The Primes Reckoning

I AM ONLY HERE FOR VERA AND ONLY HER

Drake

"You crossed the boundary in your wolf form again."

My father doesn't look up from his desk when I enter. He doesn't need to. Samuel Whitlock's voice carries the weight of absolute authority, the kind that's been bred into bloodlines for three hundred years.

I stop in the center of his study. Let the door click shut behind me.

"Yes."

Now he looks up. Winter-gray eyes, same as mine, according to my mother's deathbed confession. They fix on me with the intensity of a predator assessing threat.

"You've been here six weeks. You've crossed four times that I know of. Tell me why I shouldn't have you whipped for defiance."

I don't flinch. "You could try."

The air in the room shifts. Thickens. This is what they don't tell you about Alphas, it's not just dominance. It's gravity. The man pulls at everything around him, demands submission through sheer presence.

I've spent six weeks refusing to orbit.

Samuel rises slowly. Moves around the desk. He's broader than me, thicker through the chest, but I'm younger. Faster. We both know it.

"Your mother," he says, "kept you from me for nineteen years. I didn't know you existed until you showed up on my territory like a stray. But I let you stay. I acknowledged you. And this is how you repay me?"

"My mother," I reply, keeping my voice level, "kept me from you because she knew exactly what kind of man you are."

"She kept you from me because she was afraid." He stops six feet away. Close enough to strike. Close enough that I can smell the wolf beneath his skin. "And she was right to be. But I'm not the threat here, Drake. You are. To yourself. To this pack. To the very human you keep running to."

I think of Vera. Third-floor window. Her dark curls falling across her face.

"I enrolled in university," I say. "I’m not running."

"Don't play word games with me." His voice drops. "You're not going to those classes to learn. You're going because of a girl."

The accusation lands. I don't react. Don't give him the satisfaction.

"I don't know what you think you know."

"I know everything that happens on my land. Everything that happens near my land." He steps closer. "Human female. Third year. No family to speak of, keeps to herself. You've been watching her for weeks."

My jaw tightens. "She's a classmate."

"She's a liability." Alpha Samuel's eyes flash, gold bleeding into the gray. "You think I don't recognize the signs? The obsession? The way your wolf keeps pulling you toward campus? You're either tracking her as prey or you're fooling yourself into thinking she might be something more."

"And what if she is?" I say, daring him to deny me my possible mate.

The question hangs between us.

"If she's your mate, the pack will test her. Verify. And if she's not," He lets the sentence die. Lets me fill in the blank.

I don't.

"Pack law is clear," he continues. "No contact with human females without oversight. No relationships that risk exposure. You will end whatever this is, immediately, or I will end it for you."

"Is that a threat, Alpha"I refuse to call him dad. I stepped closer, my wolf boiling at the possibility my mate might be in danger and it was my fault.

"I mean I'll protect this pack. By any means necessary." He's close enough now that I can see the exhaustion beneath his eyes, the weight of whatever pack business kept him away for three weeks. "You're new here. You don't understand what we've built, what we've sacrificed to stay hidden. One mistake and three centuries of survival evaporate."

"I understand perfectly."

"Do you?" He tilts his head. "Because from where I'm standing, you look exactly like every other young wolf who thought love would conquer all. It won't. It can't. The only thing that conquers is time, and patience, and absolute obedience to laws written in blood."

The door opens.

We both turn.

Marcus Whitlock stands in the doorway, frozen mid-step. My half-brother. Legitimate son. Alpha heir by birthright, if not by competence.

His eyes dart between us. Taking in the proximity. The tension. The barely contained violence in the air.

"Father, I.."

"Get out."

Samuel's voice could cut glass. Marcus flushes and opens his mouth to argue.

My glare meets my father's. For one strange moment, we are perfectly aligned. Two predators irritated by the same interruption.

"I said out, Marcus."

Marcus withdraws. The door closes. The silence resettles.

Samuel turns back to me. Whatever momentary unity existed is gone, replaced by the same hard assessment as before.

"Your brother," he says, "will be Alpha after me. Not you. You need to understand your place in this pack."

I understand my place perfectly. I'm the bastard. The mistake. The son who wasn't supposed to exist, born to a woman my father loved and then abandoned because she wasn't a wolf enough to keep.

My mother died alone. In a cramped apartment. With my hand in hers and a confession on her lips that should have come years earlier.

"You have his eyes," she'd whispered. "Winter eyes. I should have told you sooner, but I was afraid of losing you."

She died before I could ask why. Before I could understand what she'd sacrificed to keep me hidden.

Now I stand in my father's study, and I wonder if she'd recognize the man I've become. The wolf I've inherited.

"I'm not here to challenge Marcus," I say. "I'm not here to take anything from anyone."

"Then what are you here for?"

The question is simple. The answer is not.

I'm here because my wolf led me here. Because something in my blood recognized this place as home before my mind could catch up. Because Vera Benson was enrolled at the university before I ever crossed state lines, and some part of me knew I needed to find her.

But I can't say any of that.

"I'm here to learn," I say instead. "About the pack. About what I am. About what I'm supposed to become."

Samuel studies me for a long moment. I let him look. Let him search for weakness he won't find.

"Then learn this," he says finally. "The girl is off limits. Stay away from her. If I find out you've been near campus again without permission in any form I'll have you confined to pack lands until you learn obedience. Do you understand?"

I understand that he's threatened me. That he's threatened her. That every word out of his mouth assumes I'll submit to his authority like every other wolf in this pack.

He doesn't know me yet.

"I understand," I say.

Samuel nods, apparently satisfied with the lie he's heard. "Good. Now get out. I have real work to do."

I go but walking back to my apartment, the unease I felt for Vera's safety doesn't fade. It settles into my bones like cold water.

My phone buzzes at midnight.

I stare at my phone’s screen as I think about my father's warning. The consequences.

I set the phone down. Stare at the ceiling.

My father thinks he can control me with threats and laws. Marcus thinks he can dismiss me with cold shoulders and pack politics.

They don't understand.

I'm not here to challenge. I'm not here to take.

But I'm also not here to submit.

Whatever's happening with Vera, whatever pull I feel toward her, it's mine. Not the pack's. Not my father's. Mine.

And I'll burn this territory to the ground before I let anyone take it from me.