A truth among friends

Alec:

I looked toward the blood darkening the Badlands dirt in wide, ugly stains where the rogues had fallen. Patrols were being reassigned, wounds assessed, the pack settling into that disciplined rhythm that followed violence—but my focus wasn’t on the bodies or the strategy forming in the back of my mind.

It was on her.

Violet sat on a flat stretch of stone near the edge of camp while Anna cleaned the shallow rake along her shoulder. The sleeve of her shirt had been cut away, exposing angry red lines that crossed older scars mapped across her skin. She didn’t flinch when antiseptic was poured over the wound. She simply watched the tree line like she expected something else to emerge from it.

She was the picture of unshakable control. 

As if driving a blade through Brogan’s skull had been no more taxing than morning drills for her.

“She’s good,” Asher muttered beside me, folding his arms as he leaned against a tree.

I didn’t answer immediately, because good wasn’t the word.

I had watched her move through that fight like she understood the language of it; there was no wasted motion, and zero hesitation. She read the field instinctively, called flanks before my betas fully saw them forming, and adjusted within seconds to the rogues’ unnatural strength. She had used terrain, timing, and proximity with a precision that spoke of long, brutal experience.

She had leapt from my back without fear; she had used my body as leverage midair. Trusting that I would be exactly where she needed me to be.

“She’s more than good,” Asher continued, his tone thoughtful now. “She’s lethal.”

My jaw tightened slightly as Anna finished wrapping Violet’s shoulder. Anna said something that earned a faint curve of Violet’s mouth—not a full smile, but enough to shift something tight in my chest. Even injured, she stood smoothly, rolling her shoulder once as if testing its range before letting her attention drift back to the perimeter.

“She fights like she’s been at war her whole life,” Asher said.

“She has,” I replied quietly.

He hummed under his breath, studying her in open appreciation. “You see the way she handled Brogan? The timing? The control?”

“I was there.”

“Yeah,” he said, though his gaze never left her. “But did you really see her?”

There was something in his tone I didn’t like.

He pushed off the tree and straightened, his posture casual but deliberate. “When she jumped off you? The way she spun that staff midair before she drove it down? That wasn’t just training. That was art.”

A low sound vibrated in my chest before I consciously allowed it.

Asher’s mouth twitched.

“Oh,” he murmured. “That’s interesting.”

I turned my head slightly toward him. “What is?”

He didn’t answer right away. He just kept watching Violet as she adjusted the strap of her staff across her back. Even bloodstained and wind-tangled, she moved with a sharp, deliberate grace that drew the eye without trying.

“You’re territorial of her,” Asher said finally.

“I’m Alpha, and she is a stranger in our pack; yes, I am territorial.”

He snorted softly. “Not about the pack.”

My gaze snapped to him fully then, and he held it evenly, unflinching.

“I’m just saying,” he continued, tone light but edged with intention, “if she weren’t under your protection, I’d absolutely try my luck.”

The growl that tore from me was immediate and unfiltered. It rolled low and dangerous across the clearing, sharp enough that several nearby lycans instinctively stilled.

Asher blinked once before a slow grin spread across his face. “There it is.”

I hadn’t thought about it. The reaction had come from somewhere deeper than command or strategy, somewhere beneath the discipline that defined me. It hadn’t been calculated; it had been instinct.

“She is not something you ‘try your luck’ with,” I said, my voice steady but edged.

Asher lifted his hands slightly in mock surrender, though the amusement in his eyes didn’t fade. “Relax. I prefer breathing.”

But he wasn’t wrong, and that was the problem.

The thought of his hand at her waist, how mine had been that morning, of his voice brushing her through the link the way mine had, it sent a hot, unwelcome surge through my veins that had nothing to do with leadership. It had everything to do with possession.

“She doesn’t belong to you, Alec,” Asher said more quietly now, the teasing gone. My gaze shifted back to Violet. As if sensing the change in my focus, her shields brushed lightly against my mind, curious and aware.

No. She didn’t belong to me.

She chose where she stood.

Yet, when Brogan lunged for me, she had moved without hesitation. When I staggered under that enhanced strike, she had been at my side within seconds. When I nearly gave chase to the fleeing rogues, she had stopped me with a single word—and I had listened.

“She fights at your level,” Asher continued. “That’s rare.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“She’d make a terrifying Alpha’s mate.”

The second growl was lower, controlled, but no less real.

Asher let out a quiet laugh. “You don’t even know if she can shift.”

“I know enough.”

He studied me for a long moment before following my gaze again. Violet was speaking to Russ now, explaining something about the rogues’ formation and movement patterns. He listened. They all did. Not because she demanded authority—but because she had earned it.

“She’s not afraid of you,” Asher said.

“No.”

“Does that bother you.”

“It doesn’t.”

His brow lifted slightly. “It excites you.”

I didn’t respond.

Across the clearing, Violet looked up suddenly, as if she felt the weight of my attention. Our eyes locked. The connection between us tightened through the link—not invasive, nor forceful, just present. Warm. Curious. There was a flicker of something in her expression, something that suggested she sensed the edge still humming beneath my skin, her mouth curved faintly and my lycan stirred in response.

Asher exhaled slowly beside me. “You’re in trouble.”

“I don’t get in trouble,” I replied evenly.

He huffed a quiet laugh. “You are this time.”

Violet adjusted the strap of her staff once more and began walking toward us, steady and sure despite the fight she had just survived. The pack parted for her without thought.

She wasn’t mine.

I knew that.

But as she approached, eyes sharp and unreadable, something in my chest tightened with quiet, possessive certainty, and I knew then that if anyone tried their luck with her, they would regret it, and the part I understood least was whether that promise came from the Alpha in me… or the man.