Grant's POVMy wolf was obsessed.He’d reappeared with no warning—no slow build, no growl from the depths. Just there. Loud. Certain. And the second he’d caught her scent, he hadn’t hesitated. He’d taken over. He walked right up to her like she belonged to us and flirted like a goddamn idiot, all charm and hunger, making her laugh, making her look at me—no, not me—him. The wolf. The version of me that didn’t care about rules or fear or reputation.And I hadn’t stopped him. I couldn’t.When I’d finally forced control back, when I heard myself shout “fucking wolf!” like a lunatic, I saw the confusion flash across her face. She hadn’t said anything. She just arched a brow and walked away, giving me that amused little smirk like she thought I was being dramatic.She had no idea.She had no fucking clue that I’d wanted to touch her, kiss her, mark her, bite her, drag her against me, and never let her go—and none of it had been mine. It had been him. My wolf. And he was getting stronger.Ev
Grant's POVThe knock wasn’t loud, but it carried the weight of command. I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. Lucas pushed the door open anyway, like he owned the place—which, technically, he did—and stepped in without apology, without hesitation, and without that usual easy smirk that made him seem more man than monster.He looked like hell. Like someone who hadn’t slept in days. His jaw was tight, his eyes sharp, and for once, there was no fire—just steel. No jokes, no bullshit. Just Lucas Blackwood in full Alpha mode. And that…that wasn’t something I could ignore.“You need to talk to me,” he said simply, shutting the door behind him.I stayed seated, legs wide, elbows resting on my knees, trying not to look like I was coming apart at the seams. Because I was. Because ever since Vera walked into this place like some goddamn storm in pink lipstick, nothing made sense anymore. Because my wolf—my wolf, who I’d managed to suppress for years—had clawed his way back to the surface like he
Grant’s POVI’d been avoiding her. Not subtly either — full-on dodging hallways, rerouting patrols, cutting conversations short the second I even thought she might be nearby. It wasn’t about fear. I wasn’t afraid of Vera. I was afraid of me. Of what I would do. Of what I was becoming every time I got within ten feet of her. There was something dangerous brewing beneath my skin, something primal, something not entirely mine anymore. My wolf — the bastard — had been clawing at the edges of my consciousness since the moment she walked through the pack gates like she belonged here, like the air bent around her just to touch her. And maybe it did. Maybe everything did. But I couldn’t handle that. I wouldn’t handle that.She wasn’t one of us.And worse — she didn’t even know.I was barely keeping it together. Every minute, every second I spent pretending I didn’t feel the pull, pretending my skin didn’t itch and burn to be near her, pretending my wolf wasn’t practically howling inside me ev
Selina’s POVThe tension in that room was thick enough to choke on, a living, breathing thing that pressed against my skin, crawled down my spine, and coiled tight in my gut like a storm waiting to break, and as I stood there, watching Grant’s eyes darken, watching his hands tremble with the effort it took to keep his wolf at bay, watching the way Vera shifted beside me, unease flickering across her face like the first crack of lightning before the downpour, I realized just how close we all were to the edge — not just of this moment, not just of this disaster, but of something far deeper, far older, something that had been waiting beneath the surface of all of us, hidden in the fractures we’d tried so hard to ignore.Grant didn’t speak again, not to Lucas, not to me, or to Vera—he just turned, sharp and sudden, the muscles in his body snapping like a wire stretched too tight, and he stalked from the room without a word, his boots heavy on the floor, his scent a riot of frustration and
Lucas’s POVThe room felt too small the moment Grant’s expression shifted, the moment the air thickened with something I couldn’t name yet but sure as hell recognized—the scent of a storm before it breaks, the weight of a secret heavy enough to crush a man if he let it sit too long on his chest—and as he stood there, silent and rigid, eyes locked on Vera like she was the answer to a question he hadn’t meant to ask, I felt my patience snap, the thin thread of calm I’d been clinging to fraying fast beneath the weight of everything else that had gone to hell this week, this month, this year.“Grant,” I said, low and sharp, my voice slicing through the tension, but he didn’t move—didn’t blink—didn’t so much as breathe like a man should, and that was the moment I knew, that was the moment the pit opened in my gut, cold and deep and dangerous, because whatever this was, it wasn’t nothing, and nothing didn’t make a warrior like Grant freeze like a man caught between instinct and reason, betw
Grant’s POVI didn’t know what the fuck was happening, but the second I stepped into that room, the air changed, thick and heavy like a storm about to break, and everything in me—every instinct, every nerve, every goddamn fiber of my being—zeroed in on her, on Vera, on the human I had barely spared a glance for, on the woman I thought was just another complication, another liability, another reason for Lucas to grind his teeth in frustration—and in that instant, nothing else mattered, not the destruction in the city, not the trail of bodies we hadn’t yet solved, not the war that was coming, not even Selina, who I’d sworn to protect at all costs, because the scent hit me like lightning, like fire, like something so ancient and deep that it went beyond thought, beyond reason, beyond anything I could’ve prepared for.I froze.The words I’d been about to say—gone, burned away in the heat of that single, devastating truth.And I saw her. I really saw her, Selina's human friend. But not as