First Confrontation - Cassia

The pack house hadn’t changed.

Still all sharp corners and polished wood. Still that curated sterility beneath the surface, like it had been built not to shelter, but to impress. A place meant for display, not for warmth. Every line of it too crisp, too clean. Just like him.

I lingered in the doorway of the guest room longer than I needed to, letting the hush of the space settle around me. Nova was tucked on her side, lashes fluttering faintly, lost in a dream I’d never be able to protect her from. Leo slept close, his fingers curled loosely against her ribs, the soft sound of his breath matching hers like they shared a single heartbeat. Even in sleep, they reached for each other. Always touching. Always connected.

They didn’t know how close we were to danger. Again. And if I was honest, I didn’t know either.

I let out a breath, quiet and shaky, then pulled the door closed with a soft click. The silence in the hallway felt deeper than it should’ve, like the whole house was holding its breath, waiting. I braced myself for whatever fresh bullshit the night was planning to throw...

And walked straight into him.

Kade.

All hard lines and quiet heat. He filled the narrow space like it belonged to him, and for a second, I hated how familiar it felt. I caught a breath before it could leave me, before it could turn into something I didn’t want him to hear.

He didn’t speak. Just stood there, watching me like I was some kind of ghost.

Staring like I’d slapped him, and he hadn’t yet decided whether to retaliate or devour me. The air thickened between us, not with breath but with pressure. The hush that falls before a lightning strike, when even the wind dares not move.

He looked like he hadn’t shifted from that spot in hours. Like he’d been waiting there. For me.

His gaze didn’t meet mine, not right away. It dropped lower, to my mouth.

Deliberate, unapologetic.

And that was the worst part. Not the look itself, but how my body responded to it. How my pulse betrayed me, stuttering once, hard enough that I felt it all the way down my spine.

He probably heard it. Smelled it. Knew.

Still, I didn’t move. Neither did he.

The tension stretched taut between us, thick like smoke, laced with too much memory. Too much history. The kind that seeps into your skin and stays long after it should’ve faded. I hated that it was still alive between us. Hated more that a part of me needed it.

I lifted my chin, jaw tight. If he was going to look at me like that, he could deal with the claws too.

“Lurking outside bedrooms now?” I said, cool and sharp. “Real Alpha behavior.”

He didn’t so much as blink. Just kept staring, pinning me there with nothing but his presence.

“You smell like heat,” he said. His voice was low and deadly calm.

A voice that once unraveled me in seconds. The kind that made others obey, made them bow. That once made me want to crawl into his lap and bare my throat just to hear him purr.

I didn’t let it show.

I almost laughed. Not because anything was funny, but because it was the only thing left between us that didn’t feel dangerous.

“You always were poetic,” I said, letting my voice curl around the words like smoke. It was easier than letting him see how rattled I was. How close I still was to tipping over the edge.

“You’re not in season.”

There was no hesitation. No lift at the end like a question. Just cold, quiet certainty.

And he wasn’t wrong. My cycle wasn’t due. There was no physical reason for the scent he was catching. No obvious explanation for the way my skin buzzed, how my breath shortened, how my body felt… aware. Hyper-aware.

But even without the timing, something in me still responded. Something buried and instinctive, that recognized him and burned at the memory. It stirred like a dormant flame exposed to oxygen. Old, wild, electric, and the bond, long quiet, twitched like it was waking up.

My heart stumbled in my chest. Just once. Just enough.

And his eyes sharpened.

“Step back,” I said, softer now. Not pleading, not quite a command. Just… breathless.

He didn’t. Of course he didn’t.

Instead, he moved toward me, a slow press of muscle and heat that pulled the air straight out of the corridor. I stepped back without thinking, spine stiffening only when it met the wall behind me.

His body followed until we were nearly touching, until his shadow swallowed mine and the scent of him, clean earth and pine and storm-washed power, closed around me.

He braced one hand against the wall beside my head, palm flat, body angled like a cage.He still didn’t touch me. But he didn’t need to.

The space was his, claimed in a heartbeat. Dominated in a way that had nothing to do with contact and everything to do with intent. With memory. With the fact that no one else had ever made me feel this tightly wound just by existing this close.

I could taste the restraint in him, feel it vibrating in the inch of space between us.

And even now, even after everything, my traitorous body wanted to close that distance.

His scent hit harder now, this close. Pine smoke laced with something new, richer, rougher. There was fire in it now. Char. The aftermath of something that had burned too long and never quite gone out. It wrapped around me without permission, crawled under my skin, coiled tight in the hollow of my throat.

I hated that it still affected me. That my body knew him before my mind could catch up. That no matter how many miles I’d put between us. This, us, had never really gone cold.

“Why are you here, Cassia?”

His voice dropped as he spoke, a gravel-drag of sound that felt less like a question and more like a challenge. Almost… possessive.

I met his gaze, kept my voice level. “Sanctuary.” A lie, not even a good one.

“Bullshit.”

The word cracked between us, stripped bare and unflinching. He didn’t need to yell. He never had. Not when his presence did all the work for him.

I didn’t look away. I wouldn’t give him that.

“I had nowhere else to go,” I said, softer now. Still false, still safer than the truth.

His eyes scanned my face like he was mapping it, searching for the parts that had changed, and the ones that hadn’t. He didn’t speak for a long moment, but I could feel the weight of the thought building in him.

“Try again,” he said finally, and this time it wasn’t just a demand, it was a dare.

My throat tightened, the words I couldn’t say catching like thorns behind my teeth. Because the real reason? The truth?

I couldn’t give it to him.

If I did, if I said the words out loud, he’d never let me leave.

And the most dangerous part of it all?

A piece of me, deep down in the part I kept buried, wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to go.

I looked up at him then. Really looked. At the gold bleeding into the silver of his irises, the way his jaw was locked tight, his chest rising just a little too fast for someone trying to appear unaffected.

He was unraveling.

But I knew him. Knew the storm that lived in his blood. I could feel the heat rising off of him, the tight coil of restraint vibrating in the air between us.

He was one second from breaking. One heartbeat from reaching for me.

And gods help me, I wasn’t sure if I’d stop him.

His chest rose and fell in short, shallow bursts, each breath tighter than the last. He was trying to hold something inside that didn’t want to stay buried.

Whatever it was, it pulsed between us. It smelled like memory.

It felt like regret.