Chapter 11
1035 Words
Chloe’s pov
"That's Nash's private office." Ray's voice cut through the quiet beside me. "He doesn't usually leave it open."
She'd been leading me through the east wing all morning, naming rooms I'd need to know, the library, the second parlor, the hall where the pack elders met on full moons.
We passed that door standing open a crack, and whatever calm I'd found evaporated, replaced by an ache low in my ribs I couldn't explain and didn't trust, my feet stopped moving entirely.
I should have kept walking. Instead I pushed the door wider and stepped inside, drawn forward by a feeling I couldn't place, like a hand pressed flat against my sternum guiding me toward the far wall.
The office smelled like him, and the scent alone made my pulse pick up, my heart hammered against my chest. A heavy desk sat beneath the window, papers stacked in neat rows, and my eyes landed on the bottom drawer like it had called my name out loud.
I crossed the room before I'd decided to. My hand closed around the brass pull, and every nerve in my body leaned toward whatever sat inside that drawer, an ache I felt behind my ribs more than anywhere else.
"Chloe."
I jumped back like I'd been caught with my hand in a fire.
Wylie stood in the doorway, arms crossed, her expression flat. She didn’t seem amused by my presence in her Alpha’s office. "That's not your office to go through."
"I wasn't going through anything." I stepped away from the desk, heat crawling up my neck. "I don't even know what's in there."
"Then there's no reason to find out." She didn't move from the doorway, blocking it more thoroughly than her crossed arms should have managed, her eyes flicking once toward the drawer like she already knew what sat inside it. "Nash keeps that drawer locked for a reason. Whatever pulled you toward it, let it go."
"I wasn't trying to steal from him." The defensiveness in my own voice surprised me. "I don't even know why I walked in here."
"I believe you." Wylie's tone gentled, just slightly. "That's almost worse. It means whatever pulled you in there wasn't a thing you chose."
I didn't have an answer for her that made sense even to me, so I didn't try to give one. "Fine."
Wylie studied me a moment longer, like she was deciding whether I meant it, then jerked her head toward the hallway. "Walk with me. There's a thing you should hear anyway, since you're going to be living here now."
I followed her out, glancing back once at the drawer before Ray pulled the door shut behind us, the click of the latch louder than it should have been in the quiet corridor.
"Nash isn't like other Alphas." Wylie kept her voice low as we walked, glancing at Ray like she was deciding how much to say in front of her. "You'll hear people call him even-tempered. Controlled. Most of the time, that's true. But there are stretches, especially around certain moons, where a shift happens in him. He gets volatile. Manic, almost. He doesn't sleep, doesn't eat right, snaps at people who don't deserve it. It passes, but while it's happening, he's not himself."
"How bad does it get?" I found myself asking.
"Bad enough that most of the pack knows to give him space when it starts." Wylie's jaw set hard, "He locks himself in his quarters sometimes for days. Won't see anyone but Jill, and even she has to know when to back off. He's not cruel during it, not to anyone who leaves him alone, but he's not gentle either. I'm not telling you this to scare you. I'm telling you because you live here now, and you need to know when to step back instead of pushing."
"Has it started yet? Whatever this is?"
"Not yet. But it's been longer than usual since the last one, which usually means it's building toward a worse stretch than what we've seen before." She said it plainly, without drama, the way you'd report weather. "I wanted you to hear it from me before you heard some exaggerated version from the staff. People like to make him sound worse than he is, or sometimes not nearly bad enough."
I thought of the man who'd wiped his mouth and asked me pointed questions about a mate I'd barely described, the sharp focus in his eyes before Wylie had pulled him away. "Is that what happened at dinner?"
"No. That was a different thing." She said it fast enough that I knew she wasn't going to explain further, and the set of her mouth told me pushing wouldn't get me anywhere tonight. "This is different. You'll know it when you see it."
We reached the end of the corridor, and Wylie stopped, turning to face me fully for the first time since she'd found me at that drawer.
"There's one more thing." Her voice dropped lower, more serious than anything she'd said yet. "Rogue activity along the border has been climbing for weeks. More sightings, more aggressive ones, closer to the compound every time. Nash has scouts running double shifts trying to contain it, and even that hasn't been enough to slow it down."
I wrapped my arms around myself without meaning to, a cold thread winding through my stomach I didn't examine too closely. "That sounds serious."
"It is." Wylie held my eyes a moment longer, like she was deciding whether to say more, then seemed to think better of it. "Keep to the main paths when you walk the grounds. Don't wander past the training yard alone, not until this settles down. I mean that, Chloe. Not as a suggestion."
"I'll be careful. I'm not looking to go looking for trouble, believe it or not, whatever you might think after finding me elbow-deep in his desk."
"See that you are." She softened, just barely, the warning easing out of her voice, replaced by the same dry edge she'd used dragging Megan off by the elbow just days ago. "Come on. I'll walk you back before Ray thinks I've kidnapped you."
- Writer
