Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Kain
What the hell is she doing here?
The question slams through my head, pounding almost as hard as the blood rushing in my ears, as I stand beside Darius.
He is still addressing the staff, wrapping up my introduction, but it’s hard to catch most of his words with the way this cursed white noise is ringing in my skull.
It feels like an electric charge has suddenly zapped all the air from the room.
It doesn’t show in my posture; I’m self-aware enough to make sure of that. My spine stays straight, shoulders squared, eyes trained on the huddle of faces before me. But inside, my nerves are on fire.
My chest tightens as my eyes betray me. They’re drawn to her like moths to a flame.
A flame whose beauty is so dramatically enhanced from the image of the girl etched in my memories.
My heart quakes at the sight of her. She’s…
different now. Time has changed her, allowed her to blossom in a way that makes my body surge with a desperate need to close the distance between us.
But there’s also sadness in her eyes. A certain heaviness that draws a different desire from me: to soothe, to protect.
Before raw instinct overwhelms my better judgment, I tear my eyes away from her and force them straight ahead.
But even as I do so, in my peripheral vision, I can make out her expression.
Her lips are parted, and her eyes are wide in what I can tell is shock.
She recognizes me. There’s no question about it.
Damn it. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Darius turns to me as he finishes speaking, the sheer authority in his gaze pulling mine to him. He says nothing aloud, but the look on his face tells me he’s done and handing the floor to me.
I nod once. “Thank you, Alpha Darius.”
He returns the nod, then turns to leave. His footsteps are measured as he exits the conference room. The door shuts behind him with a soft click.
I turn back to the waiting, expectant eyes of the staff gathered in the room and clear my throat. “I’m glad to be part of the team. I’ll be getting to work immediately to ensure the safety and security of everyone here at HQ.”
I keep my gaze on no one in particular as I speak, but my entire body feels hyper aware of her.
It’s insane. It’s infuriating. This room is packed with people—dozens of overlapping scents, sounds, and presences, yet that sweet trace of vanilla and sunflowers completely drowns out everything else.
It invades my senses so much that it settles heavily on my tongue.
It thickens my throat and makes my Adam’s apple feel like I just swallowed a stone.
The pull keeps tugging at me like a relentless magnet, fighting my resistance and urging my eyes toward her.
I don’t let it win. I root my stare firmly on the crowd. I don’t return the look I know she is giving me; I can feel her gaze burning through the space between us.
“I look forward to cooperating with you all. I’ve already begun reviewing the current security infrastructure. There will be some changes in the coming weeks, and I’ll keep you all informed as soon as I implement them.”
The words come out steadily at first, but as I speak, I start to hear my voice deepen and tighten.
My wolf starts to stir restlessly within me.
The vanilla and sunflowers are riling him up—riling me up—and a low growl etches itself into my tone.
My hands ball up into fists, clenching hard as I keep them buried deep in my pockets.
I need to get out of here.
I wrap it up quickly and keep my words short. “I’ve already been shown my office, so I’ll be starting today. Thank you for the warm welcome. You may all resume your duties.”
Chair legs scrape as the people who were seated begin to stand, and the room fills with movement and low conversation. I turn toward the exit immediately, desperate to put distance between myself and this dangerous pull that’s reeling me in.
I make it exactly one step.
“Mr. Ashford, welcome aboard.”
A hand appears in front of me. I stop, force my shoulders to relax, and look up with a polite smile. I shake the man’s hand, keeping it brief.
“Thank you,” I say.
I take another step toward freedom, but someone else reaches me first.
“Glad to have you with us, Mr. Ashford.”
Another handshake. Another nod. Another smile. “Appreciate it.”
I try to leave again, but they don’t stop coming: department heads, managers, everyone in the room. Everyone except her. She doesn’t move.
I don’t look at her. I don’t dare to. But I know exactly where Anne is: still standing in the middle of the room, still perfectly motionless.
My awareness catches more than a faint impression of her, including the way her whole body seems frozen in place and how her eyes haven’t left me for a single second since I walked in here.
Her scent hasn’t faded, either. If anything, it feels stronger now, even though I’m moving away from her.
Like it’s following me, penetrating deep into my chest. Each whiff of it makes a hunger surge inside me, and my wolf presses forward, eager, restless, lapping it up like he’s been starved for it.
My jaw tightens until it aches. I keep my breathing shallow and regulated, refusing to draw in a full breath. If I do, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop.
“Looking forward to working with you,” someone says.
I shake another hand. My palm stings faintly where I clenched too hard earlier. “Likewise.”
I incline my head to the room at large, giving a wordless acknowledgment, and finally, there’s a clear path to the door. I take it.
I stride out of the conference room without looking back. My steps are fast but controlled, hands jammed deep into my pockets where my fingers dig into my palms hard enough to hurt.
I need distance between me and that room, between me and her, between me and that scent that, even now, feels like it’s trying to drag me back as I move away.
The elevator and hallways are a whirlwind of sharp lines and muted colors as I power through them, finally reaching the office Darius showed me only an hour ago.
I step inside and shut the door behind me—or more like fling it closed. The slam echoes sharply in the quiet room and rattles the framed Moonvale certificates on the wall, but I don’t care.
My hands grip the cool edges of the wooden desk for support, my knuckles turning a pale white hue.
I lean forward, my head hanging low as I force myself to take deep breaths of the clear, non-vanilla scented air.
Despite the distance, the damn scent lingers, as if my nostrils caught a whiff of it and want to keep it like a memory.
I suck in more air, trying to drown out the scent.
This method has worked for years to steady myself after wolfsbane exposure, but it’s apparently not as effective for this situation.
It’s likely because I haven’t felt this way in so long.
Ten years. Ten long years during which the memories of her were the only things I held onto.
In the beginning, I thought about her constantly.
She was the little oasis of joy I kept in my mind while everything else around me caused nothing but anguish.
It was a safe place, a little haven I had carved into my head that made everything else endurable.
But pain has a way of stripping everything from a person.
Over time, I learned how to shove those thoughts aside, how to relegate them to the back of my mind and accept that she was gone.
All those thoughts could do for me was slow me down and make me vulnerable.
And vulnerability was a weakness I couldn’t afford to have.
I buried every memory of her. I told myself the bond had weakened, that enough years had passed to dull even something as primal as fate.
I was wrong.
Because now, it’s all rushing back at once.
This pull, this awareness, and this unbearable certainty of her existence are pressing in on me like they never left.
Ten years of separation hasn’t dampened the fated mate bond one bit.
It’s that damned force—the visceral, otherworldly draw toward a mate once fate decides to play matchmaker.
I would have thought it dead and gone by now. Surely, ten years of distance would be enough to kill even the strongest of bonds.
Evidently, that was a flawed estimation.
I feel my jaw aching from how hard I’m gritting my teeth. This is the last thing I need right now.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, snapping me out of my thoughts immediately. I stand up straight and pull it out.
It keeps buzzing in my hand. There’s no number on the display. No name. Just an incoming call from a blank contact. But I know exactly what this is. The pressing reminder that my life is no longer my own.
I swipe to answer and press the phone to my ear. “Yes?”
The voice on the other end flows through with the expected clinical edge. “Kain. Report. Are you in position?”
“Yes,” I reply. “I’m in.”
“Good. What’s the full status? Did you encounter any issues?”
I inhale deeply for a moment, hesitating as my mind churns over the question. “No.” The word is torn from me. “No problem at all.”
I can’t let them know about Anne. My life is already hanging in the balance; I cannot hand them another weakness of mine. Because that’s what she is: a weakness. My fated mate, the girl whose smiling face was the only thing that kept me going in the darkest of hours.
There’s a pause on the other end. It’s long enough that for a moment, I’m certain he could detect, from the few seconds it took me to answer, that I did in fact encounter an issue.
But finally, he replies. “Perfect. Proceed as planned. Gain their trust, secure the target, and don’t get any ideas. Remember what happens if you fail us.”
I grit my teeth. They never miss an opportunity to remind me that they have a leash around my neck. “Understood.”
The call ends.