POV: Kai Riven
Rage tastes like metal in my mouth.
Not at her—at myself. At the way my pulse jumped when Rena Vale looked up in that car and tried to lie about tears. At the way my hand moved before my brain—back of my knuckles skimming salt and heat from her cheek like I had any right.
Unacceptable.
I stand in the dim hallway outside the safehouse room, shoulders against drywall, phone a slab of ice in my palm. Breathing should be a lever I can pull on command; it isn’t. Every inhale drags her scent back into me—rain, warm skin, a thread of fear she tried to strangle quiet. My wolf paces under my ribs, restless, wrong. Loud. Uninvited.
I keep my hands in my pockets so they don’t learn new sins.
Call connects. One ring.
“Alpha,” my Beta answers, voice already braced.
“Background,” I say, low. “Rena Vale. Full. School, family, addresses, recent incidents, known enemies, unknown patterns. I want timelines, not rumors.”
A beat. “Understood. Scope?”
“Assume someone tracked her scent after the ceremony. Two shadows. Field gate and faculty lot.” The words scrape out. “They didn’t flinch at presence, only at direct stare.”
“Students?”
“Smell didn’t read like sugar and noise.”
He exhales softly. He knows what I mean. “We’ll pull traffic cams and peripheral footage. Her file?”
“Start clean. Verify everything. No shortcuts.”
“Reason?” he asks, careful.
“Caution,” I say, more harshly than I mean to. I swallow it back. “And something I don’t like.”
Silence stretches; he’s smart enough not to press that word. “Do you want me to keep her out of official logs?”
“Yes.” The answer is ready. “This stays private. If anyone asks, she doesn’t exist to us.”
“And if anyone already knows she does?”
“Find out who told them.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“Beta.”
“Here.”
“Move fast.”
“We’re already moving.”
I end the call and stare at the blank screen, my reflection a fractured shadow against glass. Heat pushes under my skin, a restless animal pacing ribs. Why her? Why now? I’ve trained my wolf to heel under fire, to listen when command is quiet. Tonight he jerked the leash.
“Pull yourself together,” I mutter, to bones and blood and whatever in me decided to turn feral at the worst possible time.
Leather shifts down the hall—one of my guards leaning off the opposite wall, eyes on the corridor, not on me. Good. The lamp in the safehouse living room throws a thin gold slice under the closed bedroom door. I picture her on the other side, shoulders squared, stubborn chin lifted, fingers steadying a water bottle she doesn’t want to admit she needed. I picture the bruise on her wrist and want to break someone’s hands for it.
Bootfalls hammer the concrete stairs outside, fast, unmeasured. My head lifts before the guard’s does; instinct is already halfway down the steps.
He rounds the corner, breath coming hard, eyes lit with the kind of urgency that starts fights. “Alpha.”
“What.”
“The Blackthorn boy is here.”
Every remaining thread of patience pulls tight. I push off the wall. “Where.”
“Front, sir. He muscled past the first ring. Says he needs to—”
I don’t wait for the rest.
The door lock clicks under my hand; night air hits like a slap—cold, clean, empty of answers. The safehouse sits quiet on a side street designed to be forgettable, just another brick cube in a row of obedient houses. Headlights wash the curb and blink out. A figure in gray steps from shadow to porch light, chest heaving, pupils blown wide with panic he’s trying to stuff into arrogance.
He smells like adrenaline and regret. And like her. That last note punches anger through me I don’t dignify with a name.
“Auren Blackthorn,” I say.
“Where is Rena?” he demands, voice frayed. No hello. No bow. Just shove. He moves like a boy who never learned consequences—straight at me, chin up, instinct for her drowning out every lesson his Alpha father ever tried to beat into him.
“How did you find this street?” I ask, because I need to know who else might.
His throat works. “I caught her trail when she left the school. Lost it when she got in your car. Followed the direction, kept running until your men stopped making me turn around.” His gaze jumps past me to the door. “She’s mine—”
My hand is on his collar before thought catches up, fist tightening in cotton, body slamming into brick. The sound that leaves my chest is almost a snarl.
“You rejected her,” I say.
His heels scrape against the step; fingers fly to my wrist, then fall when my wolf presses forward. His eyes flash with the instinct to bare his throat and the adolescent urge not to. Panic shoves pride aside. He lowers his voice to something like shame.
“I didn’t mean it.”
I release him so fast he stumbles, palm itching with the urge to shove again. Disgust crawls over my tongue. If I hold him another second I’ll forget which lines I don’t cross.
He drags a breath like air’s new to him and smooths his shirt, trying to iron dignity back in where it already bled out.
“You don’t know me,” he snaps, thin teeth on the words.
“I don’t want to.”
I step into his space again, not touching this time, making him choose between backing up or breaking. He holds, barely. I can smell fear pushing against his skin, pinned under stubbornness.
“You put hands on her after you broke her,” I say, voice quieter, colder. “You leave fingerprints again and I will break you.”
“She almost fell,” he throws back, desperation flaring. “Hailey shoved her—”
His throat bobs. He swallows the claim and it still stinks in the air between us.
I straighten, strip warmth from my voice. “You rejected her.”
“I know what I said,” he grinds out. “That’s why I’m here. I heard what you told her at the school—don’t go home. If there’s danger—If someone’s using her to get to my family—”
There it is. Guilt, fear, possessiveness knotted together. Suddenly his dedication makes sense: if Rena becomes a weakness, enemies will pull on her to move him. Another target on her back, courtesy of his last name.
“My pack will handle whoever is tracking her,” I say. “You will go home.”
“I won’t—”
I move before he finishes.
He doesn’t see the punch coming; he’s used to arguing with words, not with people who’ve bled for more than a football title. I don’t hit hard enough to break anything—just enough to put him on the ground and let his bones remember gravity.
He hits the concrete on one knee, hand flying to his ribs, breath exploding out in a shocked grunt. My guard shifts again, but I lift a hand: stay.
“Consider that the line,” I say. “You cross it, you answer to me.”
Slowly, he pushes back to his feet, eyes blazing, wolf flashing just under the surface. I study him and see exactly what he is: a boy who liked the idea of fate until it demanded courage, then paid with someone else’s dignity. The kind who could grow into an Alpha worth following—or into a problem I’ll eventually have to solve—depending on how tonight scars him.
My hand finds the knob; I’m halfway through the turn when the mechanism ticks from the other side. Hinge whispers open. Warm light spills into the doorway, framing her.
Rena stands there in borrowed stillness, one hand braced on the jamb, eyes wide and dark and very, very awake. My wolf surges to the surface so fast it steals my breath.