Complacent Wolves

POV: James

The whistle blew, and the pack dropped into their laps around the training yard, running the same fifty they always ran, though nobody actually pushed themselves to finish anymore. Not since Bloodmoon doubled its territory back in his father's time. The last real fight this pack saw had wiped out two neighboring packs completely, their survivors scattering to whatever scraps of land would take them in. Nobody dared test Bloodmoon's borders after that, and the peace had settled into something almost stagnant, a comfort nobody questioned anymore.

Which means we've gotten soft. Somebody's going to figure that out eventually, and it won't be pretty when they do.

He watched his warriors jog at half effort, chatting instead of running, and made a mental note to fix that before it became a real problem. Not today, though. Today his mind kept drifting somewhere it had no business going, circling back no matter how many times he tried to drag it elsewhere.

The smell of fresh bread rolled out from the pack house and across the yard, and half the men within scenting range groaned like they'd been touched. James caught himself almost smiling and forced his face back to neutral before anyone clocked it. The scent alone was enough to loosen something in his chest, a warmth he didn't examine too closely.

She makes the best damn bread I've ever had. Cakes too. Never telling her that. Not in this lifetime.

He liked the way she bowed her head to him now. Liked it in a way that curled through his chest, satisfaction and something uglier tangled together, a knot he'd stopped trying to pick apart years ago. It had taken him years to break her of walking around like she belonged among the ranked wolves, just because she stood taller than half his men. Even as a pup she'd been tall, all knees and elbows and a stubborn tilt to her chin that used to piss him off, back before he'd learned how to put that particular fire out. Now she stood at five foot ten, taller than most of his warriors, matched only by the ranked wolves and himself. He remembered the exact day he'd noticed it, how the realization had settled into him like something he wasn't ready to name.

Another reason they hate her. Like she asked to grow that tall.

He dropped down next to Jack for a break, sweat cooling on his skin, half listening to a cluster of warriors nearby who'd finished their drills and were killing time waiting on new orders. Their voices blurred into easy background noise, the kind he usually tuned out without trying, his thoughts elsewhere, still circling that bread and the woman who'd made it.

Then he heard her name.

He didn't turn his head. Didn't change his breathing. But something in him locked on anyway, some old instinct snapping to attention before his brain caught up with why, a tension threading through his shoulders that he refused to acknowledge.

One of them was telling a story about catching Trash sneaking off toward the lake a few weeks back. He claimed he'd followed her out of curiosity, watched her slip toward the water, and figured out fast enough what she was up to.

A bath. She doesn't have a bathroom, dumbass, and none of the other Omegas will let her use theirs. Of course she goes to the lake.

Something hot and defensive flared in his chest before he could stomp it out, sharp and immediate, the kind of reaction he didn't have time to question. He should have said something right then. He almost did. But the man kept talking, and against his better judgment, James kept listening, telling himself it was only to know what was being said about pack members under his watch. That excuse felt thin even as he leaned on it.

The description that followed made his jaw tighten, and not entirely from anger. Long legs. A narrow waist. Breasts full enough to fill a man's hands and then some, the way the guy talked about her nipples pulling a flush of heat up the back of James's neck, control or no control. His fingers curled against his knee, nails biting into his palm hard enough to ground him. He made himself breathe slow and even, refusing to let anyone see what those words had stirred loose in him, though his pulse betrayed him, hammering steady and insistent beneath his ribs.

That's not what she looks like. It can't be.

Before he decided whether to shut the whole thing down or lean in closer, another warrior chimed in, describing the exact same thing from weeks earlier, his voice dropping low with something close to reverence that made James's stomach twist, a mix of jealousy and disbelief he didn't want to name.

Twice. Two separate idiots, same story.

James opened his mouth, half ready to end the conversation for good, when the Gamma's voice cut across the yard, calling him over to sort patrol rotations for the week. The interruption came like a mercy and an irritation both at once.

He went, because that was the job, and pack business didn't wait around for curiosity. But the image stuck to the back of his skull the whole walk over, stubborn and unwelcome, refusing to shake loose no matter how hard he tried to redirect his thoughts. He found himself replaying the warrior's words despite every effort not to, cataloguing details he had no right to want.

Years. I've watched her every single day for years. There's no way she looks like that under those rags they make her wear.

He shook his head, telling himself it was exaggeration, the kind of thing bored warriors invented to entertain each other. Still, some small, traitorous part of him held onto the thought far longer than it should have, turning it over again and again like a stone he couldn't quite skip across the surface of his mind.

Right?