Chapter Three
Kade
The city lights stretched below my office windows in neat geometric patterns, white, yellow, and red bleeding together at the edges where distance softened them.
It was past midnight, and the building was empty except for security downstairs and whatever ghosts inhabited the executive floors after hours.
I sat at my desk with my jacket draped over the back of my chair and watched the footage for the nineteenth time.
My security detail had captured it without being asked.
They knew I'd been distracted during the drive; knew I'd ordered the car to idle longer than necessary on a street where we had no business stopping.
Good staff anticipated needs. But this anticipation felt invasive in a way I couldn't articulate, but I'd watched the footage anyway. And then watched it again.
On the screen, she stood under the flickering lamppost, her slim frame wrapped in layers that made her look smaller than she probably was.
The camera angle was from the car, slightly elevated, capturing her profile and the way shadows played across her face when the light stuttered.
Her hair caught the illumination in shades that shifted between brown and something warmer, copper maybe, though the footage quality wasn't good enough to be certain.
Then she started to sing.
My jaw clenched involuntarily, teeth grinding together in a way that would give me a headache if I kept it up.
I forced myself to relax, rolled my shoulders back, but the tension returned within seconds.
I turned up the footage, and her voice came through with surprising clarity, and it cut through the ambient street noise like a blade finding flesh.
The song had no words, just a melody, but it carried weight.
Grief, maybe. Or defiance. Something raw that made my chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with recognition.
She was singing about survival, about loss, about continuing despite everything.
I heard it in every note, felt it in the way her voice climbed and fell, in the careful control that barely masked something wilder underneath.
My finger hovered over the replay button. This was the twentieth time I’d watched it. Watched her.
I clicked it.
The footage reset to the beginning. Her positioning herself against the lamppost, testing its stability.
The careful placement of her cup. The way she pulled her coat tighter before she began.
Small details I'd missed on earlier viewings kept revealing themselves.
The slight favor she gave her left ankle, suggesting an injury.
The way her eyes scanned the street before she started singing, cataloging threats.
The tension in her shoulders that never fully released, even when she was lost in the melody.
She was afraid. Even performing, even singing with that incredible voice, she was afraid.
My heart rate picked up. I could feel it in my throat, in my wrists, a steady acceleration that my body was doing without my permission.
This was the problem. This was what had kept me in my office for three hours past when I should have gone home.
I didn't lose control. I assessed situations, made calculated decisions, and executed plans with precision.
That was how I'd built this company, how I maintained our pack dynamics, how I functioned as an Alpha.
This wasn't calculation. This was something else entirely.
On screen, she was reaching the part where she'd looked up.
Where our eyes had met through the car window and I'd felt that moment of connection snap into place like a lock engaging.
Her expression changed in that instant, fear flooding her features, and I watched my failure play out in high definition.
I'd scared her. Sent her running into that alley where my driver couldn't follow, where I'd lost track of her completely.
I should have gotten out of the car. Should have approached slowly, hands visible, voice calm.
Should have offered her something, anything.
But I'd just sat there like an idiot, pinned by the sight of her, by the scent of apple pie that had filled the car's interior when I'd rolled down the window.
Sweet, warm and Omega, unmistakably Omega, and every Alpha instinct I'd spent years disciplining had roared to life all at once.
The video ended. My cursor moved to replay again, but I stopped myself. Twenty times was enough. More than enough. This was becoming pathological.
Standing, I paced to the windows, and pressed my palm against the glass.
The cold seeped through, while below, Shaker City continued its late-night rhythm.
Cars on distant streets, lights in windows, the occasional siren.
Somewhere down there, she was sleeping. Or trying to.
In whatever inadequate shelter she'd found, with whatever insufficient warmth she could gather.
The thought made my hands curl into fists.
She was wasting herself on street corners.
I took a deep breath in trying to calm myself.
With her voice she should be on stages, in studios, reaching audiences who would pay thousands to hear it.
She should have management, contracts, proper training if she needed it.
Protection. Resources. Everything she clearly lacked and desperately needed.
Under my protection, I could give her that and more.
The thought formed before I could stop it, and I didn't push it away. It was true, after all. I had the means, the connections, the infrastructure. My company specialized in discovering and developing talent. This was business. This was what I did.
Except with her it wasn't just business, and I knew it.
I turned back to my desk, to the frozen image of her on my computer screen.
Her mouth was open mid-note, her eyes still clear and focused before she'd seen me watching.
There was something in her expression, some quality of determined fragility, that made me want to build walls around her. High, impenetrable ones.
My Alpha nature recognized something in her biology, something beyond the apple-pie sweetness of her scent, a pull I couldn't rationalize or dismiss.
Part of me wanted to track her down immediately, to find her before dawn and bring her somewhere safe.
Somewhere that was mine. The impulse was nearly overwhelming, primitive in its intensity.
But I'd already scared her once. Charging in like some kind of feral Alpha would only cement her fear, send her running farther. I needed to be smart about this. Strategic. I needed to make her think she was choosing to come to me, that she was deciding about her own future.
I sat back down, minimized the video file, and opened a new document.
My fingers found the keyboard with the muscle memory of thousands of contracts drafted.
I would offer her something legitimate. A performance contract.
Payment for her services. The kind of professional arrangement that wouldn't trigger her obvious trauma around Alphas.
The gala was in six weeks. I needed a featured performer for the evening's entertainment. The coincidence was almost too convenient, but I'd take what I could get. I would offer her a chance to sing for an audience that could change her life. Proper compensation. Safety. Options.
And if those options kept her close to me, in my building, under my watch—well, that was just good business sense.
My jaw unclenched slightly as I typed. This was better. This was control reasserting itself. I could manage this situation, manage her, manage my own unwanted responses. I would have her close, but it would be professional. Nothing that would frighten her or force her into anything.
The lie tasted bitter even as I told it to myself, but I kept typing anyway.
I pressed the button on my desk comm, it was one-fifteen in the morning, but I knew Theo would answer despite the hour. Pack bonds meant we were always there for each other, and either Lucian or Theo would always answer when I called.
“Yeah,” Theo answered. His voice came through the speaker after two rings, rough with sleep or something close to it.
“We need to speak. Now.”
He groaned. “Give me twenty minutes.”
“Ten.”
The comm clicked off. I stood up from my desk and moved back to the window, watching the city lights shine through the dull, chilly night.
The door opened in eight minutes. Theo moved as he always did, economically and precisely, his broad shoulders clearing the doorframe with inches to spare. He'd dressed quickly, in jeans and a dark Henley shirt instead of his usual tactical gear.
“Kade.” He stopped a few feet inside the door; hands loose at his sides. Waiting.
I didn't turn to face him fully, my focus on the view. “I need you to locate someone. An Omega. She was singing on Seventh Street earlier tonight, under the lamppost near the intersection with Crescent.”
Silence. Then, “You want me to locate a street singer?” he asked, mid-yawn. “At this time in the morning?” I looked at the clock, and nodded. “You do know I don’t work for you, right?”
A smirk formed on my face. “You’re the best tracker we have. Theo... I need to find this girl.”
Theo’s brow furrowed. “Why? What hold does she have on you?”
Pursing my lips, I turned to look at him. “She doesn’t. At least not yet, she doesn’t. But I need you to see her, and tell me if what I think is true.”
He rolled his eyes. “Couldn’t this have waited until later in the morning?”
I swallowed back a laugh. “No. It’s cold out there. She needs protection.”
“Protection from whom? And why do you care so much, Kade? This isn’t like you.”
I walked over to him and placed my hand on his shoulder. “Because Theo... because she’s ‘our’ Omega.”