Chapter 4 #2
Normally, I tolerate Rachel’s behavior. She’s dominant enough that she keeps the other women in line, preventing the kind of petty drama that would waste my time. I basically ignore it when she touches me. I’ve never encouraged her, but I’ve never explicitly shut her down, either.
But right now, with my mate walking away, Rachel’s hand on my arm feels like a violation. I shake it off with enough force to make her stumble back a step.
Violet doesn’t even glance our way. Just keeps heading toward the elevators as if nothing’s happening. As if I don’t exist.
“Violet.”
The single word comes out like a whip crack. A command that makes every shifter on the floor freeze. The soft click of Violet’s heels against the floor stops immediately, but she doesn’t turn to face me.
“Where are you going?” My voice is lower now, controlled, but there’s an edge to it that makes the temperature in the room drop.
Silence.
Rachel recovers quickly, that fake smile still plastered on her face. “Oh, don’t worry about her,” she says with a dismissive wave. “The new girl’s just doing a coffee run. I needed someone to pick up the afternoon orders, and she seemed like the perfect person for it.”
Behind Rachel, I can see the other women exchanging glances. Clear amusement. Delight at putting the weak wolf in her place.
Heat floods through me, rage building behind my sternum like pressure in a volcano.
I slowly turn my head to look back at Rachel. “Who gave you the authority to send employees on coffee runs?”
Rachel blinks, her smile faltering. “I—What?”
“Are your legs broken?” I take a step toward her, and satisfaction flares when she automatically moves back. “Or are you just too incompetent to get your own coffee?”
Her face flushes. “She’s hardly an employee.” The words come out sounding defensive, almost petulant. Rachel gestures past me toward where Violet is standing. “She’s hardly a shifter. She doesn’t belong in this office.”
Silence.
I wait for Violet to react. To unleash the same cold fury I saw her direct at the cook yesterday morning. To put Rachel in her place. But she says nothing.
The elevator dings. The doors slide open.
I hear Violet’s footsteps resume. Measured. Controlled.
I turn just in time to see her step inside the elevator without a word, without a backward glance. Her expression is blank, but just before the doors start to close, I catch it. That same tired, resigned look. Like she expected this. Like she has already accepted it.
The doors close, and the volcano erupts.
I grab Rachel’s wrist, my grip tight enough that she gasps.
Dominance rolls off me in waves, and I watch with cold satisfaction as her knees start to buckle.
She tries to hold eye contact, her wolf rising to meet the challenge, but I squeeze harder.
And harder. Until her eyes drop and her body trembles.
“Let me make one thing clear,” I say, my voice dropping to a growl that makes every shifter within hearing distance freeze.
I release her wrist, and Rachel stumbles backward, barely catching herself on her desk. Her coffee mug tips over and spills across her keyboard. Papers scatter around her feet.
The entire floor is still silent.
“Violet is here because of the Alpha’s direct orders. Anyone who makes her life difficult will answer to me personally. Understood?”
Rachel stares up at me, her face white with shock and fear. “Wha–What?”
I take a threatening step toward her, letting her see the wolf in my eyes, and she immediately cowers, dropping her gaze completely.
“I don’t like repeating myself. She is not to be touched.”
Rachel nods, trembling.
“Good.” I lift my gaze to address the rest of the office, making sure every single person hears this. “That goes for everyone. Violet is under my protection. Touch her, harass her, or interfere with her work in any way, and you’ll wish you were never born.”
I don’t wait for a response. I turn and stride toward the elevators, where I punch the button. The doors open immediately. Different elevator. Empty.
I step inside and hit the button for the lobby. My heart is pounding. I need to find her, make sure she’s okay, protect what’s mine.
As the elevator descends, I know what they’re all thinking up there.
Know the rumors that will spread like wildfire through the building.
Darius Moonvale, cold and controlled second-in-command, losing his shit over the weird, new girl who can’t even shift.
The truth will come out that she’s related to me.
Will that change how they treat her? I can protect her better if people know she’s my stepsister.
The word makes me sick, though. I wish she were anything but that.
The elevator reaches the lobby, and I step out, scanning the space.
There.
Violet is walking out the front entrance.
I hurry in that direction, not knowing what I’m going to say, just needing to make sure she’s okay.
Before I can reach her, I hear someone call her name, and a man rushes past me.
She looks back into the building, toward the sound, and her eyes meet mine for a second before focusing on the person heading toward her.
I recognize Julian immediately. One of the junior staff in my division. Young, eager, competent enough. Harmless.
Julian catches up to Violet just outside the main entrance. I’m still inside, close enough to see but not to hear. He smiles at her, gesturing down the street. Probably offering to help with the coffee run. Then, Violet does something that makes the pressure build in my chest again.
She smiles back.
It’s hesitant. Small. Nothing like the bright, genuine smiles I remember from years ago. But it’s there. A crack in that carefully controlled mask she’s been wearing around me since she arrived.
The smile is for him. Not for me.
My hands curl into fists at my sides. Every instinct is screaming at me to close the distance between us, to drag Violet away from him, to make it clear that she’s…
That she’s what? Mine?
My fists slowly relax, fingers uncurling in defeat. In agony.
Because she’s not mine.
I’m the one who said those cruel things about her to my father. The one who’s been maintaining this brutal distance because claiming her would destroy everything.
But watching them walk away together, watching Julian lean in slightly as he talks to her, watching the way she tilts her head to listen?
It’s torture.
I turn around before I do something I’ll regret.
Every step away from her feels wrong. My wolf snarls, pacing, demanding I go back. Claim her. Make it clear to every male in this building that she is off limits.
But I can’t.
The side exit leads to a small smoking area tucked between buildings. It’s empty this time of day. I pull out my cigarettes, light one, and take a deep drag.
The nicotine does nothing to calm the rage burning through my veins.
I smoke three cigarettes in rapid succession, crushing each one under my heel with more force than needed. The acrid smell clings to my clothes, my hair, my skin. I light a fourth. A fifth. A sixth.
By the time I hear voices approaching, the ground around me is littered with crushed butts.
I don’t look to see who it is. Don’t need to. I can smell her. It’s that artificial perfume masking the ghost of her real scent. But there’s something else now, too. Something that makes my hackles rise.
Julian.
She has been walking close enough to him that his scent has transferred to her. Or maybe he even touched her. Guided her with a hand on her arm.
The cigarette between my teeth nearly snaps in two.
I hear Violet’s footsteps pause. Feel her eyes on me.
She’s going to walk right on past. Going to pretend I don’t exist, just like she has been doing for two days.
My hand shoots out of its own accord. My fingers wrap around her wrist firmly but not enough to cause pain. The cigarette is still clenched between my teeth, smoke curling up into my vision.
I don’t look at her. Can’t. Not yet.
Julian’s voice. “Uh…Darius?”
“I need a word with Violet.” My voice comes out rough. Gravelly.
The tension in Violet’s arm tells me she has gone perfectly still. “Sure,” she says coolly. “I’ll come to your office after—”
“Now.”
She tries to pull her wrist away. I don’t let go.
Finally, I lift my head. Slowly. Meeting her gaze for the first time since yesterday morning.
Those hazel eyes are blazing with anger. Good. I’d rather have her rage than her indifference.
“I said, I’ll come to your office,” she repeats, each word enunciated clearly.
“And I said, now.”
I see the war playing out behind her eyes. Part of her wants to fight me on this, to assert her independence. But another part recognizes the command in my voice, the dominance she can’t quite ignore even though she wants to.
Julian clears his throat as he motions with the carrier of coffees in his hands. “I can, uh, take these upstairs for you, Violet.”
Her jaw clenches. I notice her frustration building in the way her free hand curls into a fist at her side. If I weren’t so fucking angry myself, I might be amused by how pissed she looks.
“That would be great, Julian,” she says through gritted teeth. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Julian says, looking between us uncertainly. “I’ll just…Yeah.”
He hurries through the side entrance.
The moment he’s gone, Violet yanks her wrist again. Harder this time.
I still don’t let go. I stand there with her arm held in midair between us, the cigarette still clamped between my teeth. She crinkles her nose, her face twisting in disgust.
The cigarette. She doesn’t like the smell.
Without a second thought, I pull it from my mouth and drop it to the ground, crushing it beside the rest of them.
I release her wrist. “Why have you been letting the others in the office treat you like a lackey?” I ask harshly.
Her eyes flash. “That’s none of your business.”