chapter 8

THE BEAST: ETERNAL OBSESSION

Iris froze mid word.

Her mouth snapped shut instantly, the color draining from her face as she realized exactly what had just slipped past her lips. Her eyes went incredibly wide, darting erratically between me and the floorboards as if hoping the ground would open up and swallow her whole.I sat up straighter, the heavy blanket slipping completely off my shoulders.

"His what?" My voice came out much lower than I intended. It was sharp. Lethal.

So this absolute bastard has a whole fiancée?

The air in the room grew instantly heavy, dropping like a stone into the center of the space until everything stopped breathing. Iris opened her mouth, then closed it again, trembling.

"I…I didn’t mean to say.."

Too late.

Suddenly, heavy, measured footsteps echoed from the hallway. They approached with a terrifying certainty, stopping right outside my door. Iris froze entirely.The door clicked open. Neither of us dared to breathe.I didn’t even need to turn around to know it was him.

The temperature in the room felt like it dropped ten degrees the exact second he stepped over the threshold. That intoxicating scent hit me all over again cedar, woodsmoke, and a dark, primal musk that made my skin prickle.

Leonhart.

He stood firmly in the doorway, his massive frame completely filling the heavy wooden frame. His white dress shirt was half-unbuttoned, his dark hair damp as if he had just walked in from the pouring rain, and his jaw was locked tight.

His dark eyes found mine first, holding the gaze for a fraction of a second before they slid sharply over to Iris.When his eyes landed back on me, his expression was freezing cold. Completely possessive.Iris scrambled to her feet, immediately bowing her head in submission.

"Alpha."

I didn’t move an inch. I just stared right back at him. Because even while visibly pissed off, even with the room growing suffocatingly tense around us, the bastard looked good. Annoyingly good. Like the kind of devastatingly handsome that made your brain forget you should be running for your life.

A heavy, absolute silence settled between us. His eyes stayed locked onto mine, completely unreadable, while his large hands remained buried casually in his pockets acting as if he had all the time in the world and absolutely nothing to fear.

"Iris, please excuse us," he said calmly, his deep voice slicing through the quiet.

"Yes, Alpha," she replied softly.The door clicked shut behind her a second later, and just like that, the universe narrowed down to only him and me.

"Kitten," he called out softly, taking a step into my space.I looked up, and my heart slammed violently against my ribs like a trapped bird trying to escape.

"You have a fiancée," the accusation slipped out of my mouth before my brain could stop it.He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even attempt to deny it. He just stood there, staring down at me with a predatory stillness that made every single nerve ending on my skin prickle with heat.

The air became entirely too thick to breathe.

For a single, agonizing second, I hated him enough to want to tear him apart limb from limb starting right with that flawlessly arrogant face of his.

"Who told you?" His voice dropped into a low, dangerously quiet register. But he hadn't moved an inch. Both of his boots remained firmly planted to the floorboards, as if moving a single step closer would make the reality of my words too real to handle.

"Does it even matter?" I shot back. My voice was barely louder than a whisper, but underneath it, I was absolutely boiling.Was I just a temporary pastime to him? A pretty little human toy he could play with and toss aside into a corner the exact second he got bored?

"You were crying," he said, abruptly trying to derail the track of the conversation. His sharp jaw tightened.

"Who made you cry, Amelia?"

Finally, he broke his predatory stillness. He took one slow step toward me. Then another. I refused to back up this time. I was far too angry to let fear paralyze me.

"Was everything just a game to you?" I demanded, glaring up into his dark eyes, my hands fisting so tightly at my sides that my knuckles turned white. "The kiss. The things you whispered to me. Was all of that just a lie, Leon?"

His nickname slipped past my lips much quieter than I intended it to. a fragile whisper that cracked violently right in the middle.

He didn't say a single word in response.

He just stood there, staring down at me with an unblinking intensity. Is he stupid? Does he really have nothing to say for himself?

"I want to go home," I said flatly. The sudden admission caused the remaining fight to drain right out of me all at once. "I’m so tired of all of this. I never asked for any of this to happen, and I never wanted to come to this godforsaken place."His expression shifted, just for a fraction of a second. Something raw, wrecked, and increasingly pissed off flashed across his features before his emotionless mask slammed back down over his face.

"You don’t get to say that," he said quietly, his voice dangerously smooth. "You don't just choose to leave me. Do you have any idea how long I waited to find you? Do you know how much I suffered just because your soul was hidden from me? You can't just smell completely like mine, and then casually tell me you want to walk away like it means absolutely nothing."By the time he finished snapping at me, he had stopped a mere breath away from my face. He was close enough that I could feel the suffocating heat rolling off his chiseled chest.

Close enough that I could see how heavily bloodshot his eyes were. They weren't those soft, molten gold irises he usually looked at me with. He took a deep, shuddering breath, visibly fighting his inner beast to calm down."It wasn’t a lie," he said, his tone dropping back into a calm, absolute certainty. "Not a single word of it."Outside the high windows, a low rumble of thunder vibrated through the sky, acting as if the pack house itself knew the two of us were right on the verge of breaking.

The sky opened up, and the rain began pouring down hard against the glass.

"Please, Leon... just take me home," I begged, looking down at the floor as fresh tears blurred my vision. My legs were starting to feel entirely too weak to hold my weight. I wanted him to explain himself, or at least deny the rumors, but his crushing silence made it feel like my feelings didn't even matter to him. Like this whole situation was no big deal.

"Fine. I’ll take you back," he said flatly.

My head snapped up.

He was staring straight down at me, and to my absolute shock, his eyes were swimming with raw hurt.The dark irises slowly shifted back to a warm gold. He took a heavy step away from me, running a hand roughly through his damp hair.

"I will take you back," he muttered, sounding like he was speaking more to his own reluctant beast than to me.With that, he turned sharply on his heel and strode out of the room. The heavy oak door slammed shut behind him, the force making me flinch. My legs finally gave out completely, and I collapsed onto the edge of the mattress. Burying my face in my palms, I let out a jagged sob and wept.A moment later, the door creaked open again, and Iris rushed into the room.

"Iris," I choked out, opening my arms blindly. She immediately ran to the bed and pulled me into a tight hug, gently rubbing my back as I completely broke apart in her arms.

Ten minutes later, a sleek black SUV was waiting for me out in the courtyard. The rain was still pouring heavily, turning the world into a grey blur. Lyall, Leonhart's formidable Beta, held a large umbrella over my head as he opened the rear door for me.As I brushed my fingers against the roof of the car, getting ready to slide onto the leather seat, a sudden sensation stopped me dead in my tracks. It was that intense, burning feeling of his stare.I instinctively looked up toward the glass windows of his third-floor office. He was standing there, a dark silhouette against the light, watching my every move.

Our eyes locked through the downpour for one suspended moment.

Time completely stopped.

My chest ached with a sudden, sharp physical pain.

I can't find it in me to leave him.

"Luna," Lyall called out softly, breaking the trance.I snapped out of it and slid into the back seat. The moment I looked out through the glass window, the silhouette was gone from the glass. Okay. That actually hurts. Why did a foolish part of me think he would run down the stairs and stop me, just like he always did?

The engine roared to life, and Lyall began driving away from the estate. I let out a long, heavy sigh, resting my forehead against the cold glass of the door. The farther we drove, the smaller the werewolf village became in the rearview mirror. Before I could even process the reality of it, we were idling right outside my old apartment building.

"Luna, we have arrived safely," Lyall said, stepping out to open my door.

"Oh... thank you, Lyall," I murmured, stepping out into the city air.He handed me the large umbrella, bowed his head with strict formality, and then jogged back to the driver’s side.

The SUV sped away into the rain, leaving me standing entirely alone on the sidewalk.