Chapter Twenty-Two

The highway cut through the dark like a blade, its empty stretch swallowing the glow of his headlights. Julian’s hands tightened around the steering wheel until the leather groaned beneath his grip. He should’ve stayed at the pack house. Should’ve gone to the gym, locked himself back in his office—anywhere but behind this wheel.

But he couldn’t shake the thought of her. Couldn’t shake the sound of her voice when she’d told him not to call her again.

He’d only meant to reach out once more—to ask her something simple, logical. About her parents. About whether she knew anything, remembered anything before the orphanage. The kind of question an Alpha might ask out of duty, curiosity. That’s what he told himself, anyway.

But when he tried to phone her again and the call failed—this call can not be completed—something in him snapped.

She blocked him.

And that landed hard like a challenge, like claws dragging down the inside of his chest. His wolf surged, snarling low, restless under his skin. The next thing he knew, he was gripping the wheel and flooring the gas, the borders of his territory shrinking behind him as the open road devoured the distance between them.

Now, as he sped through the night, the memory of her voice tangled with the hum of the engine—sharp, final, cutting straight through the armor he’d spent years building.

He told himself he only wanted answers. To tie off the loose ends. But deep down, he knew that was a lie.

Because no Alpha drives an hour and a half just to ask about the past.

He’d spotted her before she ever even knew he was there in her town.

Through the glass windows of the small-town bookstore, sunlight spilled across her like a spotlight. Her hair was down, the shortest layers falling in soft waves that brushed against her bare shoulders, gleaming like burnished chestnut every time she moved.

Her outfit shouldn’t have undone him the way it did. A fitted white off-the-shoulder top, a black skirt stopping mid-thigh, black Doc Martens that grounded her with a kind of quiet edge. A flannel tied around her waist pulled the whole look together—careless, confident, sexy without trying.

It reminded him of Pretty Woman. Except Kaelani wore it with a signature that was all her own—more class than flash, more poise than show. She was that same kind of impossible contradiction: sultry and innocent, soft and fierce.

Julian lingered near the back row, pretending to scan the spines of books he didn’t see. To anyone else, he was just another patron searching for a title. But his attention never left her. Not once. Every time she brushed her hair behind her ear or shifted her weight to one hip, his eyes followed.

He didn’t even realize he’d stopped breathing until she walked in his direction, and the faint scent of her drifted toward him—honey, cinnamon and something that didn’t belong to this world.

He followed her when she left the library, keeping a careful distance.

She moved through town like she belonged to it—familiar, unhurried, completely unaware of the way his world tilted around her every step. Her hair caught the dying light, every shift of her body syncing to the rhythm of the fading day.

He told himself he was only making sure she got home safe. That it was instinct, nothing more. But instinct didn’t make a man’s pulse kick like this. It didn’t make his palms itch to touch, to feel, to know.

When she stopped in front of a boutique window, he halted too. The red dress glowed under the warm shop lights, and for a moment, it wasn’t the dress that held his attention—it was her reflection.

The way she stared at it. The softness in her face that she probably thought no one could see. The faint, wistful curve of her lips as if she were caught in some old, private ache.

He’d seen that look before—once, in the quiet moments between sleep and dawn, when his dreams made her gentle instead of resistant.

Something twisted in his chest, sharp and unwelcome.

He didn’t belong here. He shouldn’t be here. But watching her framed by that glass—beauty on beauty—felt like standing at the edge of something he couldn’t walk away from.

And before he could stop himself, the words were already rising to his lips.

“Nice dress.”

And that was when she verbally flayed him alive.

The memory of their exchange looped through his mind as the highway stretched endlessly ahead, mile after merciless mile.

His wolf prowled beneath his skin—furious and fascinated all at once. Her scent still lingered in his nostrils: feistiness and honey and heat, curling around him like smoke he couldn’t escape.

He should’ve been angry. Hell, he was angry. No one spoke to him like that.

Weak omega. That’s what his father would’ve called her.

“Weak omega, my ass.” He muttered, rolling his shoulders as tension gathered, but then a sharp bark of laughter escaped him, startling even himself with its bitter honesty.

The way she’d looked at him—chin high, eyes flashing silver like a storm about to break—there was nothing weak about her.

Julian blew out a rough breath, half a huff, half a curse. His grip tightening on the steering wheel, “She’s sassy, defiant…”

His jaw flexed, a dark smirk tugging at his mouth. “And what she really needs is to be bent over my knee and taught a lesson.”

His wolf howled in his chest, urging him to turn the car around—to go to her, mark her, knot her, to satisfy the deep ache to fuse them together. To bury every contradiction between them until nothing existed but heat, breath, and the sound of her screaming his name.

Julian’s pulse pounded in his throat, his hands gripping the wheel tight enough to ache. He wanted to. Gods, he wanted to—every mile he put between them felt like a fight against gravity itself—an instinct older than reason, deeper than blood.

The pull was unbearable, but he forced himself to keep driving. He had no right to her—not after everything he’d done, not when the world he belonged to would destroy her just for being touched by him.