His body goes rigid before I say anything else. Hisshoulders are locked. Jaw clenched. Fury barely held in check.
But I press forward anyway.
“I want to join your pack.”
The air gets thinner, heavier. Rhett’s entire body tenses like a drawn bowstring. His hands curl into fists at his sides, and I know—Iknow—he thinks I’ve gone too far. That I’ve overstepped by speaking the thought out loud.
But I don’t believe in playing games. Not with something this important.
“I’m not here to dance around it,” I continue. “I want to join your family. And I know what that means.” My throat tightens as I force myself to say, “I’ll submit to you, Rhett. As pack alpha. I know my place.” The words scrape my throat like splintered wood.
Every alpha instinct in me claws at the inside of my ribs, snarling for me to fight, to push, todominate. But I won’t. Ican’t. Not if I want to keep this. Keepthem.
I stay silent. Still. Letting the weight of the moment settle.
Rhett exhales slowly, every inch of him radiating fury and control. His chest rises and falls like he’s holding something back—maybe his rage, maybe the urge to lunge.
His gaze sweeps across the room. It lands on Myrick. Then Autry.
Then Charlie.
His eyes linger on the fresh bite on Charlie’s throat. And for a heartbeat, I wonder if this is it—if he’s about to tell me to leave. Or worse. Will he kill me, then rip off Charlie’s mating bite? Lesser alphas have been known to do worse.
But then Rhett speaks.
“If you step a single toe out of line,” the alpha says, voice low and lethal, “I will kill you.” He doesn’t say it with heat.It says it like a fact. Cold and final. Then he looks at the others again, making sure they hear it too. “Myrick. Autry. Charlie. They’remypack.Mymates. I won’t let anyone hurt them.Ever.”
But, in that brutal declaration, I hear the only thing that matters—He’s letting me stay.
It’s not forgiveness. Not yet. But it’s a beginning.
I nod once. “Understood.”
And I mean it.
I won’t fuck this up.
“And let me be clear,” Rhett snarls. “If you bite Myrick or Autry without my expressed fucking permission, I will rip your balls off and shove them down your own fucking throat.”
Charlie’s fear coils in our bond, but I react, hoping to keep him calm. “Yes, sir.”
“But first.” Rhett straightens his back, and his jaw tenses. “Tell them what you’re running from.” His eyes stay locked on mine, hard and unrelenting as shock cuts through me. “If you want to be in this pack,” he says, voice like gravel, “then tell them the truth.”
The command hits me like a punch. I look down, shame burning in my chest like acid. I wish I could lie. But I can’t. Not here. Not now.
“I owe a drug dealer,” I say quietly. “Alotof money.” The words taste like rust.
Myrick stiffens, and Autry’s mouth falls open, but it’s Charlie I feel the most—his body tenses against mine, shock and anger pulsing in our bond.
“I’m not a user,” I blurt out. “Never was. That wasn’t my poison.” I glance at the ceiling and exhale slowly. “Mine was always alcohol.” Silence. They already know this. “I needed money to feed my addiction. Thought I couldhustle, move some product, get ahead. I fell in with the wrong people. Made shitty choices, worse friends. Then five years ago, one of those deals went bad. Real bad. I got jumped. Lost a huge amount of inventory.” I shake my head as I remember my broken bones. “I should’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t.”
My throat tightens. I meet Rhett’s eyes again and force myself not to flinch.
“The dealer nearly killed me,” I continue. “He said that if I didn’t pay him back every cent, he’d finish the job.”
Charlie leans into me gently, like he doesn’t even want to think about it. His warmth seeps into my side, quiet and grounding. And it almost undoes me.I don’t deserve him.
“That was my wake-up call,” I say, voice rough. “I got clean after that. Stayed clean. But I’ve been paying for it ever since.”
