Chapter 06 (Part 04)

The knowledge settles into my bones like certainty, like truth I’ve been avoiding but can no longer deny. This meeting isn’t coincidence. This moment has been building since I arrived in Thornebrook, maybe since before that. Since the dreams started. Since Mom died. Since I became something I don’t understand.

His eyes don’t leave mine.

And mine don’t leave his.

It’s not a stare. Not really. It’s a standoff, a recognition, a claiming all rolled into one moment that stretches between us like a live wire.

No one moves.

No one breathes.

Not even Elias, who has gone completely still across from me like he’s trying not to attract attention.

I feel like I’m made of glass and every second he looks at me is one more second I don’t shatter—but I don’t understand why. Don’t understand what’s happening to me or what he sees when he looks at me or why my body is responding like it knows him when my mind insists we’re strangers.

A muscle twitches in his jaw, the only sign that this moment is affecting him too. His nostrils flare slightly, almost imperceptibly, and his chest rises once, sharply, like he just caught my scent in the air.

And whatever he smells—whatever he senses—it hits him hard.

His whole frame tenses, muscles coiling like springs under that black shirt. His hands curl into fists at his sides, then force themselves to relax. His shoulders bunch and release in a rhythm that suggests he’s fighting some internal battle.

And then I hear it.

Low. Barely audible. Coming from somewhere deep in his chest.

A growl.

Not aggressive. Not threatening, exactly.

Instinctual.

Possessive.

The sound slides under my skin like heat, pooling low in my gut and spreading outward until every nerve ending feels electrified. It’s a sound that shouldn’t come from a human throat, shouldn’t be possible without vocal cords designed for it. But it’s there, vibrating through the air between us like a physical touch.

My breath catches, trapped somewhere between my lungs and my lips.

I don’t move.

Can’t move.

My body has gone into some kind of lockdown, every muscle frozen except for my heart, which is beating so fast it feels like hummingbird wings against my ribs. The coffee cup in my hands might as well weigh a thousand pounds for all the control I have over my motor functions.

His eyes flash brighter for a split second—too fast to catch unless you’re already staring, which I am.

The gold intensifies, becoming almost luminous, like there’s fire burning behind his irises. For just that moment, he looks utterly inhuman, utterly other, and utterly magnificent.

Then something shifts in his face.

Pain. Anger. Internal conflict written in the tense lines around his eyes and the way his mouth tightens into a grimmer line. Like he’s fighting a war inside himself and losing, like whatever he’s feeling is stronger than his ability to control it.

He tears his eyes away from me with what looks like physical effort, muscles straining against invisible chains. When he turns to look at Elias instead, I feel the absence of his gaze like a physical blow, like someone just ripped away a source of heat I didn’t know I was depending on.

“Get her out of here,” he says, and his voice is exactly what I expected it to be.

Low. Rough. Barely controlled.

Like gravel and honey and barely leashed power all mixed together. It’s the kind of voice that could command armies or whisper secrets, depending on his mood.

There’s something else underneath the words, though. Desperation, maybe. Or fear. Like getting me out of here isn’t just a suggestion—it’s a necessity.

Elias doesn’t argue. Doesn’t ask questions or demand explanations.

Just stands, smooth and quick, his chair scraping against the floor.

But I don’t move. Can’t make myself respond to commands when I don’t understand what’s happening or why this stranger thinks he has the right to dictate my movements.

“What the hell is going on?” I manage to ask, surprised my voice still works.

The words come out rougher than I intended, hoarse like I’ve been screaming, though I don’t remember making any sound besides that sharp intake of breath.

Neither of them answer.

Because in that moment, I don’t think either of them can.

The stranger—because that’s what he is, what he has to be, even though every instinct I have is screaming otherwise—stands frozen in the doorway like he’s fighting the urge to move closer.

His hands are clenched into fists so tight I can see white knuckles even from across the room.

Elias hovers beside the table, caught between his obvious desire to follow orders and his reluctance to manhandle me out of my seat.

The air between all three of us crackles with tension that feels electric, dangerous. Like we’re standing on the edge of a cliff and one wrong word will send us all tumbling into the abyss.

He doesn’t wait for Elias to answer me.

He doesn’t wait for me to understand or comply or do anything that might make this situation less volatile.

He turns—fluid and silent despite his size—and walks out the door.

No dramatic exit. No slammed door. No lingering look or parting words or any of the theatrical gestures that might make sense of this encounter.

Just… gone.

Like he was never there at all, except for the way my body is still humming with awareness and the lingering scent of pine and something wilder hanging in the air.

The bell chimes behind him, bright and cheerful and completely at odds with what just happened.

The moment it does, it’s like the pressure in the room lifts. Like someone just opened a valve and let all the tension escape at once.

I suck in air like I’ve been drowning and just broke the surface, my lungs expanding gratefully as oxygen floods my system. My heart’s still pounding, my hands still clenched in fists against the table—I don’t even remember making them fists, don’t remember when my body decided to prepare for a fight.

Every muscle I have feels like it’s been wound tight as piano wire and then suddenly released. I’m shaking, fine tremors running through my hands and up my arms, the aftershock of adrenaline with nowhere to go.

“What the actual hell was that?” I whisper, not trusting my voice at full volume.

Elias doesn’t sit right away. Instead, he walks to the door with careful, measured steps, each movement deliberate and quiet. He peers through the glass, scanning the street outside like he’s checking for snipers or enemy combatants.

Apparently satisfied with whatever he sees—or doesn’t see—he quietly flips the lock on the door, the metal clicking into place with a finality that makes my stomach clench.

He moves slowly, deliberately, like he’s trying not to startle a wild animal.

Like if he moves too fast, the moment might snap back and bring that stranger with it.

Then he returns to the booth and sits across from me again, sliding my half-finished coffee aside like we’re just two old friends catching up over breakfast. Like the last five minutes didn’t happen. Like we weren’t just witness to something that felt more significant than a chance encounter between strangers.

“That,” he says with a calmness that seems completely inappropriate given what just occurred, “was restraint.”

I blink at him, my brain struggling to process the word in context. “What?”

He taps the table once with two fingers, a nervous gesture that contradicts his composed expression. “He smelled you. In this room. In his territory. And he didn’t shift. Didn’t touch you. Didn’t kill anyone.”

Each word lands like a physical blow, making less sense than the last.

“You make that sound like a win,” I say, voice flat with disbelief.

“It is,” Elias says, and there’s something like awe in his voice. “You don’t understand what that took.”

My skin crawls with implications I don’t want to understand. “What do you mean, ‘didn’t shift’? What are you talking about?”

But he’s already moving on, already assuming I know things I don’t know, understand things that make no sense.

I push back from the booth, the vinyl seat squeaking in protest. “Okay. Start explaining. Right now. Because I’ve had enough of the cryptic nonsense. Who the hell was that?”

Elias looks at me for a long time, his golden eyes searching my face like he’s trying to decide how much truth I can handle. Like he’s weighing my sanity against my need to know and finding the balance wanting.

When he speaks, he doesn’t give me a name.

He gives me something worse.

“Yours,” he says simply.

The word hits me like a physical blow, driving the breath from my lungs.

Silence stretches between us, heavy with implications that my rational mind refuses to accept even as something deeper recognizes the truth in it.

My stomach flips, a sickening lurch that has nothing to do with the coffee and everything to do with the certainty in his voice. Like he’s not guessing or theorizing or making some kind of metaphorical statement.

Like he’s stating a fact as immutable as gravity.

“What did you just say?”

The words come out as barely more than a whisper, but they feel loud in the sudden quiet of the empty café.

He leans forward, his expression growing more intense, more urgent. “I mean it. You felt it, didn’t you? When he walked in. You couldn’t breathe. Your chest burned. Like your blood knew him before your brain could catch up.”

I don’t answer.

Can’t answer.

Because it’s true, and admitting that feels like stepping off the edge of everything I thought I knew about the world and about myself.

Because every word he’s saying resonates in my bones, confirms things I felt but couldn’t name. The recognition. The pull. The way my body responded to a complete stranger like he was anything but strange.

And that terrifies me more than anything that’s happened since I arrived in this cursed town.

“He’s not just an Alpha,” Elias says, his voice dropping to something barely above a whisper, like the words themselves are dangerous. “He’s the Alpha. Cassian Thorne.”

The name lands like a stone in my chest, heavy and significant and completely unfamiliar.

Cassian Thorne.

I roll it around in my mind, testing the syllables, waiting for some spark of recognition that doesn’t come. It should mean nothing to me. It does mean nothing to me.

So why does hearing it make my pulse spike? Why does it feel like a key turning in a lock I didn’t know existed?

“And you?” Elias continues, his eyes never leaving mine, his voice gentle but implacable. “You’re his mate.”

The word explodes through my consciousness like a bomb, shattering every assumption I’ve ever made about my life, my future, my choices.

Mate.

Not girlfriend. Not potential romantic interest. Not someone he might ask out for dinner and a movie.

Mate.

With all the permanence and inevitability the word implies. With all the biological imperative and lack of choice it suggests.

I open my mouth to argue, to deny, to demand explanations that make sense in the rational world I used to inhabit.

But no words come.

Because somewhere deep in the part of me that’s been changing since I arrived here, the part that dreams of golden eyes and recognizes scents that shouldn’t exist, a voice whispers:

Yes.

Finally.

Home.