The door clicked shut behind Lexi, sealing off the space where a universe of unspoken tension hummed between Luke and me. I turned to face him, our eyes meeting in a collision of questions, denials, and suppressed desires. "Listen," I began, picking up my pen and redirecting my attention to the mountain of paperwork in front of me. "You do realize that my life isn't a perpetual holiday, right? I've got responsibilities. A pack to manage and guide. I can't just clock out in the middle of the day to figure out...whatever the hell this is. My time has to be spent wisely if we're going to restore this pack to what it should be." Luke moved deliberately, taking a seat across from me. He scanned the stack of papers before snatching up a few sheets. His eyes darted across the text, and he went into action, striking out lines and scribbling alternatives in the margins. He slid the papers back across the table. "There. That'll save you some time." "Thank you," I muttered, momentarily taken

Lying there, enveloped in a post-coital haze, the room pulsed with an ineffable warmth. Lexi was snuggled into my side, her head resting on my chest, while Luke's head found a home against the curve of my back. A cocoon of intertwined limbs and whispered affections, we were an image of unconventional love, and I felt a deep sense of gratitude saturate my bones. Love like this—complex, unscripted, real—was rare. I knew that, and I cherished it.Work, duties, the endless list of things yet to be done, all of it momentarily dimmed in the light of what I felt. My arms tightened instinctively around Lexi, and I felt Luke press closer against me in kind. The demands of the outside world seemed distant, and inconsequential compared to the beautiful complexity of the emotional landscape that spread before me.It dawned on me, then, just how many boundaries we had crossed, how many lines had been erased or redrawn in these few hours. There were emotional and physical territories ventured into

My fingers drummed on the polished wood of the desk, each tap echoing the beat of my restless thoughts. Before me lay the treaty with the Rendon Pack. I had combed through its clauses and provisions, hunting for loopholes, uncertainties, any potential weakness that could unravel what we had so meticulously built. It wasn't just a piece of paper; it was the keystone for a peaceful future, mainly needed to calm Trevor down after he saw the mark on Luke's neck. My eyes skimmed the paragraphs again, but my thoughts were fractured, pulled in a different direction. A low-grade obsession gnawed at meWas this document truly foolproof? It needed to be. It had to secure the fragile peace we were so desperately clinging to, especially now, when Trevor's anger at Luke's mark was a ticking time bomb.A sudden rush of exhilaration coursed through me, pulling me out of my thoughts. I felt the sensation of paws pounding the earth, the wind slicing past fur. Luke was running. And interlaced with t

The room was saturated with a solemnity that clawed at old wounds. The last time I was in a setting like this, my life had been dismantled, my identity as part of the pack revoked. I'd been ousted by my former pack, shunned by the very people who were supposed to be my family. The memory was a frigid gust, chilling my resolve, making the moment feel like an echo of a past I had tried to escape but never fully could. And then there was the treaty. My father had pushed me to sign it after kicking me out, and I'd laughed in his face, swearing that not even the devil himself could force my hand. Yet here I was, ink still fresh on the paper, having signed it at Clay's insistence. I was back in pack dynamics, and it gnawed at me, another tether to a past I was never sure I wanted to revisit. Lexi's presence next to me shifted subtly, and I felt her discomfort and surprise as her eyes fell on the holding cells. Oh, if she only knew the weight these walls and bars carried, the lives they had

Water streamed down my face, a relentless flood washing away the filth but leaving the emotional grime untouched. I stood motionless, letting the water crash over me as if it could cleanse the memories that resurfaced today. My fists clenched involuntarily, knuckles whitening under the spray.That courtroom, that atmosphere. It had all hurled me back to the day of my own ousting. I could feel it, as vivid as ever. The vicious, raw sensation that clawed its way up my spine the moment my fate was sealed. Every fiber of my being had screamed in resistance, an inarticulate howl of protest against the unbearable decree. It was like an uncontrolled blaze, this rage that swarmed my senses, so overwhelming that I'd lost myself completely in it for a moment.My father's voice, cold and remorseless, cut through the haze of my fury. "You are nothing but a worthless, pathetic piece of trash, Luke. Now get the fuck out of my sight." His words slammed into me, each syllable a serrated blade twisti