As Ava skipped off, victorious and annoyingly pleased with herself, I leaned back in my chair and pinched the bridge of my nose. She didn’t know how close I’d been to saying no—again. She didn’t know how much effort it took to keep my walls up when she smiled at me like that, all soft edges and unrelenting determination.
But I couldn’t keep her caged. I couldn’t keep her as some perfect, untouchable image of what an Alpha’s mate was supposed to be. Not when every time I tried, she shattered my expectations without even realizing it.
I stared at the stack of documents in front of me, but the words blurred together, useless. My mind had already drifted somewhere else, to a memory I thought I’d buried deep.
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It had been a stormy night when I’d stomped into Stephan’s cabin, rain drippin
