CHAPTER 2. I Shouldn't

He meticulously wiped the remaining cream from my skin. His bright, icy blue eyes darkened, the pupils dilating as they fixed intensely on my face. That beautifully curved smile, his low, rumbling chuckle, and all this undivided, hyper-focused Alpha attention meant only for me... it was completely shattering the last fragile shreds of my sanity.

My heart was pounding so frantically I knew he could hear it echoing in the quiet truck. I had practically forgotten how to breathe.

"Your scent is sweet today." he whispered softly, his voice dropping into a husky, hypnotic register as his gaze slowly dropped to my lips.

In that moment, time seemed to stop entirely. The sharp details of his face, his tender, unwavering gaze, his intense supernatural heat radiating in the cramped space... it all shattered my final defenses. My intellectual brain flatlined. Something completely reckless took over.

Damn it, I can’t hold back anymore!

I leaned forward, closing the minuscule gap between us, and kissed him.

It felt terrifyingly soft. The crisp scent of winter mint, healing patches, and his potent, rain-soaked Alpha aura instantly mingled with the sweet taste of strawberry on my tongue. I closed my eyes, letting myself drown in the intoxicating warmth of his lips for two stolen seconds, then slowly, breathlessly pulled away.

Yeah, I can’t hide it anymore.

"I like you." My breath was coming a little fast, my chest heaving. "No. I love you, Owen."

A heavy, suffocating silence filled the car. He must be surprised, right? He just needed a little time to process it. A wolfless Omega and an Alpha Heir, it was unheard of, but he was Owen. He was different.

I waited for him, my heart lodged firmly in my throat.

But his gentle, breathtaking smile vanished instantly. The warmth drained from his face as if it had never existed. His ice-blue eyes fixed on me with a sharpening, almost terrifyingly cold gaze. The muscles in his sharp jaw tightened, turning rigid and unforgiving.

When his lips finally parted, he dropped a single, devastating word into the quiet space between us...

"Disgusting."

The single word dropped like a lead weight in the confined space of the truck. 

“...what?” 

“I’m done talking. Get out,” Owen growled. His voice wasn't just cold; it was laced with the heavy, commanding resonance of an Alpha.

I sat frozen in the passenger seat, my mind violently rejecting what was happening. This couldn't be right. My memory was crystal clear. We had been sitting on his sofa, escaping the noise of the pack’s winter banquet. 

I had closed my eyes, and he had leaned in. His lips had brushed mine, a touch so deliberate and lingering that the heat still burned on my skin whenever I thought of it. Had I imagined the entire decade of his fierce protectiveness?

When I didn't immediately move, paralyzed by the shock of his hostility, a dark shadow crossed his face. Owen didn't wait. He shoved his door open, marched around the hood of the truck, and ripped the passenger door wide open.

Before I could even process his sudden movement, his massive hands clamped around my upper arms. With terrifying strength, he yanked me out of the seat. My feet barely hit the asphalt before he shoved me backward. I stumbled, my spine colliding hard with the cold metal of the school gate.

My heart hammered frantically against my ribs. We were right at the main entrance. The afternoon dismissal bell had just rung, and dozens of students wolves of every rank, were pouring out of the building. They stopped dead in their tracks, their glowing eyes locking onto the spectacle.

Owen stood over me, his broad chest heaving, his icy blue eyes stripped of any warmth I had known for ten years.

"Don't overstep your boundaries," he spat, his voice carrying perfectly across the silent, watching crowd. "Just because I tolerated you as a childhood friend doesn't mean you have the right to lust after me. Know your place, Leah."

He didn't look back. He turned his broad back on me, climbed into his truck, and the engine roared to life. The tires squealed against the pavement, kicking up a cloud of hot, acrid exhaust that coated my throat as he sped away.

I stood there, trembling, as the silence of the courtyard shattered.

Laughter erupted. It started as a few snickers from the Beta elites and quickly swelled into a vicious, mocking howl that echoed off the brick walls of the school. I saw the flashes of camera phones. 

By the time I forced my burning legs to carry me home, the footage was already viral. Every student, from the youngest freshmen pups to the senior enforcers, was sharing the video of the Crescent Moon’s Alpha Heir ruthlessly putting the wolfless Omega in her place.

The next morning, the fragile shield that Owen’s friendship had provided me completely shattered. With the Alpha Heir publicly cutting ties, it was officially open season on Leah Bisset.

Rachel and her clique were no longer my only tormentors. Suddenly, I was the entire school’s punching bag. I became the designated mascot for their cruelty. My locker was painted with feral slurs; my textbooks were shredded and soaked in the boys' locker room showers.

Even worse, the faculty, who operated entirely on the pack hierarchy's unspoken rules, turned a blind eye. When I dragged myself into the principal’s office with a bleeding lip and a torn uniform, he merely sighed and told me that wolves would be wolves, and I needed to learn to stay out of the way. 

Even the lowest-ranking runts, the kids who used to cower in the corners to avoid being bullied, suddenly walked with their heads held high. They were safe now, because the predators only had eyes for me.

Through the first week of this living hell, Owen was entirely absent from school. I heard whispers in the hallways that he had accompanied his father, the pack Alpha, to a regional territorial summit.

When he finally returned on Monday, his aura felt even heavier, more suffocatingly dominant than before. I cornered him near the gymnasium, desperate for just three minutes of conversation, desperate to ask him why he was letting them tear me apart. 

He walked right past me. His shoulder clipped mine, sending me stumbling, and his eyes stared straight ahead as if I were nothing more than a ghost haunting his hallway.

The dam finally broke during fifth period.

I was walking past the science labs when Rachel deliberately shoulder-checked me, sending my books flying across.

"Hey, why did you take my pack-mate's silver pendant?" she barked loudly, instantly drawing a crowd of eager onlookers.

I stared at her, my fists clenching at my sides. "I don't have anything of yours."

"You live off pack charity, Bisset," she sneered, her fangs elongating slightly as her beast pushed to the surface. "Don't embarrass yourself any further. Especially after Hayes threw you to the curb like the garbage you are."

Something inside me snapped. Ten years of unspoken rules. Ten years of biting my tongue. I didn't lower my head, and I didn't bare my neck. Instead, I stepped forward, balled my right hand into a tight fist, and drove it squarely into her jaw.