Page 37 of Pack Frenzy
Then he clinks it gently against my mug. “Atta girl.”
A blush skims under my skin, bright and inconvenient.
As if sensing the mood without being told, Eli stands, pulling Rowan up with him. The two of them, hand in hand, disappear down the hallway.
“Next time you yank me onto a bed,” I say lightly to Cassian, “I’m charging you a finders’ fee.”
His grin is slow and feral. “Deal. I’ll pay in coffee. Or…other currency.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. It bursts out of me and hangs there like sunlight, and I forget to be afraid of what it means to be happy. That I woke up without dread. That three men I barely know are making space for me like I’m not a burden they have to carry for three months.
For once, I don’t choose. I let myself sit in the middle and breathe.
Part of me says I’ll ruin this; the other whispers maybe I won’t. For the first time in forever, I’m terrified I might be right.
CHAPTER 9
CASSIAN
The kitchen smells like coffee, butter, and her.
She laughs at something Eli says—little flash of teeth, hand around the mug—and it punches straight through my ribs. The kinda hit that drops you before you feel it. I pretend to rinse a plate that’s already clean.
Rowan tucks the newspaper into the recycling bin ‘cause he’s the only one who doesn’t read the news online. When she finishes her coffee, thanks Eli, thanks Rowan, tips her chin at me like we have a private joke, and pads out.
My pulse doesn’t drop with the sound of her footsteps. It spikes and holds. Every Alpha instinct I’ve got is tracking her through the house and counting doors, measuring distance, cataloging exits like I’m hunting.
Eli hooks two fingers in Rowan’s tank, and they disappear down the hall with low voices.
I rest my palms on the island. Her scent still owns the room—vanilla, jasmine, a blade of citrus behind my teeth. I grind my molars like that, I’ll scrape it off. It fucking does shit.
“Get out of the house,” I tell myself, away from her pheromones that hook into me like lures and make me want to forget my own damn rules.
My gloves are in the garage. Heavy bag hanging in the corner, waiting. A few rounds would bleed the edge off.
I make it halfway there before the fence gate squeaks—a lazy, needling sound that cuts under my skin.
I pivot toward it instead. Can’t hit the bag while the damn hinge screams at me.
Might as well fix something I can hit with a hammer.
I shoulder the gate up, set the line, and drive longer screws into the wood until the sag quits. Test again and there’s no squeak, no drag. The kind of obedience I want from my own pulse.
Every click and slide is a thought I don’t have to think. It still sneaks in.
Jess underneath me. The split second where my brain wasn’t awake and my body was. All instinct, no thought. Her wrists soft in my hands, pulse rabbiting against my palm. Her body fit mine like a lock I was meant to open.
Heat hits the back of my neck. I grit my teeth and keep working.
I didn’t mean it. Reflex is not intent. But I’ve seen what Alphas do when reflex drives—I’ve broken jaws over it, put men through walls for less. None of that matters if she’d been scared.
She wasn’t. That makes it worse.
I swing the gate, the squeak is gone, and I start putting my tools away.
“Morning,” she says, and her voice catches on the second syllable. Like she ran here. Like she’s been thinking about me.
I keep my body still. I look up slowly, but fail not to look hungry.
