LUCIAN’S POV
I stormed into my chambers and slammed the door behind me so hard the walls seemed to shake.
My chest was heaving, and my hands were shaking with a fury I could not control.
I had never felt so exposed in my entire life.
I replayed her words over and over in my head.
“I know your reputation, Lucian.
The playboy Alpha.”
“I have seen pictures of your ex-lovers.
They were models.”
“I am Greta’s friend.
Your mother’s friend.”
“I am not the typical Lady your mother will want to see you with.”
“If it is fun you are after, I can introduce you to some hot ladies I know.”
I slammed my fist against the wall, the impact sending a sharp pain through my knuckles.
But I did not care.
The physical pain was nothing compared to the ache in my chest.
She had seen through me.
Every wall I had built, every mask I had worn — she had shattered them all with a few words.
And the worst part?
She was not wrong.
I had a reputation.
I had ex-lovers.
I had never thought about how it would look to someone like her.
Someone who had been hurt.
Someone who had been told she was not enough.
I did not know how long I stood there, breathing hard, staring at the dent I had made in the wall.
But eventually, the door creaked open.
“What in the name of the Moon—” Jace started, stepping inside.
He took one look at my bloody knuckles and the dent in the wall, and his expression shifted from shock to amusement.
“Did you try to fight the wall and lose?
Because I hate to break it to you, but the wall won.”
I turned to glare at him., and growled, “This is not funny.”
“I know,” he said, his voice softening.
He closed the door behind him and walked closer.
“Tell me what happened.”
I let out a long breath, running my hands through my hair, and said bitterly, “It is Nora.”
“I figured,” Jace said dryly.
“She is the only one who can get you this worked up.
What did she do?
Tell you your hair looks bad?
Because to be fair, it does look a little messy today.”
I threw a pillow at his head and hissed, “She called me out.
Everything.
My reputation, my ex-lovers, my mother’s expectations.
She said I see her as a plaything.
A joke.”
Jace caught the pillow and tossed it aside.
“Well…
she is not entirely wrong, you know.” he said with hesitation.
I glared.
“Whose side are you on?” I snapped at him.
“I am on the side of you not being an idiot,” Jace said calmly, and sat down on the chair across from me.
“Look, you have a reputation.
You have been with a lot of she-wolves, and they have all been the same type — young, thin, beautiful.
If I were Nora, I would wonder if I was just another notch on your bedpost too.”
“She is not just another notch,” I growled.
“Then you should probably stop looking at her like you want to eat her and start looking at her like you want to know her,” Jace said.
“Because right now, she thinks you are just interested in the chase.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Jace held up a hand.
“Let me finish.
You are the Alpha.
And you have proven that, multiple times, with multiple women.
So when you suddenly become obsessed with Nora, a woman who is nothing like your usual type, she is going to question it.
She is going to wonder if she is just a new challenge for you.
Something different to keep you entertained.”
I slumped back against the wall and shrugged.
“I told her she was not a joke to me.”
“Did you show her?
Or did you just tell her while looking at her like she was the last piece of cake at a party?”
I glared at him and mumbled.
“I did not look at her like that.”
Jace snorted.
“Lucian, you look at her like she is the only woman in the world.
And that is great, honestly.
But she has been hurt before.
She has been told she is not enough.
So when you show up with your intense Alpha energy and your very obvious, very public obsession, she is going to freak out.
It’s not rocket science.”
“So what do I do?” I asked, frustrated.
Jace shrugged and replied with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Honestly?
Give her some space.
Let her breathe.
Let her wonder where you went.
If she really feels something for you, she will miss you.
And then, when the timing is right, you show her that you are serious.
Not with words, because clearly those are not working, but with actions.”
I stared at him and scoffed.
“So that is the best you have got?”
“That is the best you are going to get,” Jace said, leaning back in his chair.
“You are not exactly easy to give advice to, you know.
You are like a lovesick puppy who also happens to be a very powerful Alpha.
It is a weird combination.”
I picked up another pillow and threw it at him.
He laughed and dodged it.
I was about to respond when a knock on the door interrupted us.
A guard entered, bowing low.
“Alpha,” he said urgently.
“I have an urgent message from the council.
The neighboring pack is making moves on the border.
They have been encroaching on our territory and the council is requesting your presence immediately.”
I straightened, my Alpha instincts taking over.
“Tell them I will be there.”
The guard bowed and left.
Then I turned to Jace, with my jaw clenched tight and darkly, “I need to deal with this.
We leave at dawn.”
Jace nodded slowly.
“This is good timing.
You need the distance.
You need to clear your head.”
I stared at him, utterly frustrated and said, “I don’t know how to give her space when all I want to do is find her and make her understand.”
Jace sighed, and shook his head.
“Lucian, you are the Alpha of the most powerful pack in the region.
You have faced down rogues, settled border disputes, and survived countless council meetings without losing your mind.
But one woman says she does not want you, and you are punching walls like a teenager whose girlfriend just broke up with him.”
“I am not punching walls because she rejected me,” I said through gritted teeth.
“I am punching walls because she thinks I am using her.
She thinks I see her as a joke.”
Jace tilted his head.
“And why do you think she thinks that?” He asked
I opened my mouth to respond, then closed it.
“Because of my reputation.”
“Bingo,” Jace said, pointing at me.
“You spent years being the playboy Alpha. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
You dated models because it was easy.
You had fun, no strings attached, no emotional baggage.
And now you are suddenly obsessed with a woman who has real feelings, real fears, and a real daughter.
Of course she is scared.”
I rubbed my face with both hands and groaned.
“I didn’t think about it that way.”
“You never do,” Jace said, but there was no malice in his voice.
“Look, I am not saying you are a bad guy.
You are not.
You are just…
clueless when it comes to real relationships.
You have never had to work for anyone’s affection before.
Women threw themselves at you.
And now, for the first time in your life, you are the one doing the chasing.
And you are realizing that chasing isn’t the same as winning.”
I stared at him in shock and said, “That is surprisingly deep for someone who once dated a woman and forgot her name halfway through dinner.”
Jace laughed.
“That was different.
She was boring.
And her name was…
actually, I still don’t remember.”
I shook my head, and smiled.
“You are impossible.”
“And yet, you keep me around,” Jace said, grinning.
“Because deep down, you know I am the only one who tells you the truth.
And the truth is, Lucian, you are not going to win Nora by being intense.
You are going to win her by being patient.
By showing her that you are not the man she thinks you are.”
I let out a long breath.
“What if I can’t do that?”
Jace shrugged his shoulders lightly and scoffed.
“Then you will lose her.
And she will move on, and you will go back to dating models whose names you will forget.
But if that happens, don’t come crying to me.”
I laughed despite myself.
“You are a terrible friend.”
“I am the best friend you have got,” Jace said, smirking.
“Now stop punching walls and get ready for your border trip.
You have got a pack to protect and a woman to win over.
You can do both.
Just not at the same time.”
I looked out the window at the dark sky.
I thought about Nora, about her words, about the pain in her eyes.
I thought about everything she had said — and everything she had not said.
She was right about my past.
She was right about my reputation.
She was right about my mother’s expectations.
But she was wrong about me.
She was wrong about how I felt about her.
After a long moment of silence, I looked at Jace, whispered with a rough voice.
“She was wrong about one thing.
She said she was not enough.
She said she was not what any Alpha would want.
But she is wrong about that.”
Jace studied me for a moment, and said, “Maybe.
But are you going to tell her?
Or just wait for her to figure it out on her own?”
I did not answer.
I could not.
Because I didn’t know the answer myself.