Alphas' Indecent Proposal

Chapter 9-2

I was not trying to forge a new bond.

I was trying to destroy an existing one.

But my eyes — my traitorous, undisciplined eyes — had drifted back to the woman on the bed without my permission. They traced the line of her closed lashes. The bridge of her nose. The small curve of her ear. And then — god help me — the damp swell of her lower lip, still trembling from whatever nightmare was eating her alive.

"Are you sure about that?" My wolf's voice slid through the dark like a blade — low, unhurried, edged with something possessive enough to draw blood.

And for one disorienting heartbeat, I genuinely couldn't tell what he was asking.

Was I sure I could keep pretending I didn't see how vulnerable she looked right now? Or was I sure I could keep ignoring the fact that something inside me had responded — viscerally, involuntarily, hungrily — to the sight of a woman curled up in my sheets, fully clothed, utterly wrecked, and more dangerous to my self-control than anyone who'd ever been naked in my bed?

I shut both options down.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. Cold. Clipped. The voice I used in boardrooms when someone was about to get fired.

I turned to leave. Again.

Because both of those questions led somewhere I wasn't prepared to go.

Catherine.

Catherine was what I needed to focus on. The name alone flooded my mouth with something rancid. Just hours ago, my beloved fiancée had crashed a charity gala that wasn't on my calendar — inserted herself as the future Luna of the Voss pack, and in between the fundraising speeches, ordered the event staff to remove a rival pack's Omega from the guest list and physically escort her out. Security concerns, she'd claimed.

Catherine was a parasite wearing couture. She treated my pack like her personal playground — bullying anyone who couldn't fight back while rotating through hotel rooms with a lineup of men she thought I didn't know about.

And one of those men was currently married to the woman lying behind me.

Ronald. The easiest thread to pull. The weakest link in Catherine's chain of indiscretions.

I couldn't afford distractions. I especially couldn't afford to shut down this surveillance operation — not with the wedding date creeping closer like a countdown to my own execution, and my father backing Catherine with the blind, irrational fervor of a man who'd lost the ability to distinguish loyalty from stupidity.

Kate was the key. The only reliable key I had to unlocking the proof that would sever Catherine from my life permanently.

I'd already convinced her to sign the agreement. The cameras were installed. All I needed was ironclad evidence of Ronald and Catherine together — and I would never have to breathe the same air as that woman again. My pack would be safe. My family's legacy would be intact.

One woman's pain weighed against a pack and a corporation.

I knew which side of the scale was heavier.

I'd always known.

So I pressed down on the ache in my chest — that unidentifiable, acidic pressure that had no business being there — and forced myself toward the door.

Every step felt harder than the last.

I made it three paces before I stopped.

Because in my peripheral vision — sharp enough to catch a sparrow mid-flight at two hundred yards — I saw a single tear slide from beneath Kate's closed lashes. It traced a slow, gleaming path down her cheek, catching the streetlight that filtered through the curtains, and left a wet trail across skin so pale it looked like it had never seen the sun.

My feet stopped moving.

My jaw clenched.

And something behind my sternum cracked — not loud, not dramatic, just a quiet fracture in something I'd assumed was solid.

"Then let's try a different approach." My wolf spoke from the deepest part of me — the part I never let anyone see. "Stop treating every time she defends her husband as a personal insult to your judgment. And stop using sarcasm to answer her fear."

My jaw tightened further.

I said nothing for a long time.

Outside, the city's early light was bleeding across the skyline — a wash of amber and copper that turned the horizon into something almost beautiful. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed — thin, sharp, fading — like a needle being drawn through cotton.

Kate's breathing had finally leveled out. No more murmuring. No more white-knuckled grip on the blanket. She'd sunk into some deeper layer of sleep — the kind where nightmares couldn't follow.

I walked back to the bed.

Looked down at her.

The tear track was still visible — a faint, glistening line that mapped the geography of a grief I'd helped create.

I crouched beside her. Eye level. Close enough to count her eyelashes if I'd wanted to — and I didn't want to, which is why I immediately noticed there were more on the left side than the right.

Stop it.

My hand moved. On its own. Toward her face. My fingers hovered above her cheekbone — close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her skin, close enough that one millimeter of forward motion would have made contact.

I pulled back.

Forced my hand to my side.

Held it there like a man restraining a weapon.

"Goodnight, Kate." My voice was barely above a breath — spoken to an empty room, to a sleeping woman who couldn't hear me, to whatever was left of my self-control. "Sleep well. I don't want you."

The lie detonated silently inside my chest — a hollow implosion that left nothing but vacuum and the sharp, metallic taste of dishonesty.

"But I swear to you..." I rose to my feet, my gaze lingering on her face one final, inexcusable second. "When your world turns to ash — I'll make sure you survive the fire."