Chapter Two Under the Same Roof

Liana

POV

Dad’s voice cut through the trees before I could move.

“Liana!”

I grabbed Kael’s shirt off the ground and yanked it over my head. It was still warm. Still smelled like him, dark, sharp, dangerous. My wolf pushed against my ribs like she wanted to drown in it. I hated how much she liked it.

Kael was already gone. No sound. No shadow. Just the ghost of his hand on my throat and the bond still pulling like a hook buried under my sternum.

Dad stepped into the moonlight and pulled me into a hard hug. His scent hit me, familiar, safe, father, and my wolf recoiled hard. She didn’t want him. She wanted the man who had just walked away.

“I heard the howl,” he said, pulling back. His eyes narrowed. “Your eyes are still gold. They shouldn’t be.”

Power still buzzed under my skin, faint but wrong. The same charge from the shift. The thing people used to whisper about when they thought I couldn’t hear.

“I’m fine,” I said. “It was just rough.”

“Late awakenings can be unstable. Especially with your mother’s line.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Come on. Kael’s still here. He’ll want to know you’re okay.”

I almost laughed.

I followed him back to the house on legs that didn’t feel like mine. Every step toward Kael made the bond pull harder. Ugly thoughts kept rising and I kept crushing them. What if I’d kissed him in the clearing? What if Dad never found out? They came back sharper each time.

Inside, the lights felt too bright. I heard them in the study, Dad’s voice, Kael’s low answers. My wolf lunged so hard I had to grip the banister.

I almost turned around.

I didn’t.

I stepped into the doorway.

Kael stood by the window with a glass of whiskey he hadn’t touched. He looked the same as always. Controlled. Untouchable. Only I saw the muscle jumping in his jaw. Only I felt the bond snap tight when our eyes met. His gaze dropped, my bare legs, his shirt, the place on my throat where his hand had been  and gold flared hard at the edges of his eyes.

Dad glanced between us. A small crease formed between his brows.

“She’s fine,” Kael said. Voice flat. Empty. “First shifts are brutal. She handled it.”

Dad clapped him on the shoulder. “Told you she was strong. Just like her mother. Those eyes… I’ve never seen residual gold last this long.”

Kael’s fingers tightened on the glass. “Her bloodline was always going to make it different.”

I stood there in his shirt, still smelling like the forest and him, and listened to them talk about me like I was a problem that had been successfully managed. My wolf snarled. The sound almost made it out of my throat. Kael’s eyes cut back to me, one sharp look that said “don’t.”

I didn’t listen.

“You left your shirt in the clearing,” I said.

Both men looked at me. Dad frowned slightly. Kael’s jaw flexed so hard I thought it might crack.

“I noticed,” he said, voice carefully empty.

“Did you?” I held his gaze. “Because it still smells like you. And my wolf likes it.”

Dad cleared his throat. “Liana—”

“I’m going upstairs,” I said, and left before I said something worse.

I felt Kael watching me the entire way.

“Kael”

POV

She was wearing my shirt and she knew exactly what she was doing.

The second she spoke, my wolf lost his mind. He wanted her on the nearest surface. He wanted my mark in her throat. He wanted Elias out of the room so I could finish what the bond had started in the clearing.

I kept my face blank. It was the only thing I had left, and it was already slipping.

Elias talked about her late awakening, her mother’s rare bloodline, how powerful she was going to be. Every word landed like a blade. This was his daughter. The kid I’d carried on my shoulders. The girl I’d promised her dying mother I’d protect. And the moon had decided she was mine in the worst possible way.

My soul recognized her, he saw the woman standing in front of me. A powerful shifter,

My equal 

My destiny. What will her father think 

I’d broken men for less than what I was feeling right now.

When she left the room the bond stretched thin and vicious. I felt her go upstairs. Felt her anger. Felt the same ugly pull I was trying to crush. My wolf snarled at the closed distance. He didn’t understand oaths. He only understood that our mate was in the same house and still unclaimed.

Elias poured another drink, completely unaware. “Stay the week. Border issues can wait. It’s been too long, and Liana could use a steady presence while her wolf settles. Especially with that residual power. I don’t like how long her eyes stayed gold.”

Stay.

Under the same roof as my best friend’s daughter while the bond tried to tear me open from the inside. While that strange power in her blood simmered and every instinct I had screamed to put my mouth on her and end the fight.

“I’ll stay,” I said.

It tasted like giving up.

Later, when the house finally went quiet, I stood in the guest room with the door locked and my forehead against the wood. My wolf paced under my skin, furious. Starving. Every instinct said go to her. Break the door down. Pin her down and make the bond permanent before either of us could think.

I’d spent twenty years building a life on control. On never taking what wasn’t mine. On loyalty first.

Wanting Liana made me the exact kind of man I’d always despised.

I closed my eyes and still saw her in the clearing, naked, gold eyes, blood on her lip, looking at me like I was the only solid thing left. The memory of her pulse under my hand made me hard enough to hurt. I hated it. Hated the moon. Hated the bond that didn’t care about promises or age or the man who trusted me with his only child.

A soft sound came through the wall.

Her room was right next to mine.

I heard the bed creak. The uneven pull of her breathing. She was fighting it too. Suffering the same pull. My wolf howled inside my head, demanding I end it for both of us.

I dug my nails into the wood until one of them split.

“I won’t claim her.”

The bond pulsed back, hot and mocking.

Down the hall her breathing hitched, like she’d felt it too.

I stayed there until dawn, hard and furious and losing, while the girl I was supposed to protect breathed on the other side of the wall.

Neither of us slept.

And the bond didn’t care who it burned.