CHAPTER FOUR

                 Three weeks Nyra had been listening to the pipes in Kael's house's west wing rattle, waiting for the other shoe to fall. 

                  Kael had not troubled her. Actually, she only saw him at breakfast, when he mostly read legal documents on his tablet and sipped black coffee without looking at her. It felt like a strange, quiet business residency, not a great, gloomy love story. But the peace was a lie, and they both knew it. Ryker was not one to let a past partner simply enter a competitor's property without causing a disturbance. 

                 The scene began on a Tuesday evening just as a violent thunderstorm was knocking the lights off. 

                The knock on her ground-floor balcony door wasn't a soft touch. The glass pane trembled from a strong, steady thump. Nyra let her book fall on the bed, her throat drying right away. Though the storm was strong enough to silence a military, Kael's security squad was meant to be monitoring the perimeter. 

               She tightened her cardigan over her shoulders, headed toward the glass door, and hurled the bolt. 

                Ryker was the one. He was drenched; he wasn't 'lethal and composed.' The downpour mucked up his pricey leather jacket and pasted his hair to his forehead. Still, his sheer bulk blocked the entryway, smelling like wet wool, rain, and that strong, stifling alpha-scent she used to associate with home. She just wanted to gag at this point. 

"Nyra," he said, "you're a tough woman to locate." 

                  He moved directly over her into the room's warm dryness, not waiting for an invitation, and left a trail of muddy water on the hardwood floor. 

"What do you want, Ryker?" Nyra said, her voice shaking a little before she tightened down on it, "You're trespassing." She closed the door behind him to keep the rain out, regretting her domestic response. "How did you get past the gate?"

                  Ryker scoffed and brushed rain from his eyes as he remarked. 

"Your new boss uses guards who take smoke breaks during lightning."

                 His gaze wandered about the room, alighting on the high ceilings, the huge bed, and the noticeable lack of any of Kael's personal effects. He laughed quickly and unpleasantly. 

"This is the major update then? A guest room within Drax Castle? I believed you were meant to be the estate's new mistress. 

"Ryker, what do you want? 

 "I want you to stop making an idiot of yourself," he responded, moving closer. 

                Her blood boiled at the casual conceit in his voice. He reached for her elbow, like he used to do when he wanted her to stop talking in council meetings. 

"Running to Kael—you think you're disciplining me? To him, Nyra, you are a political instrument. The moment he signs the southern land merger using your father's name, he will throw you into a corner and forget you to exist."

              Nyra knocked his palm off away. The slap was loud in the silence of the room. 

 "Don't touch me", she spat. "And avoid discussing with me being an instrument. Same day you canceled the mating, you stripped me of my council rank. Ryker, you grabbed my car keys. Your attorneys gave me forty-eight hours to leave a flat my father paid for. Now you come in here acting as if my future matters to you." 

               Ryker's jaw tightened, a muscle in his cheek jumping. Being reminded of the reality of his violence bothered him. 

"That was business. The pack needed a front that was together; your family's faction was pulling us down. But this? Selling oneself to a Drax? Nyra, that's sad. You fit in the northern pack. Whether or not we signed the paper, you are mine." 

 "I don't belong to anybody," she said, backing up until her thighs hit the edge of the mattress. She disliked that she was retreating, but she had to have the physical barrier between them. "Kael treats me like a business partner. You handled me like a piece of furniture you could replace as the cloth aged. Leave my apartment."

              Ryker watched her, his breath heavy, the stink of the storm off him. She first believed he was going to lose his cool entirely; she knew the signals, the way his shoulders squared and his eyes went entirely black. Rather, he simply seemed offended. 

 "Fine," he said and walked back to the terrace doorway. "Play house with the billionaire. But when the council votes to dissolve your father’s old territories next month, Kael won't have any use for a partner without a seat. Should he shut you out, don't come crawling back to the pack house."

              He pushed the door open, let a rush of cold, wet wind into the room, then vanished into the gloom without turning back. 

            Nyra closed the door hard, locked it, and rested her head on the chilly pane. Though her heart was pounding against her ribs, the fear was already evaporating, replaced by a chilly, sharp clarity. 

             One thing Ryker got right was Kael's need of her for the council meeting next month. This meant she had exactly four weeks to ensure she grew too valuable for Kael to ever discard. 

              She removed a spot of Ryker's muck from the floor with her slipper, sat down at the table, and started to open the contract. It was time to truly go over the small print.