It wasn't just imagination anymore—it felt like instinct turning against me. Every thought I had of Elliot and Aliona together clung to my mind like an unwanted scent, invasive and impossible to shake. My wolf growled beneath my skin, agitated by images I didn't even want to see.
He didn't gain anything from me, yet Aliona did. She circled him openly, boldly, like a she-wolf confident in her place within the Alpha's reach. The thought alone tightened something in my chest, irrational and sharp, like a territorial instinct I had no right to feel.
And then my mind betrayed me further. I saw him not as a man, but as something more primal—an Alpha who never truly stopped taking what he wanted. A wolf that never sated its hunger, always reaching for more, always testing boundaries of dominance and desire.
