Chapter Two

Nobody moved.

Karl stood at the door. Adrian's fingers were still on my wrist. And I was sitting between two men who could probably flip this entire coffee shop over without breaking a sweat.

Normal Tuesday morning.

"I said sit down." Adrian's voice didn't rise. Didn't harden. That somehow made it worse.

Karl crossed the room anyway.

He dropped into the chair beside me — not across, beside — close enough that his arm pressed against mine. Heat poured off him immediately. That same furnace warmth from last night, wrapping around me before I could think to pull back.

He looked at Adrian's hand.

Adrian slowly withdrew it.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"You brought him here." Karl's voice was low. Controlled. Like he was working very hard to keep it that way. "Without telling me."

"I don't answer to you," Adrian said.

"He's—"

"Sitting right here," I cut in. "And capable of hearing everything you're both saying about him."

They both looked at me.

Silence.

"Good." I sat up straighter. "Now somebody explain what's actually happening. No more half answers. No more something older." I looked at Adrian. "All of it. Now."

Karl leaned back in his chair and studied me. Up close in daylight he looked different from last night — the golden boy campus captain thing was still there, the jaw, the ridiculous shoulders. But his eyes were careful now. Human brown, not gold. And underneath all that easy confidence was something watchful.

"You want the full version?" he said.

"I want every single word of it."

He glanced at Adrian. Some silent exchange passed between them that I couldn't read.

Then Karl looked back at me and said — "You're a Lure."

The word landed strangely.

"A what?"

"A Lure." Adrian folded his hands on the table. "One in several million humans. You carry a scent compound that acts as a direct biological trigger to supernatural beings. Specifically to bonded predator classes." His silver eyes were steady. "Wolves. Hunters. Others."

I stared at him. "You're telling me I was born like this?"

"Yes."

"And I've just been walking around campus my entire university life being — what — basically catnip for monsters?"

"Wolves," Karl corrected quietly. Like that was the important part.

"Karl, I swear to God—"

"It's more than scent," Adrian continued. "A Lure doesn't just attract. They anchor. Supernatural beings near a Lure become increasingly territorial. Protective." A pause. "Possessive."

The word sat in the air.

I looked at Karl.

He didn't look away.

"Is that why you—" I stopped. Swallowed. "Last night. When you said I smelled irresistible."

"I've been fighting it since the start of semester," Karl said. His voice came out rougher than before. "Every practice. Every time you walked into the same space. I kept my distance." His jaw worked. "Last night I couldn't anymore."

Something about the way he said it moved through me in a way I wasn't ready for.

"And you?" I turned to Adrian.

He was quiet for exactly one second too long.

"I've been aware of you for longer than Karl has," he finally said.

"How much longer?"

"Since you arrived on campus."

My stomach dropped. "That was two years ago."

"Yes."

"You've been watching me for two years and you didn't think to maybe—" I pressed my fingers to my temple. "I don't know — warn me? Tell me? Anything?"

"I was managing the situation."

"By doing nothing?"

"By making sure nothing came near you." Something sharp moved behind his eyes. "Do you know how many things on this campus can smell what you are, Ethan? How many times something came close and I redirected it before it ever reached you?" His voice stayed even but the knuckles of his folded hands went tight. "Doing nothing is not what I was doing."

The coffee shop felt very small again.

Karl shifted beside me. His arm pressed closer. I felt his breath against my temple when he leaned in slightly and said — low, almost private — "He's not as calm about you as he looks."

"Karl." Adrian's voice cut across the table like a blade.

"It's true."

"This isn't the time—"

"When is the time?" Karl sat forward. The easy control cracked just slightly. "You've spent two years circling him and saying nothing. And now you bring him here and explain everything and act like you're just — what — managing the situation still?"

"Better than pinning him to a locker room floor," Adrian said quietly.

Karl's eyes flashed gold for exactly one second.

My breath caught.

"Both of you stop." My voice came out steadier than I felt. I looked between them — Adrian's locked-down intensity, Karl's barely leashed heat. "I'm not a situation to be managed. I'm not something to be circled or fought over." I pushed back from the table and stood. "I need air."

I walked out.

The morning was cold and sharp. I stood on the empty pavement outside, hands in my hoodie pocket, trying to organize the complete disaster my life had apparently always been without my knowledge.

A Lure. Since birth. Walking around for twenty-one years as supernatural bait.

Fantastic.

The door opened behind me.

I expected Adrian. Composed, measured, ready to explain more things in that infuriatingly calm voice.

It was Karl.

He stopped beside me. Didn't speak. Just stood close enough that his warmth reached me even in the cold air.

"I'm sorry," he said. "About last night."

I looked at him sideways.

He was staring straight ahead, jaw tight. Like the apology cost him something.

"The things I said." He exhaled. "The way I—" He stopped. "You were scared. I could smell it. And I didn't stop."

"No," I said. "You didn't."

Silence.

"Do you actually feel it?" I asked. "The pull. Right now."

He turned to look at me.

This close, in daylight, his eyes were very dark. Human. But underneath — underneath there was something gold waiting.

"Every second," he said quietly.

My heart did something it had absolutely no business doing.

His hand came up slowly — giving me every chance to step back — and his fingers curled around my jaw, tilting my face toward his. His thumb traced the line of my cheekbone. Warm. Careful. Like I was something breakable.

"Karl—"

"I know." His voice was rough. "I know I don't have the right."

He didn't kiss me.

He just held my face like that, his thumb moving slowly, his eyes searching mine with an expression so raw it made my chest ache.

Then the coffee shop door opened again.

Adrian stepped out.

He took one look at Karl's hand on my face.

His silver eyes went absolutely cold.

"We have a bigger problem," he said. His voice was different now — the composure still there but underneath it something that sounded almost like fear. "Someone else has been tracking Ethan."

Karl's hand dropped from my face instantly. "Who?"

Adrian looked at me.

"Something that isn't on our side," he said. "And it's already on campus."

The cold morning suddenly felt a lot colder.