JESSICA
I’ve never woken up before the sun. Never needed to. But today, I was running before the sky turned gray lungs burning, legs aching, chasing silence like it might outrun the iness inside my head.
Whatever happened yesterday, it’s not something I can forget. Not even if I wanted to.
Did Grayson really give up on me?
The question loops, cruel and constant. My chest still aches from how we left things. From the way he said it–flat, final, like I’d finally pushed him too far. Maybe I had.
I don’t know how many tears I’ve cried. I don’t even know if they counted. I just know they didn’t fix a damn thing.
Even the rogue–I don’t know what was real anymore. Maybe I imagined him. Maybe my brain’s trying to sabotage me. Wouldn’t be the first time.
The door swings shut behind me, and I barely register the click before I see him
The Alpha.
Grayson’s father.
Everything in me halts. My breath snags on the edge of my throat, my heel stutters against the floor, and the sweat that had started to cool from my run suddenly feels icy. My eyes widen–no time to hide it–and my lips part, but no sound comes. I can’t even lie to myself and pretend I expected this. I didn’t. No part of me was ready for this.
His eyes look like Grayson’s–but colder. Older. Stripped of anything human. Atleast Grayson can look with empathy sometimes. Sometimes.
“Alpha,” I manage, and my voice sounds wrong in my own mouth–tight, strained, too quiet.
He doesn’t blink.
“You’re up early,” he says, and the calm in his voice makes it worse. “I thought caretakers had the luxury of sleeping in.”
I blink, stunned, trying to make sense of why he’s even here, why he’s saying these things to me like we’ve already been in an argument I don’t remember
starting.
“I-“I start, but my mouth is dry and clumsy, and the second he lifts a single hand, I stop cold.
“Don’t speak,” he says, the disgust bleeding through now. “You’ve already wasted enough of this pack’s time.”
My throat tightens. I blink. My arms are stiff at my sides, fingers twitching. I want to respond. I want to push back. But I don’t know how to do it without
shaking.
“I came because I hate watching talent rot,” he says, standing with slow, terrifying precision. “And because my son has let your presence weaken him.”
My head jerks. “Weak-?”
“Don’t speak again.”
I flinch. Actually flinch. My mouth clamps shut, breath stuck halfway in my chest.
He walks toward me–not quickly, but with intent–and it’s terrifying how little space it takes for him to feel like a storm crashing toward me
“You let your legs open and your instincts/rot,” he continues, tone low and sharp. “And you did it all for a boy who can’t even keep his mouth off his ex in public.”
1/4
Chapter 66
The shame hits hot, immediate, and I hate how much it lands, I hate that I care. But I do, I care too much and he sees it, and t
“Tell me,” he says, circling me now. “Was it worth it? To give up everything you were building, everything you could have been–just to become girl in his bed?”
That’s not true.
He walks back in front of me. Closer now. His voice lowers. “I’m offering you something most failures don’t get. A way back”
I can’t think. I blink again, rapid, trying to focus. “Back… to what?”
“The field. Where you were supposed to be, if you hadn’t let your legs open faster than your reflexes.”
I inhale sharply. It burns. My ears ring.
He tilts his head. “Offended? Good. You should be. You should also be ashamed.”
“You will return to training,” he says, voice cold enough to sting. “But not under Grayson. He’s proven incapable of separating strength from weakness. And you have made yourself his weakness.”
I blink. The words hit, but I can’t absorb them fast enough. “Wait–I don’t–then who-”
“Grayson’s judgment is compromised. Soft. Romantic. A disappointment.”
I blink again, chest tight. “Then who-?” My voice is barely audible.
He doesn’t answer right away. I hate how he makes this very casual as if it’s nothing to him.
“Riot asked for you.”
I blink once. Then again.
“…Riot?” I repeat it slowly. As if the name should supposed to mean something but it doesn’t.
“My other son.”
The floor tilts.
“What Grayson never–he doesn’t-” I’m stammering. I can’t stop. “He never told me he has a-”
“Half–brother,” the Alpha cuts in, voice clipped, cool. “Stronger, Smarter. Less emotional.”
I can barely process the words. My head’s spinning.
Grayson have a half–brother?
“You’re sending me to him?” I ask, still flustered. “Why? What does he want with me?”
“I don’t care what he wants,” the Alpha replies. “He asked. I agreed. You’ll report to him this morning.”
I shake my head–not in refusal, in disbelief. “I don’t understand-”
“You don’t need to,” he says, cutting me off again. “Your job is to show up. Follow orders. Make yourself useful. Unless, of course, you’d rather be escorted out of this territory with nothing but a name that no longer matters.”
The breath leaves me in one sharp exhale. Grayson’s father doesn’t wait for my answer. He doesn’t have to. He’s already decided I’m going.
The door clicks shut behind him, and I’m still standing in the same spot. Blinking. Trying to understand what just happened.
2/4
Chapter 66
It takes me a full thirty seconds to realize I’m not breathing.
My back hits the hallway wall outside my room, and I don’t remember walking there. My chest is tight, arms mumb, and I dont kruin than that
of it–this information, this weight. Riot. The word won’t leave my mouth. It clings to the back of my throat like smoke.
And then I’m moving
I storm down the hall, bare feet slapping hard against the floor. My knuckles slam into Pierce’s door so fast and loud that my hand starts to sting before even register the pain.
“Pierce!” My voice cracks. “Open the damn door!”
It creaks open sluggishly, and when he appears–blinking, shirtless, disoriented–1 forget everything I planned to say.
Because his chest is a mess.
Deep red welts–claw marks, fresh and ugly–curl under his collarbone and down his side. I suck in a breath like it’ll help settle the nausea that punches
up from my gut.
“What the fuck happened to you?” I hiss, my voice shaking so hard I almost choke on the word “idiot,” but fear swallows it whole before it makes it out
His brow’s pull together instantly. “What the–Jess? What’s wrong?”
“I-“I blink. I can’t even look at him. My eyes dart to the wall beside his head, focusing on a chipped patch of paint like it’s suddenly the most important. thing I’ve ever seen. “Riot,” I breathe out. “Grayson… has a brother?”
The shift in him is instant.
Pierce’s eyes go sharp–wide, alert, awake in a heartbeat. “Who told you about Riot?” His voice drops to a whisper so tense it might as well be a growf. His hand grips the edge of the doorframe like it’s the only thing holding him upright.
So it’s true.
“Oh my goddess.” I press a hand to my forehead. “So it’s true? He’s real?”
“Half–brother,” Pierce says automatically, like it matters. He reaches for a shirt but keeps his eyes locked on the hallway behind me. His movements sharpen, focused. “Did Grayson tell you?”
“No.” My voice is brittle. “His father did. Just now. He–he told me Riot requested me. For training.”
Pierce stills.
–
My hands won’t stop trembling. I press them to my thighs, but that only makes it worse there’s nowhere to put this panic, nowhere to hide from how it’s crawling up my throat.
“Fuck,” he mutters, dragging a hand through his sleep–mussed hair. The bruises on his chest shift with the movement. “Fucking hell, Jess.”
“Why would he want me?” My voice comes out smaller than I want. “I don’t even know him. I didn’t even know he existed until ten minutes ago.”
Pierce doesn’t answer. He’s already reaching for his phone, fingers jabbing at the screen with practiced urgency.
“Stay here,” he snaps, tone dark and flat, all protective big–brother authority now. “Don’t go anywhere. I’m calling Grayson.”
“No!” I lunge forward, snatching the phone from his hand before I can think it through. “Stop treating me like I’m something breakable.”
“Jess, you don’t know what Riot is-”
“Neither do you!” My voice breaks on it, raw and breathless, but I don’t back down. “I’m going to find out for myself. And I don’t need Grayson swooping in like some tragic goddamn hero to save me from a decision I didn’t even get to make.”
3/4
Chapter 66
He stares at me like I’ve lost it. Maybe I have. Maybe this is what it looks like–grief for something that never gave me peake in the fret piwe
I’m done,” I say, and the words sting coming out. “Tell Grayson I’m gone.”
Before he can stop me, I slam the door to my room shut behind me. My forehead thumps against the wood as my breath shakes out of me dona vihers don’t even know. But I know I’m not staying here.
Grayson has a brother.
A half–brother.
And he wants me?
I took a shower with all of these things running in my head. When I’m done, I barely recognize the girl in the mirror. Wet hair. Pale skin. Jaw set. Haunted eyes. But beneath that—beneath the fear–something sharper simmers.
I braid my hair back tight, hands steady now. “You’re not being smart,” I whisper to my reflection. “But you’ve never let that stop you before”
And I leave before I can talk myself out of it.
The training center is still mostly dark when I push through the doors. Light slants through the high windows in thin gold spears, catching the dust in the air. My boots echo across the polished floor.
Eyes shift toward me.
Some curious. Some confused. A few surprised.
But I don’t flinch. I don’t pause.
Let them wonder what the hell I’m doing here.
Because I don’t care what anyone thinks of me anymore.
If throwing myself into the lion’s mouth is the only way to earn my place back on that field, then so be it.
At least I’ll go down fighting.
4/4
