Rhett adjusted the collar of his shirt for the third time and still couldn’t get it to sit right, not that it mattered.The Summit didn’t care about tailoring. They cared about weakness. About signs of indecision. About cracks in the armor. And right now, Rhett felt like one breath might split him wide open. The next session was scheduled to begin in under two hours. On the surface, it was just another roundtable—territory disputes, patrol coordination, medical supply inventories. But everyone knew that wasn’t the real purpose. They were coming for him. Not with teeth or claws, but with questions. With suspicions. With eyes that watched too closely and ears that caught things never said aloud. And Rhett had handed them ammunition. No regrets. But the tension coiled low in his gut like a live wire. The knock came just as he finished buttoning his cuffs. “Mira,” he said without looking. He knew her steps. She stepped into his office, back straight, chin high, but her gaze was softer
Mira noticed it the second she stepped into the training yard. It wasn’t something obvious. Not a declaration. Not a confrontation, just a shift like gravity had tilted, ever so slightly and both Rhett and Jace were trying not to fall.The morning air was sharp, brisk with the scent of pine and steel and late-summer sweat. The pack was already in motion, teeth clashing, voices calling orders, the dull thud of fists against sand mats. She walked along the perimeter slowly, eyes scanning. Jace was on the far side, speaking with two of the task force officers. His voice was calm, posture relaxed, but his eyes flicked toward Rhett every few minutes. Like he couldn’t help it. And Rhett? Rhett hadn’t looked at Jace once. Which was exactly why Mira knew something had happened. They were always aware of each other.Not just in the way alphas and betas were trained to be, but in the way bonded wolves couldn’t help. Their energy ran on the same current, tuned to the same unspoken rhythm. But
He didn’t move. Not for a full minute. Not even when the door clicked softly behind Rhett, sealing the room in silence and firelight and the ghost of a kiss that hadn’t yet faded from his lips. Rhett had kissed him and now he was gone.Jace sat on the edge of the bed like gravity had quadrupled. He stared at the spot where Rhett had stood, where his eyes had flickered with something between apology and defiance. The kiss hadn’t been slow. It hadn’t been cautious. It had been real and Jace had kissed him back.He pressed his hands flat to his thighs, willing them to stay still, to not shake, to not give him away—to himself, even, becauze he didn’t know what to do with this. He wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Rhett was a soldier’s Alpha. Commanding. Distant. Straight. So was Jace, or so he thought. That had been the safety of it—knowing the bond was something spiritual. Energetic. Not physical. Not something that would ever be acted on. He had resigned himself to that. Made peace wi
He couldn't sleep. Not with the Summit still buzzing in his ears. Not since saying the words that changed everything. Jace Rowan is my mate. The room had gone dead silent and still, the bond hadn’t faltered. If anything, it had solidified. Rhett sat in the shadows of his office long after the others had cleared out, elbows on knees, head in his hands. The fire had burned low, casting long, gold-lit fingers across the wall. It wasn’t fear that knotted in his chest. It was uncertainty and under it, the growing pulse of something like need. When he finally stood, his legs felt heavier than they should. Like the truth had altered his gravity. He didn’t go to his room, he went to Jace’s. The hallway was quiet. No guards posted nearby. The house was still. He knocked once, softly. No answer, but when he tried the handle, it opened. Jace sat on the edge of the bed, shirt half-buttoned, hair damp from a recent shower, staring out the window as if he could see into the future through the tr
They were good. Too good. Lena watched from the shadowed edge of the compound as Alpha Calder extended a hand to the Summit observer like he hadn’t just spent the last week radiating the kind of tension wolves weren’t supposed to survive. The observer, Drayce Malor, was sharp, composed, and utterly unreadable. Dressed in formal Summit attire, with dark eyes behind thin glasses, she was the kind of woman who didn’t waste breath or blink without purpose. Her reputation for dismantling fractured packs with a smile had preceded her, and now she was here, not for war, not for monsters, but for them. Mira stood ten paces behind Rhett, her uniform crisp, expression clipped. No warmth. No wandering glances. Jace Rowan was further still, stationed as if he were just another task force Beta, calm and silent, but Lena felt it. Their energy hummed like a live wire under the surface. Something real. Something forbidden and hidden expertly. Dayce accepted the Alpha’s greeting without flourish,
Jace sat on his bed with his hair still damp and a towel wrapped around his waist. He couldn’t feel his hands, not because they were numb, but because everything else was screaming so loudly inside his head that his body had gone quiet to survive. His mind replayed the moment Rhett had said it out loud, to the Summit, in a room full of pack leaders, envoys, and a woman known for stripping Alphas bare with three questions and a polite smile. He had stood there, without flinching, and claimed Jace. Claimed him as his mate. Jace stood still long after the meeting adjourned, Mira at his side, her shoulders squared in that infuriatingly elegant, lethal way she did when holding the world back with sheer force of will. He envied her composure because inside him, a war was happening. One part of him, the Beta, the soldier, was doing threat assessment, calculating fallout, replaying every word of the Summit exchange, and mapping weaknesses in their defense. But the man? The man was shak