Freya’s POV
76%
Finished
The WolfComm nearly slipped from my hand when I heard his voice. My gaze lifted instinctively across the street, and there he was.
Ss Whitmor.
He looked like he’d just stepped out of the tall corporate tower, silver Maybach idling at his side, the kind of man who never blended with his surroundings but bent them to his presence. The timing was too precise,
too uncanny.
“What is it, Freya?” Kade’s voice drew me back. His head turned, following my stare through the ss.
The moment his eyes locked on Ss, his shoulders tensed. A shadow crossed his face. Wolves always recognize a rival, and in that split second of eye contact, I could almost feel the crackle of warning ripple across the bond lines of the air. Kade’s wolf bristled—the instinct of a guardian sensing his im slipping
away.
I forced steadiness into my voice. “Lana and Kade just arrived in Ashbourne. We’re eating together.”
“I haven’t eaten either.” Ss’s tone was final, decisive. Then the line went dead.
My breath caught. Secondster, I saw him cross the street, stride predatory and unhurried. Every wolf in the diner must have felt it, the ripple of dominance washing in with him.
He stopped at our table, his shadow falling over us.
“I haven’t eaten. You don’t mind if I join you, do you?”
Lana blinked, startled. “Here? Alpha Whitmor… in a diner?”
“Is that a problem?” His voice held no room for refusal.
I cut her nce off with a nod. “Sit. I’ll ask them to bring another setting.”
He slid into the empty chair across from Kade, deliberate, as though he’d chosen his opponent. The four of us sat around the worn wooden table, the air suddenly thick enough to choke on.
I lowered my eyes, focusing on my food. The sound of their silence was louder than the clink of cutlery. Lana shifted ufortably, darting her gaze between the two men, trying to summon some small talk before the tension exploded.
Kade beat her to it, his voice tight. “What a coincidence, Alpha Whitmor. Didn’t expect to find you here.”
“Not coincidence,” Ss replied, calm as ever. “I came for Freya.”
The nickname that followed made me stiffen.
“Freya,” he repeated softly, like a im sliding into ce.
Kade froze. Lana nearly choked on her water.
、 76%<b></b>
Finished
“Freya?” she echoed, wide–eyed. Not the formal “Freya Thorne,” not the respectful “Thorne Heiress.” Just my name, shortened, personal–intimate.
Kade’s frown deepened. “And who gave you the right to call her that?”
Ss dipped his chopsticks into his tea, rinsing them with meticulous calm. His answer was simple, edged.
“She did.“.
Both pairs of eyesnded on me. My cheeks warmed, but I forced my chin high. “It’s easier this way. Only temporary.”
Kade’s gaze lingered, searching, troubled.
“Eat,” I urged, trying to cut through the standoff.
Lanatched onto my words like a lifeline. “Yes, yes, let’s just eat before everything goes cold.”
Kade finally picked his food back up. Ss mirrored the action, elegant in motion, each gesture smooth, measured. Where Kade ate with the careless ease of a soldier, Ss consumed with the sharp grace of a predator who had endured starvation.
I caught myself studying him, and his words broke through my thoughts.
“I am not a man who only eats fine meals. I’ve eaten far worse than this. Bark, ash, even dirt, if it meant surviving.”
The matter–of–fact tone jolted me. For a heartbeat, I saw shadows in his gaze–echoes of nights I couldn’t imagine.
Kade’s lip curled. “Surely Alpha Whitmor jests.”
Ss’s eyes lifted, dark fire in their depths. “I do not jest.”
賽
“Then I’d like to try it,” Kade countered, jaw tightening. “To see if it’s truly as foul as you im.”
Ss leaned back slightly, his dominance ring with dangerous amusement,
“Then strip the bark from a tree, ckridge. If you crave to prove me wrong. But be sure your stomach is as strong as your pride.”
The growl in Kade’s throat was low, unmistakable. The table quivered beneath the weight of unspoken challenge. Lana pressed a hand against her forehead, muttering something about indigestion.
I cut through them before the wolves in their skins broke loose. “Enough. Eat.”
Two Alpha–born men, two forces of power, fell quiet under my voice. Their chopsticks lifted again, but the tension never eased.
Two of the Capital’s brightest sons, sitting across a simple wooden table, ring at each other over bowls of Ashbourne noodles.
And I, caught between them, could feel the storm gathering, the bond tightening, the dangerous inevitability of wolves circling the same prey.
A Warrior Luna’s Awakening