Danae’s POV
I looked at the business card for a moment, then pocketed it without speaking.
Such a small thing.
Against my thigh, it felt disproportionately present, and I couldn’t decide whether the number promised help or another intrusion.
Walking toward Eirwen’s car, I studied the bruising around her eye.
“That happened because of me.”
Guilt twisted low in my stomach.
She nudged my shoulder and winked with her uninjured eye.
“You’d have done exactly the same.
Besides, aren’t battle scars supposed to be attractive?”
I adjusted the seat and mirrors before driving out of the clinic lot.
My hands weren’t entirely steady around the wheel.
The card in my pocket kept bringing back the intensity of Caspian’s gaze, as though the instructions he’d left with the guard carried something of him.
Eirwen found a pop station.
For a while, its bright music filled the silence I didn’t know how to fill myself.
Then she turned it down.
“Jorah’s rather intense, isn’t he?”
My grip tightened until my knuckles paled.
“Arrogant.
Convinced the universe revolves around him.
Standard CEO affliction.”
My heart accelerated at the name, thoroughly undermining me.
“Also gorgeous,” Eirwen said.
“Ridiculously gorgeous.”
I rolled my eyes while warmth spread from my chest to my throat and into my face.
“He’s reasonably attractive.”
Even I could hear how unconvincing that was.
“Reasonably?” She laughed.
“He belongs on a romance cover.
Did you see his eyes? You are reading on g.com, the official source.
His jaw?
Those shoulders?”
The light turned red.
I stopped the car.
“Fine.
He’s handsome.”
My palms had become damp.
An unwanted memory put his bare chest against mine, making it difficult to concentrate on the traffic signal.
“He’s also presumptuous, arrogant, and—”
“And what?”
Her smile had turned knowing.
I stared through the windshield and sighed.
My own pulse seemed much too loud.
“He’s the man.
The one from that night, after I found out about Galen and Drusilla.”
Eirwen choked, then began coughing.
“Caspian Jorah?
You slept with the future Alpha of the Ashmoon?”
Her voice climbed almost to a shriek.
“Quiet!”
We were alone in the car.
That did nothing to make the admission less embarrassing.
“It was a mistake.
An enormous, humiliating mistake.
I regret every second.”
I was lying again.
I remembered every touch with painful clarity, every whispered word, every moment I couldn’t persuade my body to forget.
“How does something like that even happen?”
Shock widened her eyes, with what looked disturbingly like admiration beneath it.
As the story unfolded, my voice softened and my fingers tapped nervously against the wheel.
I left out the things I still didn’t know what to do with: how his touch had made my skin tingle, how completely his scent had surrounded me, how wanted I’d felt.
We were pulling into her apartment complex when I reached the morning after.
“He thinks I chose him deliberately.
As a way to move up in the Pack.”
Eirwen stayed quiet while I parked.
“From his side,” she said at last, “you can see why it might look suspicious.”
I switched off the engine.
“Whose side are you on?”
The question came out more sharply than I intended.
“Yours.
Always.
But Alphas are suspicious, Dana.
Werewolves generally, and Alphas especially.
Ambitious humans and she-wolves have been trying to get close to them for centuries.”
Caspian’s POV
“Galen.”
My voice stopped the training center cold.
Around a dozen wolves froze in the middle of their exercises in the great warehouse-like room as I strode inside.
“Here.
Now.”
No one could mistake the Alpha command beneath it.
Bryneholm stood midway through a combat drill with another Delta candidate.
For a moment, he seemed unable to move.
Then he lowered his training staff and approached, his face pale and his head slightly bowed.
He stopped at a respectful distance.
“Future Alpha.
How can I serve you?”