CHAPTER 2: The Alpha's Dilemma
His wolf was trying to claw out of his skin.
Callum made it approximately thirty seconds after Isla left his study before his control shattered. The moment the door closed behind her, his wolf surged forward with such violence that he shifted halfway before forcing himself back, claws extending, fangs dropping, his spine arching with the need to hunt down his mate and claim her.
MATE. OURS. GO. CLAIM. NOW.
"No." He said it out loud, trying to make it real."She's not—we can't—"
But his wolf didn't care about can't. Didn't understand politics or duty or the fact that the female who just walked out was his dead fiancée's sister. All his wolf knew was that after twenty-nine years, after watching other wolves find their mates and feeling nothing but mild envy, after agreeing to bond with Maren because his father arranged it and duty demanded it—
After all of that, his mate had just walked into his study and lit up every cell in his body like a beacon.
Isla. Not Maren. Isla.
Shorter than her sister, curvier, with dark auburn hair that looked like autumn leaves and hazel-green eyes that probably saw too much. Freckles scattered across her nose. A body built for comfort, not display. Completely, utterly different from the elegant, graceful female he'd spent a year trying to feel something—anything—for.
And his wolf had taken one look at her and screamedMINE with such certainty that Callum's knees had nearly buckled.
This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real. Mate bonds didn't work like this. You didn't spend a year engaged to one sister, feeling nothing, only to have the bond snap into place the moment the other sister showed up.
Except apparently you did. Because the bond currently tearing him apart was more real than anything he'd ever felt, more visceral and undeniable than any instinct he'd ever experienced.
He'd wanted to go to her. The moment their eyes met and the bond flared, he'd taken three steps before he'd caught himself. Three steps toward claiming her, marking her, making her his in every way that mattered. Three steps toward destroying any remaining dignity Maren's death had left them.
The guilt hit him like a physical blow. He'd spent three months grieving Maren—or trying to. Three months carrying the weight of failing to protect her, of being too slow to save her, of finding her broken body in the forest and knowing he'd let her down in the most fundamental way an Alpha could fail his Luna.
But if he was being honest—brutally, viciously honest—he hadn't been grieving a lost love. He'd been grieving the loss of a pack member, mourning the violence of her death, feeling guilty that he'd never loved her the way she'd deserved. That he'd been planning to spend his life trying to manufacture feelings that should have been instinctive.
With Isla, there was no manufacturing required. With Isla, the feelings were so overwhelming he could barely think past them.
Which made him the worst kind of bastard. Which made this entire situation impossible.
The knock on his door was perfunctory—a warning, not a request for permission.
Tavish let himself in, took one look at Callum's still-extended claws and the cracks in the desk where he'd gripped it too hard, and said nothing. Just crossed to the liquor cabinet, poured two fingers of whiskey, and set the glass on the only unbroken corner of the desk.
They'd been friends for over a decade, brothers in everything but blood. Tavish had been there the night they'd found Maren's body. Had helped carry her back. Had stood beside Callum through the funeral and the investigation and the slow, painful proce
