CHAPTER 7
1617 Words
Rowan’s POV.
The door to the lab didn't just close; it slammed with a heavy, metallic thud that echoed down the length of the west wing like a gunshot.
I walked down the corridor, my boots striking the hardwood floor with a violent, rhythmic precision.
My hands were balled into fists at my sides, the knuckles white, the skin still tingling with the ghost of her heat. My chest was heaving as if I had just run a marathon through the deepest trenches of the pack territory, my lungs burning for air that didn't smell like her.
Fuck.
I rounded the corner into my private study, shoved the heavy oak door open, and slammed it behind me. The silence of the room was a mockery. I walked straight to the wet bar, grabbed a crystal decanter of bourbon, and poured a glass with a hand that was visibly shaking.
I didn't drink it.
I gripped the glass so hard I expected the crystal to shatter in my palm.
"What the f**k are you doing, Roman?" I muttered to the empty room, my voice a rough, gravelly rasp.
My wolf was scratching at the surface of my consciousness, a frantic, snarling beast that wanted to tear through my skin, turn around, and break that lab door down.
Mate, the beast howled, a primitive, relentless chant that had been silent for three long, hollow years. Go back. Claim. Hold.
"Shut the f**k up," I growled out loud, my own voice blending with the low vibrate of my inner wolf.
I closed my eyes, but it didn't help. The moment my eyelids shut, I was back in that lab. I could still feel the press of her body against the edge of the table. I could still see the way her blonde hair, shorter now but still catching the light like spun gold, had spilled over her shoulders.
And her lips—goddammit, her lips had been a fraction of an inch from mine. I had smelled the mint on her breath, mixed with the sharp, metallic tang of the boy’s blood she had just spilled to save his life.
I had lost control. Completely.
An Alpha does not lose control. An Alpha does not beg. An Alpha does not let a woman push him back until he’s stumbling over his own feet like a stray pup.
But the moment I had touched her wrist, the moment I felt that erratic, terrified jump of her pulse beneath my thumb, the three years of logic, politics, and survival had evaporated.
I had wanted to consume her. I had wanted to press her into that table until she remembered exactly who owned her, until the cold, clinical mask she wore was ripped to pieces and she was screaming my name the way she used to in the dark.
"It’s just the old bond," I whispered fiercely to myself, finally throwing the bourbon down my throat. It burned, but it didn't touch the fire in my gut. "It’s just residual instinct. A biological glitch."
I tried to force the pragmatism back into my mind. I was Roman Blackwood. I had a pack to lead. I had a virus to contain. I had a political alliance with the Duvall line that kept our borders from becoming a bloodbath.
Seraphine was my Luna. She was the choice I had made with my head, the choice that the elders, that my father, Alistair, had hammered into me until I believed it was the only way to save our people.
But Seraphine tastes like ash.
The thought was a sudden, vicious truth that tore through my defenses. I set the glass down with a sharp click. It was true. For three years, every time I touched Seraphine, every time I did what was expected of an Alpha behind closed doors, it was a performance. A sterile, calculated duty.
My wolf had never accepted her. My body had never truly opened to her. I had spent three years living in a sensory wasteland, convinced that love was a luxury a king couldn't afford.
And then Raina Hale walks into my hospital lobby wearing a gray suit, looking like a queen who had built her own empire from the dirt I threw her in.
A sharp knock on the door broke my spiral.
"Enter," I barked, my voice reverting instantly to the cold, commanding tone of the Alpha.
Kael walked in, his face grim, a tablet tucked under his arm. He took one look at my disheveled hair, the open collar of my shirt, and the empty glass on the bar, and he paused. Kael had been my right hand since we were boys.
He knew the truth.
He had been the one who watched me sign the rejection papers three years ago with a pen that felt like a lead pipe.
"The boy is stable," Kael said, keeping his distance. "The nurses are monitoring his vitals. Dr. Hale’s intervention... it saved his life, Roman. If she hadn't cut into his chest when she did, he’d be dead."
"I know," I said, leaning my palms against the desk. "She’s efficient."
"She’s a miracle," Kael corrected gently. "The pack members in the hall... they’re talking. They remember her as the quiet girl from the outer borders. They didn't expect... whatever it is she’s become."
"She’s Head of Trauma at a major human facility, Kael. She’s not a girl. She’s a specialist we hired." I hated how hollow the words sounded even as they left my mouth.
Kael let out a low, skeptical breath. "Is that what she is? A specialist? Because the way you’re vibrating right now tells me your wolf thinks she’s something else entirely."
"Watch your mouth, Beta," I hissed, my amber eyes flaring in the dim light of the study.
Kael didn't back down, though he lowered his head slightly out of respect for the title. "Seraphine is pissed, Roman. She’s in the northern parlor, demanding to know why a rejected pack member is insulting her in her own home. She wants Raina moved to the perimeter cabins."
"No," I snapped immediately, the response automatic, violent. "Raina stays in the west wing lab. The equipment is there. The patients are there. Tell Seraphine if she doesn't like the company I bring in to save our people, she can go back to her father’s estate until the quarantine is lifted."
Kael’s eyebrows shot up. "That’s a heavy statement to make about your fated alliance."
"I don't give a f**k about the alliance right now," I growled, turning my back on him to look out the window at the dark forest. "Seven people are dead, Kael. If Raina needs the main house to stop the bleeding, she gets the main house. Anyone who gets in her way answers to me."
"Understood," Kael said. He hesitated by the door. "She’s different, Roman. The bond... it didn't just fade. She’s actively suppressing it. I’ve never smelled a wolf with that kind of emotional discipline. It’s like she’s completely detached from the pack frequency."
"She told me she has no room for me," I whispered, the words tasting like copper in my mouth. "She looked at me with a scalpel in her hand and told me she’d use it on me if I touched her again."
"Can you blame her?" Kael asked quietly.
He didn't wait for an answer. He closed the door, leaving me alone with the silence once more.
I let out a long, ragged breath, my forehead resting against the cool glass of the windowpane. I couldn't blame her. That was the worst part of this f*****g hell. The anger I felt wasn't at her; it was at myself. I had expected her to be hurt.
I had expected to see that lingering pain in her eyes, the vulnerability that would give me a foothold to beg for a forgiveness I didn't deserve.
Instead, I was met with a wall of professional ice. She didn't hate me. Hate was an emotion; hate meant she still cared enough to feel the fire. She was just... done with me.
I pulled away from the window and walked back to the desk, picking up the glass of bourbon I hadn't finished. I took a sip, but the taste was ruined.
Everything was ruined.
I leaned down, burying my face in my hands, and that’s when it hit me.
The scent.
It was faint, nearly microscopic, but it was clinging to the cuffs of my shirt, to the skin of my palms where I had held her wrist, to the very air I was breathing in. It wasn't the sterile smell of the hospital, and it wasn't the scent of the pale girl from three years ago.
It was richer now.
Mature.
A toxic blend of crisp winter air, blooming jasmine, and a deep, underlying heat that belonged to a fated mate in her prime. It was a scent that didn't just call to my wolf, it commanded it. It bypassed my brain, my logic, my Alpha authority, and struck straight at the primal core of my existence.
My wolf let out a low, rumbling purr of pure, unadulterated possession deep in my chest.
I stared at my hands in the dim light, my breathing hitching as the realization washed over me like an icy wave. She could wear her suits, she could hold her scalpels, and she could look at me with all the clinical indifference in the world.
But her scent was still my executioner.
And as long as she was breathing the same air in this valley, I was a man on his knees, completely and utterly at her mercy.
- Writer
