TRYSTAN

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After handling the Elders, I strutted down the hallways. My pace was quicker than usual, my thoughts fixed on getting to my office where Luisa waited.

And when I reached the quieter part, I saw them. Three Epsilons. Walking towards me. Their spine stiffened like they were approaching a beast that would rip them apart.

Maybe I would.

One of them—the tallest of the three—stepped forward and bowed. “Alpha, we haven’t found him.” He bolstered his voice but that didn’t help the trembling. “We think it might have been a mistake.”

Oh, that.

I furrowed my brows. “It can’t be,” I said flatly, “you don’t mistake a man like Beta Dave. Pale skin. Pitch black eyes and a scar on his left eye. There’s no way you can mistake him for someone else.”

Their shoulders locked.

“Search again. Properly this time.”

They dipped their heads and scurried out of sight like roaches caught under sudden light.

A peaceful calm cloaked the hallways, and then the air shifted. The hair on my arm rose. A reaction to the figure that materialized behind me, leaning against the wall.

“I thought,” I said without turning, “we agreed not to meet until this is over.”

A soft grin brushed his lips. “You’re suffering those men.”

I turned. “That’s the only way to make it believable you’re missing.”

“I heard you brought in an Omega as a Luna consort, I had seen it for myself,” Dave muttered.

Even in hiding. He still had ears everywhere.

“Knowing you, there’s more to this.” His eyes glinted."She's a doctor?”

Silence

Fourteen years of friendship had taught Dave that my silence was louder than any confession that could leave my lips.

Dave pushed off the wall. “Does she know?” His foot light against the marble floor. “That the sickness isn’t curable?”

“It’s not just about the cure.” The words slipped out.

Dave arched his brows.

I leaned against the wall, crossing one leg over the other. “She’s my mate.”

The words felt heavy on my tongue. Like it was too good to be true.

After years of waiting, after being told by a diviner I’d never have a mate because of my ailment; she appeared.

“Interesting.” Dave tilted his head. “Where did you meet her? She’s not from around here, is she?” He asked like he already knew the answer.

I huffed a soft laugh. “I went to Trevor’s place on the outskirts to convince him to take your spot. That’s where I met her. A face that filled my dreams since I was a boy.” My voice softened, and then it thickened like I had been snapped back to reality. “Then she shot me.”

I withheld the fact that the bullet was laced with poison and I had just six months to live. I didn’t want him to worry. Not when our plan was in motion.

Dave traced the scar that ran down his left eye. One my father gave him seven years ago. “So she tried to kill you. Very romantic.” His grin widened.

“If your idea of romance is being sent to the ER by your mate…then yeah, it’s quite romantic.”

“So you didn’t bring her here to actually cure your sickness, but to understand the mate bond?”

“Let’s say I’m hopeful that she might miraculously find a cure. After all, I thought I was damned never to have a mate.”

Dave’s eyes hovered over me, studying my expression. “You’re going to reject her?”

My chest tightened. Faelan, my wolf, growled at the thought. But I ignored him.

“A dying man doesn’t need a mate, does he?”

“Is that the reason you’re rejecting her? Or are you scared that she might share your sickness through the bond?”

His question squeezed at my chest and my jaw ticked. I should have been used to it by now. To him reading me like a book. It was annoying. Pissfully annoying.

I pushed off the wall. “Go back to hiding, Dave.” I began strutting down the hall. “I’ll contact you, once I discover Trevor’s plan.”

Dave smiled, and by the time I turned back, he was gone.

I continued, heading towards the office.

—————————

My office door stood before me. I hadn’t opened it, I could already feel her, Faelan already stirring in my chest with excitement. The greedy guy wanted to have all of her, Claim her, make her ours.

Calm down, I told Faelan. I just need to get her to sign the contract.

Turning the handle, the door swung open.

The office smelled like her…and Trevor.

Trevor’s scent was faint, and my nose wrinkled as I caught it. Faelan didn’t like it. I didn’t care.

Ignoring the burning flicker in my chest, I slammed the door harder than necessary.

On the other side of the desk, Luisa flinched at the sound that rumbled through the office.

I plopped onto my chair, and my eyes meandered over her. Her spine was oddly straight, and her hands pressed into her sides.

My brows knitted together. She’d always been tense around me, but this was different. She was more rigid than she was in the helicopter.

My stomach turned as a thought struck me: had Trevor told her something enough to make her change my mind?”

I pulled out the contract from the desk. “Go through it, carefully.”

With a stiff movement, she accepted it and began reading through it, her lips moving slowly without a sound.

I let my gaze linger, searching for any sign that this unexplainable fear might stop her from signing the contract.

Yet, I noticed something else. How dark her red hair was, and how light her brown eyes were. My chest tightened, Faelan stirring.

It wasn’t that deep. I just wanted to understand the bond between us.

The mark on the right side of my rib cage flared with a faint heat like it always does when she was with me.

I needed to understand that too.

Luisa flipped to the second page. The silence stretched more and more. Normally I liked silence. Preferred it.

But not this time. This silence felt heavy. Awkward.

“Doctor saves lives,” I said, “they don’t send innocent people to the ER.”

No response.

I should stop here. But I didn’t.

“Why were you carrying a gun, Doctor?” I pressed. “I might not have studied medicine but I do know doctors used a stethoscope on the chest, not a bullet through it.”

Luisa’s head snapped up.

Her eyes rounded and guilt flickered across. “It wasn’t mine,” her voice was soft.

I didn’t know why, but a soft smile formed on my lips. Finally, a response.

Faelan hummed, urging me to stop teasing her. But it wasn’t my fault, there was something about her reactions that seemed interesting. And that’s all there was to it.

I was certain that in a few days, I’d be bored of her, just as I’d grown bored of every other woman.

And the mate bond was just a false alarm and this strange feeling would die once I reject her and sever it

Luisa continued, explaining how she was tipsy and a stranger handed her a gun. She didn’t plan on killing anyone.

Who takes a gun from a stranger?

Well, one was sitting before me.

Luisa exhaled like she was fighting to keep herself together. She read the contract again for the moon goddess knew how many times.

As she picked up the pen, my eyes zeroed in on the paper, my throat tightening like a fisherman watching a fish circle close to his hook.

Sign it, Luisa. So I can pull.

Then she paused. Her pen, a few centimeters away from the paper. Her eyes jumped between the contract and me.

Faelan went still. And so did I.

She was not going to sign it. The thought came like a nail hammered into my skull.

My eyes darkened. What did Trevor tell her that made her change her mind? What did that bastard offer her?