Chapter 6

"Are you expecting someone?" I scrambled for my clothes, pulling them on with frantic speed.

Marcus's face had gone pale, and he grabbed his shirt. "Fuck, I forgot, my other student was supposed to arrive today for intensive combat healing training."

My stomach dropped. "Other student?"

"He's from your pack, actually, your mother recommended him." Marcus was already heading for the front door, buttoning his jeans. "Stay here, clean yourself up, I'll handle the introduction."

I heard the front door open, Marcus's greeting, then another voice that made my blood turn to ice.

"Thanks for taking me on such short notice, Marcus, after everything that happened with Sandra, I really need to focus on something productive."

Damon's voice carried through the house clear as a bell, and I pressed my hand over my mouth to stop the hysterical laugh threatening to escape.

Marcus's reply was too quiet to hear, but footsteps approached the training room, and I barely had time to run my fingers through my sex-mussed hair before the door opened.

Damon stood in the doorway, his expression cycling from surprise to confusion to something harder as he took in my flushed face, my rumpled clothes, the way Marcus had positioned himself between us.

"Sandra?" Damon's eyes narrowed. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Marcus stepped forward, his posture protective in a way that made my heart clench even as I wanted to strangle him. "Sandra is my niece, she's been training with me for the past few days, her mother felt she needed more intensive instruction."

Damon's gaze moved between us, suspicion clear on his face, and I saw the exact moment he noticed the slight sheen of sweat on Marcus's neck, the still-rapid rise and fall of my chest.

"Intensive instruction." Damon's lip curled. "Right, and I'm sure that's all that's happening here."

"Watch your tone," Marcus's voice dropped into Alpha command, and Damon actually stepped back. "Whatever issues you and Sandra have are your business, but you're here to learn, not to start drama, understood?"

Damon's jaw clenched, but he nodded stiffly, his eyes still locked on me with an expression I couldn't quite read.

"Good, Sandra was just finishing up her morning session, why don't you show Damon where the spare room is while I set up for the next lesson." Marcus handed me a key, his fingers brushing mine deliberately, and I saw Damon's eyes track the movement

I took the key, my mind racing, because having Damon here changed everything, he could expose us, could tell my mother, could destroy the fragile pretense we'd been maintaining.

Or worse, he could stay silent and use it as leverage, turn me into exactly the kind of pawn I'd been trying to avoid becoming.

"Follow me," I said to Damon, my voice steadier than I felt, and led him toward the stairs.

Behind us, I heard Marcus exhale slowly, and when I glanced back, I caught him watching me with an expression so complex it made my chest ache.

Damon's hand caught my elbow as we reached the second floor, his grip firm but not painful. "Sandra, wait."

I turned, plastering on the most neutral expression I could manage despite my still-racing heart. "What?"

His eyes narrowed as he studied my face, taking in details I couldn't hide. "You look... different."

"Different how?" I crossed my arms defensively, very aware that I probably smelled like sex and Marcus all mixed together.

"I don't know, flushed, like you've been..." He trailed off, his nose wrinkling slightly as he scented the air, and I saw suspicion crystallizing in his expression. "Have you been working out? You smell like—"

"Like sweat? Yeah, Damon, that's what happens during intensive healing training." I forced a laugh that sounded too high even to my own ears. "Marcus has been running me through drills all morning, the kind that require actual physical exertion, not that you'd know anything about hard work."

The jab landed, his jaw tightening, but he didn't rise to the bait. "That's not what I meant, you smell like..." He stepped closer, and I fought the urge to back away. "You smell like someone else, like..”

"Like the training room?" I interrupted, desperate now. "Because that's where I've been for the past three hours, working with medical dummies and synthetic blood and probably a dozen other things that are making me reek."

Damon's eyes searched mine, clearly not buying it, and I saw him trying to piece together what felt wrong about this picture. "Why are you really here, Sandra? Your mom said you needed healing training, but you look like you've been through a war."

"Because Marcus doesn't coddle me like everyone else does." I turned and started walking down the hallway, needing to move, needing distance. "He actually pushes me, makes me work for it, which is more than I can say for the pack's training program."

"The pack's training program that you were sneaking around to attend against your mother's wishes?" Damon followed, his tone sharp. "Yeah, I heard about that too, seems like you have a pattern of doing things you're not supposed to."

I whirled on him, anger flaring hot enough to burn through the anxiety. "You don't get to lecture me about patterns, Damon, not after what you did."

"What I did was…" He stopped, running his hand through his hair in frustration. "Look, I'm not here to fight with you, I just... something feels off, and I'm trying to figure out what."

My heart hammered against my ribs because he was too close to the truth, too observant, and I needed to redirect him before he put the pieces together. "What feels off is that my ex-mate just showed up at my uncle's house where I'm trying to rebuild my life after you destroyed it."

"I didn't destroy anything, I made a choice—"

"You made a choice to humiliate me in front of everyone I've ever known." I jabbed my finger into his chest, using anger as a shield. "So forgive me if I'm not exactly thrilled to see you, and forgive me if I look a little stressed, because having you here is literally my worst nightmare."

Something flickered in his eyes, but he didn't back down. "I can smell another wolf on you, Sandra, strongly, and unless Marcus has been doing something extremely inappropriate during your training–"

"He hugged me." The lie came out too fast, but I committed to it. "This morning, when I had a breakdown about everything that happened with you and Jenna, he hugged me because that's what family does when you're falling apart."

Damon stared at me, clearly trying to decide if he believed it, and I held his gaze with every ounce of false confidence I could muster.

"A hug." His tone was flat, skeptical.

"Yes, a hug, is that so hard to believe?" I crossed my arms tighter. "Or are you so narcissistic that you can't imagine I might actually need comfort from someone who isn't you?"

"How long was this hug?" He wasn't letting it go, and panic fluttered in my chest.

"I don't know, a few minutes? I was crying, Damon, I wasn't exactly timing it." I turned away, heading for what I hoped was the spare bedroom. "Here's your room, bathroom's down the hall, try not to make my life more miserable than it already is."

I shoved the key at him and started to leave, but his voice stopped me.

"Sandra, if something's wrong, if Marcus is doing something he shouldn't—"

"Marcus is the only person who's actually trying to help me." I didn't turn around, couldn't let him see the guilt written across my face. "Which is more than I can say for you."

I fled down the hallway, my skin crawling with the certainty that Damon didn't believe me, that he was going to keep digging until he uncovered the truth.

Back in the training room, Marcus was cleaning up, his movements controlled but tense, and he looked up when I entered, reading my expression immediately.

"He suspects something." I closed the door, leaning against it.

Marcus's jaw tightened. "What did you tell him?"

"That you hugged me this morning when I had a breakdown about the rejection." I wrapped my arms around myself. "I don't think he bought it."

"Fuck." Marcus set down the equipment he'd been organizing. "We need to be more careful, if he tells your mother…"

"He won't tell her, not yet, he doesn't have proof." I moved closer, lowering my voice even though the door was closed. "But he's going to be watching us, looking for anything that confirms his suspicions."

Marcus reached for me, then caught himself, his hand dropping back to his side. "Then we stop, right now, no more touching, no more–"

"No more what we just did against the wall?" The words came out bitter, sharp. "No more pretending there's something here besides manipulation and blackmail?"

His eyes flashed. "You think that's all this is?"

"I don't know what this is." I was shaking now, from adrenaline and fear and the horrible realization that Damon's arrival had just made everything infinitely more complicated. "But whatever it is, we can't do it with him in the house."

Marcus nodded slowly, the distance between us suddenly feeling like a chasm. "You're right, we need to maintain boundaries, at least until he leaves."

"When does he leave?" I hated how desperate the question sounded.

"Three weeks, same as your training period." Marcus turned away, his shoulders rigid. "Think you can last that long without–"

"Without what?" The words escaped before I could stop them, and I saw him flinch.

He didn't answer, just walked past me toward the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. "Damon will be joining us for afternoon training, try to act normal, like you hate being here."

"I do hate being here," I said, but we both knew it was a lie now, had been a lie since the moment he'd kissed me in the basement.

He left without responding, and I stood alone in the training room that still smelled like sex and sweat and secrets, trying to figure out how I'd gone from wanting to escape this place to dreading the moment I'd have to leave.

Upstairs, I heard Damon's footsteps moving around his room, restless and searching, and I knew he was running through everything he'd seen, every detail that didn't quite add up.

My phone buzzed, Mom checking in again.

‘How's it going with Marcus? Damon just texted me that he arrived safely. I'm so glad you two will have each other for support during training.’

I laughed, the sound edging toward hysterical, because if she only knew that the support Damon and I were providing each other involved suspicion, lies, and the ruins of everything we used to be.

I typed back: ‘Everything's fine. Damon and I are being civil. Training is intense.’

The response came immediately: ‘Good. I know this is hard, but you're exactly where you need to be.’

I deleted the message thread and sat on the floor, my back against the wall where Marcus had pinned me less than an hour ago, and tried to figure out how I was going to survive three weeks of Damon's suspicious glares and Marcus's forced distance and the growing certainty that I'd just made the biggest mistake of my life.

Or maybe the mistake was thinking I could stop.

From the doorway, Damon cleared his throat, and I looked up to find him watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read.

"Afternoon session starts in ten minutes, Marcus wants us both there." He paused. "Sandra, I meant what I said earlier–if something is wrong you can tell me."

"Nothing's wrong." The lie tasted like ash. "Everything's exactly as fucked up as it appears."

He studied me for a long moment, then nodded slowly, but I saw it in his eyes, he didn't believe me, not even a little, and he was going to keep watching, keep questioning, until he found the truth I was desperately trying to hide.

As he walked away, I caught Marcus standing at the end of the hallway, his eyes locked on where Damon had just been, his expression dark with something that looked dangerously like jealousy.

Our eyes met across the distance, and in that moment I knew, three weeks wasn't going to be enough time to figure out what we were doing, and it definitely wasn't going to be enough time to stop.

The training room awaited, and with it, the impossible task of pretending that everything between us was perfectly, professionally normal while Damon watched our every move, looking for the crack that would expose everything.

I pushed off the floor and headed downstairs, my heart hammering, because the real training was about to begin, not in healing techniques or combat medicine, but in the art of deception, and I was terrifyingly certain that all three of us were going to fail.