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One look into Boone’s coppery-green eyes and Hannah stiffened, leaping nimbly off the treadmill. She landed in front of him with her hands behind her back like a good soldier, gaze locked on a point straight ahead.
“Sir.”
“I asked you a fucking question,” he said, the words sharp and jagged, like bits of broken glass.
“I needed to get in some PT before I started my shift on the perimeter, sir.” She spoke without inflection, eyes still locked straight ahead.
“And you chose—” Boone broke off as Zee finished her set and jumped lightly to the ground, landing on the balls of her feet.
Muscles liquid and warm after the workout, Zee moved closer. The gym was tucked into a fairly large space and the mechanically circulated air was cool and moved easily, keeping the occupants from being pent up in a room that smelled too strongly of body odor.
On those briskly moving air currents, Zee caught Hannah’s scent.
There was no hint of Niko’s.
Zee breathed deeply and stretched, rolling her shoulders before reaching up to adjust her ponytail. Boone still hadn’t spoken and he watched her warily. Hannah still stared straight ahead, but Zee could see how her eyes tightened slightly at the corners and knew that as easily as she could smell Hannah—and the lack of a recent lover, Hannah could scent Zee... and Niko, his scent layered with her own.
“He isn’t yours,” Zee said simply, shifting slightly so she now stood in Hannah’s line of sight.
Hannah didn’t speak, her position still tightly held and controlled.
But when Zee took several steps closer, her gaze darted to Zee’s for a split second—and rage burned there. Rage, possessiveness, longing... and confusion.
Then Hannah blinked and a shutter fell.
Features remote once more, Hannah stared straight ahead.
“He. Isn’t. Yours,” Zee said again.
“Zee—Zennia, I’ll have Hannah reassigned elsewhere—”
Zee whipped her head around and pinned Boone with a direct look, dropping the heavy, confining barrier she’d erected around the very core of herself over years and years and years.
You get that look out of your eyes, little wolf.
Boone’s eyes, a unique shade like old, weathered bronze under a patina of green, widened as the full force of her dominance flooded the room. He sucked in a breath and his body swayed for the briefest second before he steadied.
It wasn’t enough to send him to his knees—Boone, and perhaps Shale, had enough strength to lead Appalachia should Niko be killed. That strength allowed Boone to stand in the face of Zee’s dominance, but when his gaze cleared, there was a fresh respect in the depths of his gaze.
Hannah, however, staggered.
She nearly crumpled to the floor under the weight of Zee’s strength but when Zee moved toward her, instinct had Hannah jerking upright. Her blue eyes widened, all but wheeling in her skull, then jerking toward Zee’s before sliding away as her wolf cringed inwardly, unable to meet the gaze of a wolf so much stronger than she.
“He isn’t yours,” Zee said again. “I don’t need to worry about Boone having you transferred because you aren’t, have never been and never will be any threat to me. Whatever happens with Niko and me will have nothing to do with you.”
“Yes—” Hannah’s face froze in a rictus, her lips trying to form an honorific for which there was no name.
Zee wasn’t her alpha. Zee had no place in the hierarchy either, nor did she even belong in the pack because Niko had cast her aside.
“I don’t care what you call me,” Zee said and she realized she meant it.
Growing up in Greylock had taught her that pack hierarchy could be so fucked up as to be beyond meaningless.
Hannah still looked frozen.
“Just understand... whether or not I choose to stay has no bearing on you, on any other woman. It will be between Niko and me—and this time, somebody running up to him with whispers about my dirty Sidhé nature isn’t going to do the trick.” Zee lifted a brow in challenge, suddenly able to see the past so much clearer, through a lens no longer so distorted by shame, hurt or humiliation. “I didn’t know anything about my mother’s bloodline, but even if I had, it wouldn’t have changed what was between Niko and me—at least, it shouldn’t have changed anything. It won’t do shit to change things now that I do know—if you think I’m ashamed of the Sidhé blood in my veins, you’ve yet another disappointment waiting for you. Here’s another, Hannah. I’m not the broken, tired, shadow of a girl I was then.”
Hannah’s lids flickered, anger rousing under the submission Zee’s greater strength had drawn out of her. She darted a look at Zee but couldn’t hold the contact for more than a second.
