Chapter 6: Rubbing It In

Amara's POV

The next few weeks became a masterclass in torture.

I hadn't known Valerie was capable of such creativity. In the old days, when we were all children running through pack territory with scraped knees and wild hair, she'd been simply mean, the kind of casual cruelty that came naturally to a girl who'd never been told no. But this? This was artistry. This was a deliberate, calculated dismantling of whatever peace I'd managed to patch together for myself.

It started small.

The first pack run after the claiming ceremony, I arrived early. I always arrived early now, having learned that arriving on time meant watching Valerie drape herself over Damon like a second skin. I stood at the edge of the clearing, my white coat still hanging in my office at the clinic, dressed instead in the simple running clothes I'd worn a hundred times before. The moon hung low and fat over the pines, and for a moment, just a moment, I let myself breathe.

Then I heard her laugh.

That particular laugh. The one she'd perfected over the past year, the one that said look at me, look what I have, look what you lost. It carried across the clearing like a weapon, and when I turned, there they were.

Damon stood with his back against an old oak, his arms wrapped around Valerie's waist. She was pressed against him, her fingers playing with the collar of his shirt, her mouth hovering just below his ear. She wasn't whispering anything important, I could see her lips moving, forming words that made him smile, that made his hand slide lower on her hip.

And then she looked up, straight at me.

Her eyes held mine for a long, deliberate moment. Long enough for me to understand that this was for me. That she'd positioned them both exactly where she knew I would see them first. Long enough for her to smile, that slow, satisfied curl of lips that said I won.

I looked away first. I always looked away first.

"Amara." Marcus's voice came from my left, and I turned to find the pack's beta watching me with something too close to pity. "You're early."

"Thought I'd get some stretches in before the run." My voice sounded normal. Steady. I'd been practicing.

Marcus nodded, but his eyes flicked to Damon and Valerie, then back to me. He'd been Alpha's second for twelve years. He saw everything. "The clinic keeping you busy?"

"Always." I smiled, and it almost reached my eyes. "Flu season's hitting the younger pups hard. Dr. Chen and I have been running vaccinations all week."

It was the right thing to say. Marcus loved talking pack business, loved anything that kept the territory healthy and strong. For the next ten minutes, he asked about vaccine supplies and quarantine protocols, and I answered with the kind of professional competence that had earned me my medical license two years ahead of schedule. I was good at this. I was useful.

Behind Marcus's shoulder, I could still see them. Could still hear Valerie's laugh. But I didn't look again. I didn't.

That was the pattern.

During Pack dinners, Valerie would lean across Damon to reach for the salt, pressing her chest against his arm, and giggle an apology. Training sessions: she'd insist Damon spot her during drills, her hands finding his shoulders, his waist, the small of his back. Council meetings: she'd sit at his right hand, my old seat, the one I'd occupied as Luna-in-training for three years and whisper suggestions in his ear that made the older wolves nod approvingly.

And every time, she'd find me in the crowd.

Every. Single. Time.

Her eyes would seek me out like heat seeking cold, and she'd smile. Sometimes it was triumphant. Sometimes it was pitying. Sometimes it was almost wistful, as if to say poor thing, don't you wish this was you.

The worst part wasn't Valerie. The worst part was Damon.

Because he let her do it. Because he stood there with his arm around her waist and his mouth pressed to her temple, and he never once looked at me. Never once acknowledged the woman he'd promised to love, the woman he'd marked with his teeth and his scent and his word.

I told myself it didn't matter. I told myself I was healing. I told myself a lot of things.

The pack clinic became my sanctuary.

Two weeks after the claiming ceremony, I'd thrown myself into work with the kind of desperation that only the broken possess. I arrived before dawn and left long after the moon rose. I took every late shift, every emergency call, every complicated case that other doctors wanted to avoid. My hands stayed busy. My mind stayed occupied. And for blessed, merciful hours at a time, I didn't think about Damon Blackwood at all.

The pack clinic was a low, modern building at the edge of the territory, all glass and steel and the sharp smell of antiseptic. We served not just the pack but the surrounding human communities, a goodwill measure that had earned us more allies than most Alphas managed in a lifetime. The waiting room was always full, the exam rooms always turning, and I loved every exhausting second of it.

Dr. Liam Chen had been with us for eight months.

He was young, thirty-two, only four years older than me, with kind brown eyes and hands that moved with the gentle precision of someone who understood that healing was an act of trust. He'd come from a pack in Oregon, some messy business about a challenge for Alpha that he wanted no part of. "I'm a doctor, not a soldier," he'd told me once, and I'd felt something loosen in my chest at the words.

He didn't push. That was the thing about Liam. He noticed things, he was a doctor, after all but he never forced them into the light. He'd seen me crying in the supply closet on my third day back, and he'd simply handed me a box of tissues and said, "Inventory's done. Take your time."

He'd seen me flinch at pack gatherings, seen the way my hands shook after Valerie's little performances. But he never asked. He just made sure there was always coffee in the break room, always an extra set of hands when a case got complicated, always a quiet presence that asked for nothing in return.

"Amara." His voice pulled me from my thoughts, and I looked up from the chart I'd been staring at for five minutes. "You've been frowning at that vaccination record for a while. Is the handwriting that bad?"

I blinked. "Sorry. Just thinking."

Liam leaned against the doorframe of the small office we shared, his white coat unbuttoned over navy scrubs. "You do that a lot lately. The thinking." He paused. "And the apologizing."

"Occupational hazard."

"Mmm." He didn't push. He never pushed. Instead, he nodded toward the window, where the late afternoon sun was bleeding gold through the pines. "Last appointment canceled. Ear infection, but the mom gave the kid some honey and he perked right up. We're done for the day."

I glanced at the clock. Five-thirty. I'd been here since six. "Oh. Good. I should" I gestured vaguely toward the door, toward the territory, toward the life waiting outside these walls that I desperately didn't want to return to.

Liam watched me for a long moment. Then he did something unexpected.

He smiled.

Not the polite, professional smile he gave patients. Not the sympathetic one he'd offered in the supply closet. This was different. This was hopeful, almost shy, and it transformed his whole face.

"There's a coffee shop," he said carefully. "In the human town. The one with the blue awning. They have this cinnamon thing they do that's…" He stopped, ran a hand through his dark hair. "I'm doing this badly."

My heart did something strange. A flutter and a skip. Something that felt almost like remembering how to feel.

"Liam"

"What I'm trying to say is, would you like to get coffee with me? Not as coworkers. As…" He gestured between us. "I don't know. Something else. Something where you don't have to apologize for thinking too much."

The words hung in the air between us. Gentle. Unassuming. The first kind thing anyone had offered me that didn't come with sharp edges.

I opened my mouth to answer.

"Amara."

The voice came from behind Liam, from the doorway, and it turned my blood to ice.

Damon.

He stood in the threshold of my office like he belonged there, like he had any right to be in this space I'd carved out for myself. His broad shoulders filled the frame, his dark hair tousled from the wind, his gray eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my wolf whine.

But his eyes weren't on me.

Not entirely.

They kept sliding to Liam. To the small space between us. To the way Liam stood close enough that our arms almost brushed. And in those gray eyes, something flickered, something dark and confused and unmistakably possessive.

"We need to talk." Damon's voice was low, rougher than usual. He didn't look at Liam when he spoke. Didn't acknowledge him at all. Just stared at me like I was something he'd lost and only just now realized was missing.

Liam straightened. He was shorter than Damon, slighter, and any other man might have stepped back in the face of an Alpha's displeasure. But Liam just tilted his head, his kind eyes gone suddenly sharp.

"The clinic's closed for the day," he said evenly. "If it's a medical matter, you'll need to schedule an appointment."

Damon's jaw tightened. "This isn't medical."

"Then it can wait until tomorrow."

"Damon." I finally found my voice, and it came out steadier than I expected. "What do you want?"

For a long moment, he didn't answer. He just stood there, looking between me and Liam, and I watched something war behind his eyes. Jealousy. Confusion. The same stubborn pride that had made him choose Valerie in the first place.

"I need to speak with you," he said finally. "Privately."

Liam turned to me. His expression was carefully neutral, but I could see the question in his eyes: Do you want me to stay?

I should have said yes. I should have let Liam stay, let him be the shield I'd never asked for but desperately needed. I should have told Damon that I had plans, that I was busy, that he'd made his choice and I'd made mine and we had nothing left to discuss.

But Damon was looking at me with those gray eyes, and my wolf was pacing inside my chest, and I was so tired of running.

"It's fine, Liam." I stood, smoothing my white coat. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Liam hesitated. For a heartbeat, I thought he might argue. But he was too kind for that, too respectful of choices that weren't his to make. He nodded once, his jaw tight, and walked past Damon without looking at him.

The door clicked shut and then it was just us.

Damon didn't move from the doorway. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his scent filling my small office, pine and storm and something darker underneath. Possession. Territoriality. The same damn pheromones that had confused me since I was sixteen years old.

"Who is he?" Damon asked.

"Who is who?"

"The doctor." Damon's voice dropped. "The one who was just asking you out."

My heart slammed against my ribs. "That's none of your business."

"He was standing close to you."

"People stand close to me, Damon. I'm a doctor."

"Not like that." Damon pushed off from the doorframe, and suddenly the office felt very small. He took a step toward me, then stopped, like he was physically restraining himself from coming closer. "He was looking at you like"

"Like what?" I lifted my chin. "Like I'm worth looking at? Like I'm something other than a consolation prize?"

Something flickered across his face. Pain. Guilt. Gone so fast I almost missed it.

"That's not"

"Don't." I held up a hand. "Don't you dare come in here and act like you have any right to question who I spend time with. You made your choice. You chose Valerie. Every day, you choose her. You let her rub it in my face at every pack event, every training session, every single time I close my eyes and try to forget that you exist." My voice cracked, and I hated it. Hated that he could still do this to me. "So no. You don't get to ask about Liam. You don't get to stand in my office and smell jealous when you're the one who walked away."

Damon's hands curled into fists at his sides. His wolf was close to the surface, I could see it in the way his eyes flickered, in the tension coiling through his shoulders.

"You think I wanted this?" he said quietly.

"I think you chose it."

"I chose the pack."

"You chose Valerie." The words came out bitter, sharp-edged. "You chose her family's alliance. You chose her father's warriors. You chose politics and power and…"

"And what was I supposed to choose?" Damon's voice rose, and the air in the room grew heavy with Alpha command. "You? You, who told me you needed to go study? You, who said the title would hold you?"

"I was scared!"

"So was I!"

The admission hung between us, raw and bleeding.

Damon dragged a hand over his face. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. Broken. "I'm the Alpha, Amara. I don't get to be scared. I don't get to choose the person I want. I have to choose the person the pack needs."

"And Valerie is what the pack needs?"

"She's what her father demands."

I stared at him. At the exhaustion carved into the lines of his face, at the shadows under his eyes that hadn't been there a year ago, the mark, the one I'd given him when we were nineteen and stupid and certain that love was enough.

He hadn't covered it. Even now, even with Valerie draped all over him, he still wore my mark.

"Why are you here, Damon?" I whispered.

He stepped closer. Close enough that I could feel the heat of his body, could smell the pine and storm of him. Close enough that if I reached out, I could touch his face.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "I saw you with him, and I…" He stopped. Swallowed. "I can't lose you. Not completely. I know I have no right to ask for anything. I know I chose this. But I can't"

"Damon."

"Just tell me you're not going to replace me." His voice cracked on the last word. "Tell me he's not going to be your…."

"He's my coworker." I stepped back, putting distance between us. "He's my friend. And he's the only person in this pack who's been kind to me since you broke my heart."

Damon flinched.

"So no," I continued, my voice hardening. "I'm not going to promise you anything. I'm not going to make this easier for you. You made your bed, Alpha. Now you get to lie in it."

I walked past him. Pushed open the door. Stepped into the hallway where Liam had left a cup of coffee on the counter for me, still warm.

"Amara." Damon's voice followed me. "Please."

I didn't look back.

But my wolf howled in my chest all the way home.