1

I stood in Kael's arms, trying and failing to sound annoyed. "Stop looking at me like that, Kael."

It did not work. Not when his face was only inches from mine, his hand resting warm against my waist, his thumb tracing slow, absent circles over the fabric of my nightdress like he had all the time in the world and intended to spend every second of it on me.

Kael smiled, the kind of slow, knowing smile that always made my stomach do something embarrassing. "You are the one who keeps looking away."

"I am not."

"You are." His eyes crinkled at the corners, amused, daring me to argue further, which was frankly unfair, because arguing with that face on was like arguing with a sunset.

"I am trying to sleep," I told him, turning over and burying myself in my pillow. It had been a long night, and my patience had left the building hours ago.

"Then close your eyes."

I narrowed mine instead, giving him my best unimpressed look over my shoulder, which only made his grin widen further. "That would be considerably easier if someone was not staring at me like I'm the last meal on earth."

"I like staring at you." He said it so plainly, so entirely without shame, that I felt heat crawl straight up my neck despite myself.

"Frenzied Alpha," I muttered, half insult, half endearment, and he laughed, a low sound that rumbled through his chest and against my ear. I hated how easily he could make me smile even mid-argument. That was the maddening thing about Kael: he could infuriate me by breakfast and completely undo me by midnight, and somehow both were true at once.

His forehead touched mine, his voice dropping into something quieter. "I missed you today."

"You saw me at breakfast."

"That was twelve hours ago." He said it like a genuine grievance, filed and documented, and I rolled my eyes, fighting a smile I refused to give him easily.

"Your wolf is dramatic."

"It is not my wolf." His expression shifted, just slightly, the teasing pulling back to reveal something more honest underneath.

I raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"It is me."

That answer made me go still. His face had gone soft, almost vulnerable, the kind of look he rarely let me see for long before he armored back up. I knew what he meant without him explaining it. The Frenzy had always been his flaw: when he loved something, he held on too tightly; when he feared losing something, his instincts turned sharp and restless. And when it came to me, I sometimes felt like I was lying beside a storm that could wake at any moment, however gently it slept beside me now.

His fingers slid beneath a loose strand of my hair, tucking it behind my ear with a tenderness that did not match the size of his hands or the danger people said lived just under his skin. "I know I can be too much."

"At least you admit it," I said, trying to keep my tone light, though something in my chest ached at the honesty of it.

"I am trying to change." And the worst part was that he meant it, every word. Kael was not cruel. He was not careless. He was not the kind of Alpha who assumed I belonged to him simply because fate had decided so on our behalf. He tried, visibly, constantly, in a hundred small ways I usually pretended not to notice — and that effort was somehow more disarming than any grand gesture could have been.

Then his phone buzzed on the nightstand. Neither of us moved.

Mine buzzed next. Once. Twice. Three times, insistent, and I felt my stomach knot before I even looked at it.

Kael's gaze shifted toward the sound, one brow lifting slightly. I reached for the phone, saw Unknown Number glowing on the screen, and flipped it facedown so fast the motion probably gave me away more thoroughly than the call itself ever could have.

"Who is calling this late?" His tone stayed casual, but his eyes had sharpened, watching me the way he watched everything — closely, thoroughly, like he was cataloguing the exact half-second my hands moved too fast.

"Probably a wrong number."

"At midnight."

"People make mistakes." I forced a small laugh, but his eyes stayed on me, steady, unreadable in the way that always unsettled me more than outright suspicion would have. Kael noticed everything. A change in my perfume. A missing bracelet. The half-second pause before I answered a simple question. There was no lying to a man built to smell it on you.

"Serena."

"What?"

"Are you hiding something from me?"

I laughed, too quickly, too high. "Seriously?"

"I am asking."

"And I am answering." My voice came out sharper than I meant, and something flickered across his face, not anger, but a quiet hurt he tried to hide by pulling me closer instead of pushing me away, which somehow made it worse.

"Come here," he murmured.

I should have moved away. Instead I let my head fall against his chest, listening to the steady drum of his heartbeat beneath my ear, and for one long moment everything felt normal again. Safe. Warm. Familiar, in the way only years of loving someone can make a body feel, right up until my phone buzzed a third time, and I felt his arm tighten, just slightly, around my waist.

"Answer it if it's important," he said quietly.

"It isn't."

"Then ignore it." A small test, and we both knew it. I closed my eyes and said nothing at all, which was its own kind of answer, and somewhere beneath his steady breathing I felt him decide, for tonight, not to push.

It would not stay that way for long.