Page 33 of The Florist and Her Alphas

“I was a field medic for a while. I can see four different bite events overlapping just in that one spot.” His voice is perfectly level.

I nod. I cannot speak.

His fingers find my wrist just below the scar. His thumb and first two fingers close around my wrist like a cuff of warm stone. Light. Steady. Immovable.

“Your heart is beating very fast,” he says.

“I know,” I whisper. Warmth swirls in my lower belly as he holds my wrist and slick pools between my thighs at the contact. I press my thighs together under the workbench and hope the scent doesn’t hit him, and I know from the slight flare of his nostrils that it already has.

He goes still. His thumb moves slowly across the silvery edge of the scar. The skin there is hypersensitive. I feel the drag of his thumb like a live wire drawn across the inside of my arm, and my breath catches sharp in my throat, and the flush creeps up my neck and into my face, and I cannot stop it.

Cole’s eyes come up to mine.

I feel lightheaded. The shop is very quiet. Very warm. Very small. Dawn is pressing through the front windows in thin gray lines, his hand on my wrist, his thumb on my scar, and he is looking at me with an expression that is not quite blank anymore.

“Liana,” he says. His voice has dropped. Lower than I’ve heard it. Dark and slow.

“Yes,” I breathe.

“I am going to let go of your wrist now.”

“Okay,” I say.

He does. Slowly. His fingers unwind from my wrist and fall away, and he takes one deliberate step back, and the loss of his warmth hits me so fast I almost reach for his hand again. I don’t. I press my palm flat against the zinc worktable to keep myself upright.

“I’ll let you get on with your day. Just wanted to check up on you and see how you were doing,” he says simply as he stands from his chair. “Thank you for sharing your story.”

“No problem,” I say at a loss as he walks back through the front room. I hear the bell over the door ring, that small, clear note. The door closes.

The shop is silent.

My heart is hammering against my ribs, my face is burning, and there is an ache between my thighs that I am not going to think about.

I am absolutely not going to think about it.

I press both hands against my flushed face, my fingers cold from the conditioned stems, and I sit there in the early-morning light, wondering how stupid I was for opening up about my life to a pack of strangers intent on destroying my life.

Eight

COLE

As I head back to the pack penthouse, thoughts of Liana and the look of heartbreak on her face run through my mind on repeat. I had spent the rest of the day not too far from her floral shop, secretly guarding her.

Her old pack could be looking for her. It’s none of my fucking business, but I care about her already. It’s crazy, but I do.

Her guard was down, and she trusted me even though it was for a couple of hours.

Ezra’s already in the great room when I get there, standing at the window with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the Brooklyn skyline like he can see her shop from here.

Julian’s sprawled on one of the charcoal sofas, elbows on his knees, Pepper absent for once. I can’t stand that bird sometimes, and right now is a serious moment. August has his sweater sleeves pushed to his elbows, a legal pad tucked under one arm.

“We need to know about Liana,” Ezra says to all of us. He doesn’t waste time. “Cole. You said you had more.”

“I do,” I say after texting him earlier about my meeting with Liana.

“Tell us.”

“She was with a pack six years ago,” I say. “Before she opened the shop. An alpha named Magnus. He abused her. Probably along with his pack.”