Danae’s POV
I had chosen the chair furthest from him the moment we entered the room, perched on its edge with my spine straight and my palms pressed flat against my knees.
A futile arrangement of distance.
He’d closed half of it before he’d finished speaking.
“I’m sorry—do we know each other?” My voice came out steadier than I’d expected, which felt like a small, private victory.
The curve at the corner of his mouth sharpened.
“You don’t recognize me after sleeping with me?”
Soft.
Deceptively soft.
The edge underneath it was sharp enough to draw blood.
I twisted my fingers together in my lap, trying to ignore the way his presence seemed to press against the air in the small room.
“I—that isn’t—” My sentence dissolved under the weight of his gaze.
He moved with that particular werewolf economy—no wasted motion, startling speed—and closed the remaining distance between us.
He leaned forward and took my injured wrist with both hands, his grip firm but careful as he examined the bruising Galen had left.
The touch sent a fine current up my arm that I absolutely refused to acknowledge.
“Why did he hit you?” Sharp gaze on my face.
Reading every microexpression, I suspected, with the same thoroughness he’d applied to everything else.
I pulled back on instinct.
“I rejected him three days ago.”
A faint sound that might have been acknowledgment, or something grimmer.
He placed both hands on the armrests of my chair, leaning in until his face was close enough that I could see the darker threads in his irises, feel his breath warm against my cheekbone.
His scent surrounded me—woodsmoke and cedar and something clean underneath—and I hated my own body for noticing.
“How brave,” he murmured.
“A human girl daring to reject a werewolf who was about to become my Delta.”
I could only nod.
My heart was doing something undignified.
He straightened, but not far.
His fingers moved near my neck—not touching, just present.
“Danae Ashgrave.
My investigation was accurate?”
Another nod.
He turned and paced the narrow room—unhurried, contained, the way something large moves in a space it finds insufficient.
Then he stopped and fixed that blue stare on me again.
The hotel.
The bar.
Explain.”
Not a request.
Not precisely.
But I found myself talking anyway, the words arriving in order and gaining force as they went: finding the messages on his laptop, the photographs, the report card bearing Elric Bryneholm’s name in official ink.
Galen’s plan to use me for status before eventually discarding me.
My voice didn’t shake.
I was past shaking.
I’d barely finished when Caspian moved again, faster than I could track, and suddenly he was above me—both hands on the armrests, framing me completely, his face inches from mine.
“So you deliberately seduced me,” he said quietly, “to secure your position within the Ashmoon Pack.
A human woman, freshly rejected by a future Delta, selecting higher-ranking prey.
Is that it?”
The fear that moved through me was real.
So was the rage that rose straight through it.
“I told you days ago—I did not seek you out.” I met his gaze directly even as my hands trembled against the armrests.
“I saw you at the bar.
That’s all.
It was convenient.”
The shift in him was immediate.
His eyes flashed gold—a half-second flare.
His fingers tightened on the armrests, and I heard the faint creak of wood under pressure.
“Convenient.” The word came out like something carved from ice.
“You used the Alpha heir as a convenient instrument of revenge against your ex.”
I felt the last of my apprehension burn clean away, replaced by something bright and furious and entirely clarifying.
“Respected Alpha sir,” I said, enunciating each word with deliberate precision, “go fuck yourself.”
I stood up abruptly, forcing him to step back.
“I’ve explained myself to you.
Twice now.” My voice was very steady.
“When I walk out this door, you and I have never met.”
I went around him—around the frozen wall of his surprise—and crossed to the door without looking back.
My heels struck the polished clinic floor in sharp, decisive intervals as I walked through the corridor and out into the open air, and I didn’t slow down until the automatic glass door slid shut behind me and the afternoon light fell across my face.
Then I pulled out my phone and started scrolling job listings with furious focus, muttering under my breath.
“The entire Ashmoon Pack is absolutely insane.”
I paused on a listing for an administrative assistant role in Portland.
Portland.
The word sat in my chest like a key in a lock.
I needed work, and I needed it fast—my savings were practically vapor.
More than that, I needed distance.
From Galen’s orbit.
From Caspian Jorah’s accusations.
From all of it.
The clinic door opened behind me, and Eirwen emerged, a neat white bandage high on her cheekbone.
I pocketed my phone and went to her.
“What did the doctor say?”
She gave me a lopsided smile, wincing slightly as the expression pulled the dressing.
“That I’m going to look hideous for a few weeks.
Good thing I work in fashion and not modeling.”
“You could never look hideous.” I put my arms around her gently, careful of her cheek.
“In any light.”
She returned the hug with a small, careful squeeze.
“The scratches won’t scar permanently.
Keep them clean and covered.”
We walked toward the exit, my mind already calculating—weeks until a job, weeks until an apartment, weeks until I could be somewhere that Galen Bryneholm was not my problem.
At the main entrance, a security guard intercepted us with the measured formality of someone carrying out specific instructions.
“Miss Ashgrave.” He held out Eirwen’s car keys.
“Mr.
Jorah arranged to have your vehicle brought around to the front.”
I took the keys slowly, turning them over in my palm.
“He did.
Where is he?”
“Mr.
Jorah had another appointment and has already left.” The guard extended a sleek business card—cream-colored stock, the Jorah Group logo embossed in silver.
“If you need anything, you’re to use this number.”
I looked at the card for a long moment.
Then I slipped it into my pocket without a word.