Chapter 4
1317 Words
Justin
The sunlight was low and golden as it filtered through the trees, painting long shadows across the gravel as I drove toward the packhouse. I had Gwen’s scent still on my skin—strawberries, flowers, and heat—and I swear, I’d never felt more like a man.
She was sweet. Open. Completely mine last night.
I hadn’t meant for it to get that deep, but when she said she’d waited… When she looked at me like I was everything she'd dreamed of… s**t, how was I supposed to resist that? She was sweet, trusting. She looked at me like I could never do wrong. And maybe for one night, I wanted to believe I really was the guy she thought I was.
I rubbed a hand through my hair and grinned. She’d be curled up in my bed, sleepy and sore. I’d bring her breakfast—pancakes, sausage, and the black tea she always stole from Jordan—and maybe she’d pull me right back into bed for round two.
I should’ve felt guilty.
I didn’t.
Not yet.
The packhouse was quiet when I stepped in, just the faint hum of the fridge and birdsong outside.
I barely got three steps into the pack kitchen before the air shifted.
Sweet. Thick. Irresistible.
It hit me like lightning—her scent. Honey, warm bread, and something wild beneath it. My wolf surged so violently I staggered, clutching the counter like it might hold me back. It didn’t.
And then I saw her.
Olivia.
She looked up from the pantry, one hand dusted in flour, blonde hair tumbling out of its braid like spun gold. Her lips parted when she saw me, and those wide blue eyes locked on mine.
Snap.
All I could see was this small, soft thing standing barefoot on the kitchen tile, smelling like home and heaven, her Omega energy curling submissively toward me, drawing me in like a tide I couldn’t resist.
I didn’t want to resist.
I wanted her moaning under me. I wanted to mark her, claim her. Fill her until she couldn’t take any more. She was mine. Fated.
And I didn’t care what it cost.
“Justin?” she whispered, already breathless.
And just like that—
A sharp pull. A primal ache. My wolf howled inside me, clawing toward her.
I didn’t think. I couldn’t.
We crashed into each other like kindling and spark.
She was soft, gasping, pliant as I backed her against the counter. My hands shoved fabric aside. Hers yanked at my jeans. I barely got them down before I buried myself in her right there—raw, desperate, instinct-driven. Everything else—last night, Gwen, everything—faded into ash.
I belonged here. This was real.
She whimpered, clung to me, arched her back as I drove into her again and again.
I didn't even care that she was an Omega. Or that my father was going to lose his mind. Nothing else existed but the bond and the heat and the way she moaned my name like it belonged to her now.
Gwen
The sheets still smelled like him—like cedarwood, smoke, and s*x.
I rolled over, skin flushed and sore, stretching in the morning sun as I reached for him… but found only air.
Then I spotted the note, folded neatly by the lamp.
Be right back. Breakfast run. Stay naked. —J
A smile tugged at my lips. I clutched the paper to my chest, heart pounding like a girl in a fairy tale.
This was it.
We hadn’t said the words, hadn’t confirmed the bond, but I felt it. He looked at me like I was his. Like I was enough. I'd waited for this moment—for him—and it had been everything.
I made tea. His favorite blend. Set two cups on the table. Laid out one of his shirts and pulled it on, still flushed from the memory of his body above mine.
But time ticked on.
Fifteen minutes. Then thirty.
A cold knot twisted in my stomach.
He should’ve been back.
I shifted, skin rippling into red fur as Akira took over. My wolf ran like she was chasing a ghost—ears pinned, claws tearing through the forest path toward the packhouse.
And goddess, I prayed I was wrong.
I shifted back behind a pine trunk, tugging on the emergency shift dress I always stashed near the border. My hands were shaking. My breath was shallow.
The kitchen doors swung open with the soft creak of familiarity.
And then I saw them.
Justin.
And Olivia.
The Omega cook.
Her apron was gone now, crumpled on the floor, her bare thigh wrapped around his hip as he f****d her against the prep counter.
The same hands that had touched me. The same lips that had promised we’d see the bond through together.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Justin,” I said, my voice hoarse. “What the hell is this?”
He froze.
His head turned, slow, too slow, eyes wide and bloodshot.
“Gwen—fuck.”
Olivia gasped and scrambled to cover herself, but she didn’t move from him. She didn’t have to. Her scent was all over him. And I knew.
I knew.
“You found your mate,” I said numbly. “Didn’t you.”
Justin didn’t deny it.
“I didn’t know it was her until I saw her this morning,” he said. “The bond hit us both.”
My heart cracked clean in two.
“But last night—” My voice broke. “You knew I’d waited. You said I was yours.”
“I thought you might be,” he said defensively. “I didn’t lie. You threw yourself at me.”
I flinched. “You think I gave myself to you for fun?”
“You wanted it, Gwen. Don’t rewrite it now.”
I shook my head. “You used me.”
“I didn’t force you,” he bit out. “You were convenient. The bond hadn’t snapped in yet, and you were there.”
A sob choked in my throat.
“You were everything to me,” I whispered. “And I was nothing to you.”
Justin’s face hardened. “You were a mistake. The bond picked who it picked. Olivia’s mine. That’s it.”
Olivia looked at me then, something helpless and wide-eyed in her expression.
I’d seen her dozens of times before—quiet, gentle, harmless. But now, tangled in Justin’s arms, bare-legged and flushed from s*x, she looked like something else entirely.
She looked claimed.
Her long blonde hair was unbound, spilling over her back like a curtain of silk. Her throat—red with fresh marks. Her lips swollen. Her eyes—guilt-washed and too damn blue. She looked like she didn’t belong in my story, like she’d stepped into it by mistake.
But she had his scent all over her.
And worse—mine was gone.
I hated her for it.
Not because she seduced him. No. Because she got what I waited my whole life for.
The bond. The fate. The instinctive, bone-deep certainty that said you belong.
She didn’t steal him.
Fate gave him to her.
And left me behind.
“I didn’t know,” she said, voice small. “I didn’t know about you two.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said coldly. “You’re his now. Good luck.”
And I walked away, barefoot and broken, down the hallway and into the woods.
Gwen
The trees blurred as I ran, my heart pounding like a war drum.
Everything I’d waited for, everything I believed in—gone.
Used.
Discarded.
And all I could do was run, like if I moved fast enough, the pain wouldn’t catch me.
But I knew better.
Because betrayal ran faster than wolves.
- Writer
