NOT MY HEARTBEAT

Tyra's POV

Of all the people I had expected to see in a ballroom full of werewolves on the other side of the world, my research director was the very last.

Yet there he was, standing a few feet away with his hands slipped casually into his pockets, like he had simply wandered in from the lab next door. 

He was dressed in a sharply tailored charcoal suit that made his shoulders look broader and his dark eyes look even sharper, and he was smiling at me with that same easy, crooked smile he wore every morning when he leaned against my office door.

For a split second, the sheer familiarity of him knocked the air out of my lungs. He was a piece of my real life dropped right into the middle of this madness.

"Hello, Tyra," Magnus said warmly, his eyes sweeping over me. "I tried to tell you I'd be arriving today, but you never picked up my calls or answered my messages."

Heat flooded my cheeks as I remembered all those unanswered texts.

"I'm so sorry," I said quickly, flustered. "Things have been… a lot."

"I can only imagine," Magnus replied smoothly, letting his gaze slide meaningfully to the twins and then back to me. "Given what I just interrupted."

He didn't seem to notice the twins glaring at him like they wanted to skin him alive, or if he did, he didn't care in the slightest.

"You never told me your family's events were this entertaining, dearest," he added with a wink.

Beside me, I felt rather than saw Osric's whole body go rigid. The warm, teasing man who had been holding me seconds ago vanished, replaced by something cold and guarded. 

On my other side, Alaric's grip on my hand tightened for a moment before he let go completely, his gaze hardening into ice.

"What are you doing here?" I asked Magnus, genuinely bewildered but secretly grateful for the interruption.

"I was invited," he replied easily, stepping a little closer, "and not just as a member of the community. Your mother asked me herself, as a personal favor. Something about a scientific collaboration with the pack's research division." 

His eyes flicked to Alaric, then to Osric, and his smile sharpened ever so slightly. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything important."

My mother had invited him?

Before I could even process that, or before either twin could respond, Magnus extended his hand toward me, palm up, with a little flourish.

"Dance with me?" he asked.

I hesitated.

I could feel both twins standing on either side of me like storm clouds, the tension between them crackling so hot that it made my skin prickle. My body was still humming from Osric's touch, my wrist was still burning from Alaric's grip, and I couldn't think straight with the two of them so close.

Magnus was safe. Magnus was normal. Magnus didn't make my blood feel like it was on fire.

Maybe a little out of defiance and a lot out of desperation, I put my hand in his.

His grin widened as he led me back onto the floor, and I didn't dare look back at the twins.

"You look stunning tonight," Magnus murmured as he pulled me into the dance, his voice pitched so low only I could hear. "Though I must admit, your family has a real talent for making everything feel primal and obscenely expensive at the same time."

A surprised laugh escaped me. "Magnus," I warned, though I was smiling.

"I'm joking," he said lightly, drawing me a little closer. "Mostly." His hand settled on my back, lingering just a little lower than it needed to. "It's a party, Ty. Relax and have some fun." His eyes glinted with mischief. "You do remember how to have fun, don't you?"

"I have plenty of fun," I protested.

"Writing grant proposals at two in the morning doesn't count," he teased.

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't hide my smile, and for a moment, the tightness in my chest loosened. This was easy. 

This was the man who had brought me coffee every morning for three years and talked me through every failed experiment, the man who had believed in my work when everyone else only saw my last name.

Being in his arms didn't make my heart race or my body ache. It just felt comfortable and steady.

But then his fingers brushed the edge of my backless gown, grazing the bare skin of my spine, and my breath caught.

The touch was perfectly innocent, and yet something about it made me notice him in a way I never had before. 

I noticed how handsome he was up close, with his sharp jaw, his dark, intelligent eyes and the faint smile that always seemed to know something I didn't.

I noticed the way he was looking at me, too, with an open admiration he had never quite let himself show in the lab.

His dark cedar cologne wrapped around me and mixed with the lingering scents of pine and woodsmoke still clinging to my skin, until the three scents filled my head so completely that I thought I might choke on them.

And I could feel the twins watching me.

It was like a physical weight on my bare back, two burning points of heat that followed every turn and every step. 

When I turned slightly, my gaze collided with Alaric's across the ballroom. 

His expression was carved from stone, completely unreadable, but his eyes were burning. 

Beside him, Osric's fists were clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles had gone white, his golden eyes flickering with something close to rage.

Neither of them moved. They stood frozen at the edge of the dance floor, both trapped by duty and by the hundreds of eyes watching their every move.

I shivered.

It made no sense, how aware of them I was. My bloodline was wolf, yes, but I didn't have one. 

I shouldn't have been able to feel them like this from across a crowded ballroom, like an invisible string connected my heart to theirs and someone kept tugging on it.

"Are you alright?" Magnus asked, his voice suddenly close to my ear.

I hadn't even realized I had stumbled until his arm tightened around my waist and my knees brushed against his as he steadied me.

"I'm fine," I said quickly, forcing a smile that didn't reach my eyes.

But I wasn't fine. My pulse was racing erratically, and my senses suddenly felt far too sharp. I could smell every drop of wine in the room, hear the rhythm of the music beating inside my own skull and feel the heat of a hundred bodies pressing in on me. 

Worse, I could feel the air vibrating between my skin and theirs from all the way across the room.

"You seem a little off," Magnus teased gently, though his eyes had sharpened as they studied my face.

My fingers trembled on his arm. "I'm just tired," I lied.

I glanced up again and found both twins still watching me. Alaric's jaw was clenched tight, and Osric's lips were pressed into a hard line. Something invisible tugged at my chest again, sharp and sweet at the same time, and the edges of the world began to blur. 

The sounds of the ballroom dulled until all I could hear was my own blood rushing in my ears.

Then a faint pulse started beneath my skin, just below my collarbone.

It wasn't my heartbeat. It was a second one, beating right alongside mine, warm and wild and calling out to something.

I gasped softly and quickly turned it into a nervous laugh when Magnus's brows furrowed with concern.

"It's nothing," I whispered.

Then the ballroom lights flickered once, then twice.

Conversations faltered all over the room as everyone paused, and I felt it, an invisible wave rippling outward through the air like a pebble dropped into still water.

I stumbled again, clutching Magnus's arm as heat tore through my chest. My heart pounded wildly, and my vision swam with flashes of silver and red.

The music faltered. Conversations died all over the hall, and every head in the room turned toward the twins.

Osric's eyes met mine across the floor, filled with frustration and helpless apology. Alaric held my gaze a heartbeat longer, his expression unreadable, then his jaw locked tight.

They had no choice, and we all knew it.

Slowly, reluctantly, the two of them turned their backs on me and walked toward the dais, their shoulders rigid with tension. 

Neither of them looked calm, and neither of them looked back.