Chapter 10 Don't Look

NOVA

The shower was the first good thing in two days.

Hot water, real pressure, nobody needing anything from her. She stood under it with her eyes closed and let it run over the cut on her lip and the bruise building along her left shoulder and told herself she'd earned this ten minutes.

The problem was that the ten minutes kept filling up with things she hadn't invited.

His weight.

That was what kept coming back. Not the technique, not the footwork, not even the part where she'd dropped him in front of sixty witnesses. Just the moment after. Ground under her spine and his body across her chest, and that face close enough that she could see the exact grain of his jaw. The way he'd looked at her mouth. The half second where neither of them moved, and the whole training ground ceased to exist.

She pressed her palm flat against the tile.

Stop.

Her wolf had been loud since the training ground. Continuously, relentlessly loud.

He's our mate.

I know.

He smells like -

I know what he smells like. She turned on the water cooler. Stood in it until her skin went tight. Sit down and stay there.

Being Alpha was why she was here. Not for him. Not for whatever disaster her instincts had decided to throw themselves toward. She was here for a title her father said she couldn't earn and a promise she'd made to a dying woman who deserved better than what her life had been.

Caden Voss was a problem she couldn't afford.

She turned the water off.

Grabbed the towel, wrapped it across her chest, and tucked the corner. Stepped out into the steam. Her cropped hair dripped cold water down the back of her neck, and she breathed and was fine.

Completely fine.

Then the dorm room door flung open.

She went still.

His footstep. She'd learnt the weight of it without meaning to, that specific rhythm. He'd gone running after the trial. She'd counted on thirty more minutes, at least.

She grabbed the scent mask from the shelf quickly. One drop on her wrist, one on her throat. Rubbed it in fast, just fast enough before the bathroom door swung open.

*****************************************************************************************************************

CADEN

He'd run six miles, and it hadn't touched it.

That was the problem. He'd pushed hard, longer than usual, waiting for the point where everything simplified down to breath and pace and the ground under his feet – the point where the body got loud enough that everything else went quiet.

It didn't happen.

Because everything else was Ash Darvin's face two inches from his own on the training ground, the feel of a soft body, full lips and something that didn't make sense under his hands and a scent that had followed him the entire six miles, no matter how fast he went.

He pushed through the dorm room door and headed straight for the bathroom and was already pulling at his training shirt when he stopped.

Steam.

And in the middle of it, Ash. Towel-wrapped from chest to mid-thigh, cropped hair dripping, water still tracking down a collarbone that his eyes moved across before he'd permitted them to.

He looked at the wall. Looked back.

Ash was watching him with an expression that was working hard to stay neutral and not managing it fully.

He leaned against the doorframe.

"First time I've seen a guy wrap a towel like that."

"Yeah." "Now you have."

He should leave it there. That was what he should do.

"Mind getting out?"

"I'm not done."

"I'm not waiting." Something pushed the next part out before he'd cleared it. "Unless you want to share."

He watched the colour move up Ash's throat.

Slow. Then fast. Cheeks were going pink under the steam, which made no sense, which was deeply interesting, which made him take one step into the bathroom before he'd decided to.

His wolf was at the surface again. Pressing. That same insistent thing it had been doing since the courtyard on day one, only closer now, only stronger, only worse because the steam had made everything more concentrated, and that scent was everywhere, and his brain was still refusing to finish the sentence it kept starting.

He moved closer.

Ash held a position. He'd give that to them. Whatever was happening in those grey eyes, the feet didn't move.

"You're red," Caden said. He kept his voice even. "Why? What are you afraid of, Ash?" He looked at the face in front of him, the jaw, the mouth, and the skin that didn't look like any of the other sixty wolves in this building. "We're both men. Nothing you've got that I haven't seen." He tilted his head. His eyes moved across the jaw again, down briefly, back up. "Though you don't look like most guys."

Something shifted in Ash's eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Smoother skin." He said it like an observation because it was one. "Something different around the -"

Ash moved sideways. Sharp. Heading for the door.

He reached out without thinking, and his hand found the edge of the towel, and with one pull, the tuck gave way.