said, “on your definition of eat.”
He didn’t blink. But his pulse stuttered in his throat, and I tasted the brief spike of adrenaline.
It was intoxicating.
I ran a hand down the front of my shirt, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle. “Do you know what you are to me?” I asked.
He stared at the skyline, stubborn, then back at me. “You said it already. Mate.”
I let the word settle.
He shivered, just once. Then his face closed over. “You don’t even know me.”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
And there it was. The raw edge of possibility.
I reached for the file Ashe had prepared for me—his background, military, social, everything public and half of what was supposed to be private. I pushed it across the desk, a peace offering.
“You want out? You walk,” I said. “Nobody will stop you.”
He glanced at the folder, then at me. “You always this accommodating?”
“Only with things I don’t want to break.”
That landed. He gave a half-laugh, then stood.
I stood too.
For a moment we stood across from each other, two men, one city, a problem neither of us could solve.
He looked at the door, then at me. “If I walk, do I see you again?”
I nodded. “You’ll see me everywhere.”
He picked up the lollipop, stuck it back in his cheek, and grinned like a dare. “Stalker,” he said, but it was almost soft.
I watched him leave.
I didn’t breathe again until the elevator doors shut behind him. When I finally sat, the glass desk was still warm under my hands. Out the window, Mt. Hood floated in the dusk, sharp and white and waiting.
So was I.