KIERAN
The wind was soft that night, rustling the trees just enough to mask the sound of my footsteps. I wasn’t even thinking, just walking—wandering, really—letting my mind go blank after a day full of tension. That was when I saw her. Vee. She was standing near the small spring that ran through the eastern edge of the territory, her back to me, her arms loose at her sides.
Her skin shimmered under the moonlight like it had been kissed by the stars themselves, water glistening down her shoulders, and my breath caught without warning.
"What the hell are you doing out here?" I found myself saying, voice gruff, low—more from the heat crawling through my chest than from any actual annoyance.
Vee didn’t turn. She didn’t even flinch. Her voice was calm, soft, but filled with something heavier.
"I could ask you the same thing, Alpha."
That word from her lips. Alpha. It never hit me the way it did now. Not until it rolled off her tongue like honey laced with venom, sweet and dangerous.
I too
