Alpha Wolf:“The pressure to be perfect for everyone else... that’s exhausting.”
Valeria pressed her phone to her chest, overwhelmed by how perfectly he understood the weight she carried. Her bear was vibrating with excitement.
“Exactly. Sometimes I’m terrified I’ll never be good enough.” She hesitated, then added, “What about you? What keeps you up at night?”
Alpha Wolf:“That someone I care about will get hurt because of choices I made.”
“Unit 12, status report,” the radio called, interrupting her emotional spiral. She reached for the radio with unsteady hands.
“Maintaining position. No unusual activity observed.”
“Copy. We need you to respond to a shoplifting report at the grocery store. The manager’s holding the suspect.”
“10-4, en route.”
She quickly typed: “I have to go. Work emergency.”
Alpha Wolf:“Stay safe out there. I’ll be thinking about you.”
Her heart fluttered as she started the engine. She tucked her phone away, a smile curving on her lips as she pulled into traffic.
Chapter
Five
Dom staredat the same line of the security protocol report for the fourth time, the words blurring together. His wolf stirred restlessly in his chest, demanding he text Rookie Bear again.
He reached for the phone, then forced his hand back to the report. He had to maintain some semblance of professionalism, even if every instinct screamed at him to drop everything and find her. The mate bond pulled at him like a physical force, making concentration impossible.
“You planning to read that report or just stare at it?”
Dom’s head snapped up to find Hunter standing beside his desk, dark eyes assessing. Dom quickly set the phone facedown and tried to look professional.
“Just reviewing the protocols. Making sure we’re ready for anything.”
Hunter’s expression didn’t change, but Dom caught the slight tilt of his head that meant he wasn’t buying it. “Right.”
Heat crawled up Dom’s neck. He flipped to the next page with deliberate focus, but the words might as well have been written in a foreign language. All he could think about was Rookie Bear’s admission that she felt like she never fit anywhere, how perfectly it matched his own constant sense of displacement.
“You expecting an important call?” Siren asked.
Dom glanced at his phone again. Still nothing since her last message about having to leave for work.
Siren studied him with a calculating gaze. “That’s not work stress. Wrong kind of agitation entirely.” Her expression shifted. “The phone checking has been going on all morning. You keep touching it like it’s precious. And your wolf...” She tilted her head. “Your wolf’s not restless. It’sexcited.” Her voice dropped with certainty. “Mate bond?”
The words hit the room like a flashbang grenade. Dom’s shocked reaction confirmed what his behavior had already revealed.
The silence stretched for several heartbeats before Blaze broke it with a low whistle. “Well, shit.”
“You found your mate?” Siren’s voice carried an edge Dom hadn’t heard in years. “When exactly were you planning to tell us?”
Dom straightened in his chair, alpha authority reasserting itself despite the circumstances. “It just happened. Last night. 100% match on mate.com.”
“Mate.com?” Axel’s eyebrows rose. “You signed up for online dating?”
“It’s not dating,” Dom said, more defensive than he intended. “It’s a compatibility algorithm designed specifically for shifters. And it works.”
Ryder shifted nervously by the door. “So... where does that leave the rest of us?”
