I Want Truth
1087 Words
Aaron
I don’t look at her.
I feel her.
It’s worse.
The clearing hums with pack energy, routine, grounded, orderly, but beneath it there’s a fault line running straight through my chest. The bond sits there, taut and bruised, not pulling me toward Reza so much as reminding me that it exists.
That she exists.
And that she’s very deliberately not looking at me.
I keep my posture neutral. Alpha-locked. Hands loose at my sides. Breath even. Every instinct I have wants to turn, to find her with my eyes, to make sure she’s still standing where I last sensed her.
I don’t.
Because Bethany is beside me.
Her hand rests lightly on my arm, exactly where it always has, familiar, grounding, acceptable. The pack reads it as reassurance. Stability. Continuity.
I read it as a test.
She’s watching my peripheral reactions. Timing her touch to moments when Reza shifts, when the bond tightens just enough to sting. Bethany can’t feel it, but she knows something is there. She’s sharp like that.
I don’t pull away.
That, too, is a choice.
Carl clears his throat from my other side. Quiet. Professional. Beta-present. His eyes flick, not to Bethany, not to me, but past us, toward the edge of the gathering.
Toward Reza.
Just once.
Concern, carefully masked as assessment.
I register it without reacting.
Good. He sees it.
The briefing continues. Rotations. Patrol coverage. Supply inventory. I speak when needed, concise and controlled. My voice doesn’t betray me, even when Bethany references “integration issues” with that smooth, surgical precision of hers.
New members.
Reza doesn’t flinch.
That almost hurts more than if she had.
The bond hums low, not aching, not demanding, just present. Like a bruise you forget until something brushes it wrong.
Like the memory of heat.
Of her mouth.
For half a second, completely unbidden, my senses betray me.
The ghost of her taste flashes sharp and vivid, warm, faintly sweet, threaded with the unmistakable spark of her wolf. The way she’d gasped when I’d deepened the kiss, like she’d forgotten how to breathe without me.
My jaw tightens.
I anchor myself back into the now before it shows.
Carl shifts his weight beside me. Just enough to block Bethany’s line of sight if I falter. He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t ask.
He’s giving me space.
I file that away.
When the briefing ends, the pack disperses faster than usual. Controlled efficiency, but with an undercurrent of something else. Curiosity. Calculation.
Movement at the far edge of the clearing draws my attention.
Jason stands near the sideline, posture loose enough to look disengaged, eyes anything but. My Gamma. Silent. Observing. He isn’t watching the pack disperse.
He’s watching me.
Our gazes meet.
No questions. No surprise.
Just confirmation.
Carl notices a heartbeat later, his stance tightening imperceptibly.
Jason inclines his head once, subtle, deliberate.
I see it.
Then he turns and leaves without a word, already moving to the deeper part of the pack where damage control begins.
Reza lingers a beat too long, then turns away before I can stop myself from tracking the movement.
She doesn’t look back.
The bond tightens.
Not a pull.
A question.
Bethany leans in, her voice low and intimate. “You handled that well.”
I glance at her then. “Handled what.”
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Change.”
I don’t respond.
She studies me for a moment longer, then steps away with deliberate grace, already being intercepted by two pack members eager for her attention. Luna behaviour, polished and practiced.
Carl waits until she’s out of earshot.
“She’s isolating her,” he says quietly.
Not a question.
“I know.”
“You’re letting it happen.”
That one lands.
I turn my head slightly, just enough to meet his gaze. Carl’s expression is carefully neutral, but I’ve known him too long not to read the tension beneath it.
“I’m not,” I say evenly.
He lifts an eyebrow. “From where I’m standing, it looks like you are.”
I exhale through my nose, slow and controlled. “From where you’re standing, you can afford to think that.”
Carl doesn’t bristle. Doesn’t push. He just watches me for a long second, then nods once.
“She doesn’t understand big pack politics yet,” he says. “Reza. She’s reacting on instinct.”
“So is Bethany.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “But Bethany understands consequences.”
That’s the problem.
“I can’t intervene openly,” I say. “Not without confirming exactly what Bethany wants everyone to suspect.”
Carl’s gaze flicks again, quick, subtle, toward where Reza disappeared into the building. “And what about what you want?”
The bond pulses, sharp and immediate.
I still don’t look.
“That’s not the priority.”
Carl’s mouth tightens. “You keep telling yourself that.”
He steps away then, duty calling him elsewhere, but his presence lingers like a quiet challenge I don’t have the luxury to answer.
I stay where I am for another minute longer than necessary, then turn and head into the hallway.
The hallway smells faintly of cleaning solution and old wood.
And, just beneath it..
Her.
That same impossible thread of warmth and heat and rightness that no amount of distance has managed to erase.
My chest tightens.
She’s been here recently.
I follow the scent without meaning to, stopping just short of the supply room door.
I don’t touch it.
I don’t open it.
I stand there, fists clenched at my sides, jaw locked so hard it aches.
Inside my head, Shay paces, restless and furious.
- She is ours.
“I know,” I whisper under my breath.
I think back to that kiss. The heat. The want. The desire it carried.
The bond flares in agreement, raw, unfinished, burning with everything we didn’t get to complete. Not s*x. Not claiming.
Recognition.
I straighten abruptly, forcing the wolf down before anyone can pass and read too much in my posture.
This is what Bethany doesn’t understand.
She thinks jealousy will drive me back into something familiar.
She thinks proximity equals possession.
She’s wrong.
I don’t want comfort.
I want truth.
And Reza, confused, isolated, burning quietly at the edges of the pack, feels like the most dangerous truth I’ve ever encountered.
I turn away from the supply room.
For now.
But as I walk, the bond hums, steady and patient.
Not breaking.
Not fading.
Waiting.
- Writer
