“You’re cheating again,” I say, watching Zane’s hand hover suspiciously close to the discard pile.

His grin stretches wide and shameless across his handsome face. “Prove it, little wolf.”

The nickname sends a complicated flutter through my chest.

Alpha Paul calls me that too, but it sounds different from Zane’s lips—lighter, less dangerous, free of the hunger that burns beneath Paul’s every word.

With Zane, I can breathe, I realize. With Paul, I forget how.

I’ve been at Blood Ridge for two weeks now. Two weeks of regular meals and soft sheets and Elena’s gentle healing. My body responds to the care in ways I never expected, softening at the edges while growing stronger beneath.

And Zane has been there for nearly every moment of it.

“You palmed that ace from the bottom of the deck,” I accuse, reaching across the library table to flip his cards face-up. “I saw you do it.”

I reach for his wrist, fingers brushing his skin. He catches my hand before I can expose him, his touch warm and safe and absolutely nothing like the electricity that shoots through me when Paul—

Stop comparing them.

“Baseless accusations.” Zane doesn’t let go of my hand. “I’m wounded, Morgan. I thought we were friends.”

A laugh escapes me before I can stop it, genuine and unfamiliar. Zane’s eyes light up with obvious delight at the sound, and warmth spreads through my chest at his reaction.

“There it is,” he murmurs softly, shuffling the cards with practiced ease. “I was starting to think Blood Ridge didn’t agree with you.”

“I’m still adjusting,” I admit quietly, gathering the scattered cards into a neat pile.

This is what friendship feels like. This easy comfort, this absence of fear.

Before I only felt it being near Ricky, and I’m grateful to have someone like her in the pack, who understands the rules of our world.

He keeps finding me every day with increasingly transparent excuses.

Yesterday, he needed help inventorying medical supplies. The day before, he wanted company during his patrol. This morning, he simply appeared at my door and announced that he was bored.

“Did Paul ever tell you about the porch railing incident?” Zane leans back in his chair, a mischievous gleam in his pale blue eyes.

“What porch railing incident?” I ask, intrigued despite myself.

“When he was seven, our fearless Alpha got his head stuck between the front porch railings.” Zane’s voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “The entire pack had to watch while our father greased his ears with cooking oil.”

The image is so absurd, so impossible to reconcile with the dangerous man who kissed me senseless three nights ago, that I burst out laughing.

“Don’t tell him I told you,” Zane adds with a grin. “He’d kill me without hesitation.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” I promise, still smiling.

He studies my face with an expression I cannot quite decipher, and my smile falters under the intensity.

“You should smile more often, Morgan,” he says quietly.

Heat rises to my cheeks, confused by the attention.

He looks at me like I matter. Like I’m worth looking at.

I don’t understand why he seeks me out. I’ve never been worth anyone’s time before.

I don’t know how to respond to compliments that seem genuine. Sarah’s friends used sweetness as a weapon, honeyed words that preceded cruelty.

This is what he does to me. He walks into a room and I forget everything else exists.

“I saw you laughing.” His mouth drags down my throat, teeth grazing sensitive skin. “I heard you from the hallway.”

He watched us, I realize, heat pooling low in my belly. He listened to me laugh with his brother, and it drove him here.

“Paul, I don’t understand what—”

“Being near you makes me want things I shouldn’t want.” The confession tears from him like it costs him dearly. “You’re everywhere I look, Morgan.”

Paul’s hand slides to cup my neck. His other palm presses against my hip, fingers spreading wide across the curve there like he’s claiming territory.

“You’re mine,” he growls against my neck, sucking hard enough to leave marks. “Whatever my brother thinks he sees in you, you belong to me, Morgan.”

The implication that Zane might want me as more than a friend barely registers through the fog of sensation.

“Yes,” I gasp. “I know.”

His claim feels like drowning, and I’m not sure I want to surface.

His free hand palms me through my dress, drawing a whimper from my throat. Zane would never touch me like this, I think hazily. Zane would ask permission first.

But Paul doesn’t ask. Paul takes. And my traitorous body arches into his hands like it was made for his possession.

“After tomorrow, I’ll be married to your cousin,” he says roughly, his fingers pressing harder. “But know this, little wolf.”

He pulls back just enough to capture my gaze, and the intensity there burns through every wall I’ve ever built.

“No matter what words I say at that altar,” he vows, “they won’t be for her.”