Chapter 43

ALPHA TRISTAN 

The moment the door clicked shut after Sara’s departure, the atmosphere in my office shifted from a fever dream of lust to a cold, stark reality. My body, which had been pulsing with a frantic, desperate heat only seconds before, suddenly went stone-cold. My cock went entirely flaccid, refusing to respond to Yvonne’s touch as if it had been doused in ice water.

Yvonne was beyond furious. The realization that I was no longer interested in making out with her—that the spark had been extinguished by a single look at our prisoner—hit her like a physical insult. She did everything short of getting on her knees and pleading with me to finish what we had started, but I remained unmoved. My mind was elsewhere, and my body followed my mind.

On any other given day, I probably would have obliged her. Yvonne was undeniably beautiful—a sexy, hot, and utterly dangerous badass. She was the kind of high-tier warrior woman that most men in the pack would gladly die for just to have a single night with. Yet, for some reason I couldn't articulate, I wasn't truly into her.

Years ago, when we first began our rise to power together, I had made a conscious, executive decision never to combine business with pleasure. Yvonne was the engine of my ambition; she was driven, relentless, and she pushed me to achieve heights I wouldn't have been able to reach on my own. She was brutal, she took no prisoners, and she was efficient in ways that made her my most valuable asset.

Harlan was usually our voice of reason, the moral compass that kept the pack from sliding into total depravity. Yvonne would often challenge both of us, snarling that we were becoming "too soft" for the realities of the Twilight Zone. I felt lucky to have her on the team, even when she was at her most bloodthirsty.

Back then, when Sara had first left the pack to pursue her studies, I was just beginning to develop real feelings for Claudia. Yvonne had been good friends with Claudia—or so I thought. Claudia was simply lovable; she was the kind of person who radiated light. If you ever had an issue with Claudia, you were almost certainly the person at fault.

I thought I understood why Yvonne wanted Sara dead so badly. They had been close, and the grief over Claudia’s death should have bound them together in a shared quest for vengeance. What Yvonne didn't seem to realize was that Sara and Claudia had been best friends—closer, perhaps, than even she and Claudia were. I had been totally blindsided by Yvonne’s romantic feelings for me. If Harlan hadn't spat the truth in my face tonight, I might have gone another decade without seeing it.

In a strange way, I was profoundly grateful that Sara had shown up when she did. If she hadn't interrupted, I would have been rutting with Yvonne on my office desk. That act would have made moving forward professionally an incredibly awkward, messy situation that I wasn't ready to navigate. I watched Yvonne leave my office in a huff of frustrated energy, and as soon as the door closed, I found myself drawn back to the monitors.

I stood in front of the bank of high-definition security monitors, my drink forgotten and sweating in my hand. I wasn't looking at the border patrols, the training grounds, or the heavy gate security. My eyes were fixed solely on Camera 14—the medical wing.

I saw Harlan sitting by Sara’s bed, talking to her with an intensity that made my skin crawl. For a moment, I was consumed by a burning curiosity regarding his true intentions toward her. I felt a sharp, serrated edge of jealousy that he had somehow managed to gain her trust while I had only succeeded in incurring her absolute anger and hatred. I wished the camera had audio; I wanted to hear the cadence of their voices, to know the secrets they were sharing. I tried to read their lips, but the angle was wrong, which only made me more furious.

I felt like marching down there and striking Harlan when I saw him take Sara’s hand in his. From his posture and the way Sara offered him a small, rare smile, I deduced he was wooing her—right under my own roof. My wolf was pacing again, snarling at the perceived betrayal. I was about to stand up and storm the medical wing when Yvonne suddenly appeared on the screen.

Even without sound, the tension was palpable. It was clear a fight was brewing. Harlan stepped between the two women, trying to act as a buffer, but strangely, Sara wasn't backing down. She was no match for a warrior of Yvonne’s caliber, yet she was standing her ground, challenging her. From Yvonne’s contorted expression, it seemed Sara was winning the verbal exchange—until the moment she wasn't.

I almost bolted from my chair when Yvonne’s hand lashed out, striking Sara across the face. I had to mentally psyche myself down, forcing myself to take my eyes off the screen. I went to the sideboard and poured a double shot of scotch, draining it in one go. When I looked back at the monitor, both Yvonne and Harlan were gone. Sara was all alone.

She was sitting on the edge of the clinical bed, her silhouette looking small and fragile against the sterile white background. I couldn't stop watching her—the way she breathed, the way she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. It was a sickness, an obsession I couldn't shake. After the incident in the hall, after I’d watched my own men treat her like a piece of discarded trash, a hollow, gnawing ache had settled in my gut that no amount of scotch could drown out.

When she was discharged from the medical wing the following morning, I personally oversaw her relocation. I didn't send her back to the servants' quarters, and I certainly wasn't going to let her rot in the dungeon. Instead, I moved her to the East Wing—a private suite with silk wallpaper, a king-sized bed, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the valley. I told myself it was for better surveillance. I told myself a "valuable asset" like a high-level healer shouldn't be kept in a closet.

But as I walked toward her new room tonight, the truth felt a lot more like crushing shame.

I swiped my keycard, and the heavy oak door slid open on silent hinges. Sara was standing by the window, her back to me as she gazed out at the distant city lights. She didn't turn around at the sound of my entry. She was wearing a black evening dress that I had ordered the staff to provide for her—a dress that accentuated her perfect curves and the graceful line of her neck.

"The room is a significant improvement, I hope," I said, my voice sounding unusually loud and clumsy in the quiet luxury of the suite.

"It’s just a bigger cage, Tristan," she replied, her voice sounding flat and dead. "The bars are just gold-plated now. It doesn't change the fact that I am a prisoner."