Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Darius
“The quarterly reports are showing promise, but we’ll have to put some additional trackers in place if we want a more accurate estimate,” my assistant drones through the Bluetooth as I park the car in front of the main house.
“Then, get it done,” I say coolly. “I need reports, Thalem, not a rundown of every single thing you can handle on your own.”
“Yes, sir.”
I end the call as I get out of the car. James hurries toward me, and I toss him the keys. “Park this, will you?”
“Yes, Mr. Darius.” As he slides behind the wheel, I remove a pack of cigarettes from my jacket pocket. I shake one out before lighting it.
“Has dinner begun?”
“It will start in five minutes,” the butler affirms before glancing at the lit cigarette clenched between my teeth. “Your mother won’t appreciate the smell of that.”
“Stepmother,” I correct him idly, taking a puff before letting out a stream of smoke. “Who’s our surprise guest?” My question immobilizes James with his hand hovering over the key in the ignition.
He sighs. “I’m not allowed to tell you. I’m sorry. Alpha’s orders.”
I roll my eyes. “What about Zion? Is he here?”
James stiffens the way most people do at the mention of illegitimate children. Doesn’t matter that my older brother is the Alpha’s first-born son. “He is busy with other things.”
I snort. “Of course he is. You can go.”
As James drives my car toward the garage on the other side of the house, I drag on my cigarette until my shoulders have relaxed. Shifters don’t typically smoke, but I’ve always liked the smell of it. My stepmother hates it, but she can’t control me like she does her own daughter.
The unbidden thought of the young girl with shy, hazel eyes has my mood worsening.
I shake off the image, ignoring my wolf’s soft, broken whine, and finish my cigarette.
Staring up at the main house, I feel the desperate urge to turn around and leave.
I hate coming here, hate coming into this house that feels empty to me, hate searching in corners for one particular scent that has long since faded.
I toss the cigarette butt on the ground and stomp on it. After taking a deep breath, I head up the front steps.
May as well get this over with.
I push open the front door and step into the foyer. The familiar, oppressive silence of the house surrounds me immediately, but something’s different tonight.
My wolf stirs, restless and curious, as a scent hits me.
It’s perfumed, with floral notes that would normally put me off. Too artificial, too heavy. But underneath it, there’s something else. Something that makes my wolf pace inside my chest, agitated and alert.
Pleasant. The word surfaces unbidden. The aroma is pleasant in a way I can’t explain, in a way that makes me want to breathe deeper, follow it to its source.
Voices drift from the dining room. My father’s deep timbre, my stepmother’s crisp tones, and something else. Someone else.
The mystery guest.
I move down the hallway quickly. The scent intensifies with every step, embracing me, sinking into my lungs. My wolf is fully awake now, prowling beneath my skin with an intensity that’s unsettling.
What the hell?
I reach the dining room and open the door. My father sits at the head of the table, my stepmother to his left. And then, my eyes land on her.
Everything stops.
The word slams into my consciousness with the force of a freight train.
MATE.
No. No, not again. Not now.
But my wolf doesn’t care about logic or timing or the absolute impossibility of what’s happening. He recognizes her instantly, six years of forced distance evaporating in a single heartbeat.
Violet.
She’s here. She’s actually here, sitting at my father’s table, staring at me with those hazel eyes of hers.
She’s not eighteen anymore. Not the girl who kept her head down at dinner, not the girl who carefully measured every word around her mother, not the girl who left the morning after her birthday while I stood at my window and watched her go.
She’s a woman now, twenty-four years old and completely transformed.
Slender in that simple, navy dress, her hair knotted at the nape of her neck, a few loose strands framing her face.
Beautiful. Devastating. Mine.
The fated mate bond roars back to life between us, destiny blazing with brutal clarity. I can feel it in my chest: the tug that has been dormant for six years, screaming at me now. The pull is magnetic, undeniable, demanding I go to her, touch her, claim her, complete what fate started.
Her scent engulfs me completely, and I realize the flowery perfume is a mask. Underneath it, buried so deep that only a mate could detect it, is the faintest whisper of her real scent. Wolf, yes, but barely. A ghost of what it should be, so suppressed that I almost miss it entirely.
Why is it so weak? Why can I barely detect what should be calling to me like a beacon?
My wolf howls, frantic and desperate. He wants to surge forward, to go to her, to press our face to her throat and breathe her in until we drown in her true scent. Wants to bite, claim, make her ours completely.
I lock my muscles, every fiber of my being fighting to stay still.
But I can’t stop staring.
Her pupils are blown wide, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her hands clutch the table, and she’s trembling. Actually trembling.
And her eyes. God, her eyes.
I see the shock reflected there. Pure, unfiltered shock. And confusion. So much confusion, it’s written across every feature of her face, like she doesn’t understand what’s happening between us, like she doesn’t recognize this pull that’s tearing me apart.
She feels something. I can see it in the way her body responds, in the flush creeping up her throat, in the way she can’t seem to look away from me, either. But the confusion in her expression is stark and undeniable.
The fated bond pulses between us, growing stronger with every second our eyes stay locked. It’s taking everything I have not to move, not to cross the room and touch her, not to give in to the howling need that is tearing me apart from the inside.
Her mother sent her away the day after her eighteenth birthday. The day after I first recognized what she was to me. The day after my world tilted on its axis and I realized my stepsister was destined to be mine.
I’ve spent six years building walls, creating distance, forcing my wolf into submission. Six years of brutal self-control, of denying every instinct, of pretending I didn’t feel the absence of her like a missing limb.
But now, she’s here. Right here. And the attraction is just about uncontrollable.
My stepmother shifts in her seat, her body going rigid. I catch the movement in my peripheral vision because I can’t look away from Violet. Can’t tear my eyes from the way her lips part slightly, from the way her breathing stops as she stares directly at me.
My father says something. His voice is distant, dulled, meaningless.
I’m drowning in her scent, in the fated bond, in the impossibility of this moment.
Finally, my control cracks. If I stay in this room one more second, I’ll do something I can’t take back.
I turn and leave. I storm down the hallway, my footsteps echoing off the marble, my chest heaving as if I just ran a marathon.
I reach the stairs and start to climb them.
I have to keep putting distance between us because if I don’t, I’ll claim her.
Right there in the dining room. In front of my father. In front of her mother.
I’ll complete the bond and ruin everything.
I make it to my old bedroom and stride straight into the bathroom.
I don’t bother with the lights, don’t bother undressing.
I turn the shower on full blast and step inside, clothes and all.
The spray hits me like ice, shocking and brutal.
But it does nothing to cool the fire raging through my veins.
I brace my hands against the tile wall, head hanging between my shoulders as cold water streams down my neck, soaking through layers of expensive fabrics.
My suit is ruined, but I don’t care. My shoes are soaked through, but I don’t care about that, either.
My muscles are cramping from the tension locked in my entire body.
My jaw is aching from how hard I’m clenching my teeth.
All I can think about is her.
Violet.
Her scent is burned into my lungs, her image seared into my retinas. Those wide eyes, that flush on her skin, the way her fingers grasped the table like she needed to hold onto it or she’d fall over.
The way she looked at me.
Confused. Shocked. But there was something else there, too, something that makes my blood burn hotter despite this freezing water.
Desire. Raw, unfiltered desire.
She felt it. She felt the pull. But why did she look so confused, like she doesn’t recognize what’s happening between us? The shock, I understand. I felt the same way six years ago when our bond first snapped into place. But that bewilderment, that complete lack of recognition…
My wolf surges against my control, snarling and clawing at the cage I’ve built around him. He wants out. Wants to track her down, find her room, break down the door if necessary. Wants to claim what’s ours, complete the bond that has been gnawing at us for six years.
“No,” I grit out through clenched teeth.
A knock sounds at my bedroom door, just loud enough to hear over the spray of water.
I don’t move. Don’t answer.
Another knock, more insistent this time. “Mr. Darius?”
James. Of course it’s James. “Go away,” I call out, my voice rough.
“Your father is asking for you, sir.”
“Tell him I’m busy.”
A pause. “He says it’s urgent.”
“I don’t care.”
Silence.
I assume James has left. I run my hands through my soaked hair, gripping the strands hard enough to hurt. The physical pain does nothing to ground me. Nothing cuts through the chaos raging in my head.