Chapter 149

I should have gone to Simon. The longer I avoided it, the worse it got. I wasn’t even making up new excuses anymore. I just sidestepped hallways, stayed conveniently busy, and smiled with a steadiness that didn’t quite meet my eyes.

It wasn’t about fear, not exactly. It was about control. If I didn’t go, then maybe I wasn’t spiraling. Maybe everything could still be handled on my terms.

Besides, there were more pressing things to deal with.

The plaza outside the council chambers had been cleared and staged for a midday press event. I stood beside Richard at the front of the temporary platform, the weight of fifty cameras aimed squarely at us. Reporters packed the line, drones hovered above, and councilors flanked the platform edges, trying to project calm authority in the autumn sun.

I wore the blazer with the highest collar I owned. The one Jenny once said made me look like a war widow.

Richard’s speech was short and deliberately neutral. It was meant as a public reassurance. We’re aware, we’re prepared, and everything is under control.

It would have worked if not for the protester.

They moved from the crowd like a ripple disturbing still water. I saw the motion of their arm before I saw their face. A metal vial arced through the air. For one absurd moment, I thought it might be perfume.

The canister burst as it struck the edge of the stage. A spray of vivid red hit the front row. It soaked the hem of my coat and splashed across Richard’s forearm. It wasn’t quite paint, and it wasn’t quite blood. The substance hovered somewhere between, sharp with metallic scent and an acidic edge that stung my nose.

Before I could react, Richard flinched. The edge of the canister had sliced through his coat. A shallow cut bloomed across his arm, and cameras caught every detail.

My stomach turned, and something deeper rose with it.

The scent of his blood hit me with a force I couldn’t prepare for. My knees threatened to buckle. My throat tightened. My vision narrowed to nothing but that wound and the scent spilling from it. I gripped the podium to keep from moving. Every instinct screamed at me to go to him, to touch, to taste. My mouth watered in a way that made me feel sick.

I held my breath. Grounded myself. Focused on the texture of the wood under my palms, on the fabric of my sleeves, on the frantic shuffle of camera crews adjusting their focus.

The blood smell didn’t dissipate. It clung to the fibers of my coat, crawled up into my sinuses, burrowed in like a second heartbeat. I could feel the pressure of it behind my eyes. My thighs clenched without permission. I squeezed my knees together and exhaled slowly through my nose.

When I looked back up, I kept my expression flat.

But I already knew I’d slipped.

The footage hit PackNet within the hour. David’s team wasted no time. They clipped the moment with precision, the protest, the splash of red, the flicker of hunger in my eyes.

There was no narration. No headline was needed. Just me, caught wanting.

Simon issued a technical advisory almost immediately. The statement described chemical interference from unauthorized compounds. Testing confirmed micro-transmitters embedded in the dye. Their frequencies could react with bell harmonics, triggering neurological responses in those already sensitive to them.

It was true. Or at least not false. But it wasn’t the full story.

Richard offered to speak on my behalf. I told him not to. Defending me now would only pour fuel on the fire.

So I fled to the archives.

The silence helped. There were no reporters, no whispers trailing behind me. Just schematics, old maps, and circuit diagrams in ink and dust. I unrolled everything across a long table and traced the links between bell nodes and resonance tunnels, trying to see what they’d heard before anyone else did.

The lines on the page started to blur. My fingers trembled. I hadn’t eaten. I hadn’t slept. I wasn’t even pretending anymore.

That was where Richard found me.

I didn’t turn when he entered. I felt him. The scrape of his boots on stone, the shift in the room. He paused halfway down the aisle.

“You need to rest,” he said, his voice quiet but steady.

“I need answers.”

“You’re burning through yourself.”

“I know.”

“You were bleeding, and I...” I said, still not looking at him. “In front of everyone.”

“I noticed.”

“I almost lost control.”

“You didn’t.”

I finally looked at him. “It doesn’t matter. I wanted to.”

He came closer. “Do you know why it hit you that hard?”

I shook my head. “No. And that’s what scares me. It didn’t feel like instinct. It was deeper. Like something inside me recognized it before I did. I felt... starved. And I didn’t even realize until it was right in front of me.”

He paused, watching me closely, as though weighing how much to reveal.

“There’s a theory,” he said. “Rare, but it shows up in some of the oldest Pack records. Some wolves carry so much of their scent in their blood that, for their mates, it becomes a trigger. Not just arousal. A physical pull.”

My mouth went dry. “You think that’s what it is?”

“I think it might be part of it.”

But the way he said it... he didn’t believe it fully. Not even close.

“You’re not convinced.”

“I want to be. But this is different. And you know it.”

I leaned back against the table, arms crossed, breathing a little harder than before. “So what do we do?”

“We need rules,” he said.

That stopped me. “Rules?”

“You talk to Simon. No more avoiding him. If your symptoms spike, you step back. And I stop holding anything back from you. We need total transparency.”

I hesitated. “And if Simon finds something worse?”

“Then we face it. Together.”

I searched his face for a catch, a loophole. Something in me didn’t want to be handled, even gently.

“And what if I don’t want to step back?”

“Then we fight about it,” he said. “But we don’t lie about it.”

I swallowed. “Okay. Fine. But if I step back, you don’t shut me out. You don’t get to make decisions for both of us and call it mercy. You don't get to treat me like I stop mattering.”

His voice was quiet, but firm. “You never stopped mattering.”

He was close now. I hadn’t noticed him move. That heat between us pulsed to life again. It wasn’t just desire. It was grief and craving and familiarity.

He leaned in. So did I.

Our noses brushed. Our lips hovered.

And then I pulled back.

“No,” I said, my voice thin. “Not right now.”

His breath came slower. “Right. Discipline.”

“Just for tonight.”

He nodded, but didn’t move away. He reached up and brushed his thumb along the edge of my jaw. I leaned into the touch without meaning to.

“You scared me today,” he said softly.

“I scared myself.”

He let his hand fall and stepped back.

“You're not alone in this.”

And for a moment, I let myself believe it.

Even as I stepped away, my chest still ached with the hunger I was trying to control. The craving didn’t dull. It just curled in tighter.

And the scent of his blood still lingered in the back of my throat, sharp and wrong and addicting.

I wasn't sure which terrified me more, that I’d want it again, or that next time, I wouldn’t be able to stop.