Chapter5

Chloe's POV

He was still asleep.

His hand rested near mine on the sheet. Then I reached out — my fingertips, barely brushing the back of his hand, only needing to confirm that last night had actually been real.

His eyes opened immediately, moving straight to me.

I yanked my hand back. Heat climbed my face so fast I felt it in my ears.

"Good morning." His voice was low and rough with sleep.

I sat up and pulled the sheet higher, which accomplished very little.

"What were you just doing?" The corner of his mouth moved. "Look at you — your face is completely red."

It made my pulse do something inconvenient.

"It's nothing." I looked away without thinking, unable to meet his eyes.

He sat up slowly, watching my face. "I'm Victor Sterling." A pause. "Though something tells me you already knew that."

Victor Sterling.

The name landed in my chest like a stone dropping into still water. He was the Sterling heir. My mind went completely blank for a moment.

I had kissed him and slept with him. Chloe, what had you done.

I kept my breathing even. "I'm Chloe. And I didn't know who you were."

"Last night wasn't bad." A short, dismissive laugh. His expression was casual in the way that people are casual when they have never once had to be anything else. "Stop pretending. While I'm still in a good mood — how much do you want? Consider it compensation for you."

I stood there and stunned .

"I'm sorry." My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. "What did you just say."

"Compensation." He repeated it without looking up. "I've seen plenty of women like you. If it isn't money, then what else could it possibly be?"

Something cold moved through my chest. "I didn't come here for money."

He was suprised and looked at me then.

"Not money？" The corner of his mouth curved into something that was not a smile. His eyes went flat and cold. "Higher ambitions, then. You want to be my Luna." A beat, his voice dropping into something almost bored. "Someone like you actually has the nerve to want that."

His words hit me like a slap. I stared at him. "I never — I don't even — what are you talking about?"

"It isn't the first time someone has tried." His voice was calm. Unbothered. "You're more subtle than most, I'll give you that. But a woman with that kind of ambition doesn't end up in my bed by accident."

"I'm not trying to be your Luna." The words jammed in my throat on their way out, coming out flustered and unconvincing and I knew it, hated it, couldn't stop it. "I wasn't there for any of that. I just — I needed a drink. I needed to not think for one night."

"Then why did you appear at exactly the right moment and get into bed with me?" He looked at me with something close to contempt. "Coincidence. Of course."

The tears came before I could stop them, which I hated, because in his eyes they would only look like more performance. "My boyfriend." My voice broke on the word. "Three years. We were together for three years and I found out yesterday that he's been — that he and my sister —" I stopped. Breathed. "I went to that bar because I had nowhere else to go. I just needed one night to forget. That's all it was. I swear."

Something moved across his face. Then it got colder.

"I'm the Sterling heir." His voice dropped to something very quiet and very controlled. "And you chose me as a replacement. As a way to feel something after your boyfriend hurt you." He looked at me like I was something he'd found on the bottom of his shoe. "Three years with a man, and the same night it ends you fall into my bed. What exactly does that say about you."

"It was an accident. I didn't know who you were —"

"Don't insult me further." He stood, and the full weight of what he was — the height, the presence, every inch of the distance between his world and mine — made itself felt in a way it hadn't last night."You used me. You were hurting and you picked the most powerful man in the room to feel something with. And now you're standing here crying and telling me it was an accident."

"I'm not like that. Please, just let me —"

"All right." His voice cut clean through mine. "If you walk out that door right now without asking me for anything, I'll believe you. But someone as calculating as you — you really expect me to think you'd leave empty-handed?"

I looked at him. My hands were shaking and I couldn't make them stop and I hated that he could probably see it.

"Fine." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "I'm leaving right now. I never wanted anything from you. Believe me or don't — it doesn't matter."

Something crossed his face. He looked like he genuinely did not believe I would actually go.

The humiliation sat in my chest like a stone. Heavy and hot, pressing against my ribs until breathing hurt. He had already decided what I was. Nothing I said was going to change that, and I was done trying.

I picked up my clothes. One piece at a time. I didn't let myself think.

"I'll have someone take you home." His voice had shifted slightly.

"No." I didn't look at him. "I don't need anything from you."

I found my shoes. My fingers fumbled with them and I hated that too — hated that my hands were shaking, hated that he could see it, hated that the tears were still right there at the surface and I couldn't afford to let them fall because in his eyes my tears were just another move in a game I'd never actually been playing.

I swallowed all of it down.

I opened the door and walked out without looking back.

---

Victor's POV

The suite was very quiet after she left.

She had actually gone.

I stood at the window . As the Sterling heir, I had seen every variation of this kind of approach — patient ones, aggressive ones, the kind that played at innocence so well it took months to see the seams. I had never once been wrong about the pattern. So why did something feel off.

I was reaching for my shirt when my eyes caught the sheets.

I went very still.

A faint red stain on white linen. Small. Unmistakable.

She was still a virgin！How was this even possible?

She'd had a ex-boyfriend for three years.

Three years, and she had still been a virgin.

I sat down slowly on the edge of the bed and did not move.

I pressed both hands flat against my knees and stared at the floor and let that single fact dismantle the assumption I had made since waking up.

Last night came back in pieces. Three weeks of my wolf soul grinding closer to the surface, the full moon pulling at it like a tide I couldn't outswim. I had been managing. Barely. And then she had walked into me at the bar and her scent had reached me before I'd even seen her face.

Wild rose.

What my wolf soul did next was grinding against my skin with three weeks of accumulated fury — and then it simply went peace. I had never felt anything like it in these years. Her scent bypassed every wall I maintained and settled at the base of my wolf soul's awareness like something that had always been meant to be there — the warmth of her, the wild rose coming off her skin in waves, addictive in a way that made the word feel insufficient.

Now that she was gone, the absence had teeth.

And then my wolf soul had told me, in the flat unhesitating way it communicates the things it knows with absolute certainty —

She was my fated mate. Why?

She was just an unawakened Omega, unremarkable. And yet her scent had quieted my wolf soul that three weeks of disciplined management hadn't been able to touch. The bond didn't lie about these things.

Which meant everything I had said to her this morning needed revisiting.

My wolf soul stung again when I thought about how she had left — spine straight, chin up, hands shaking and trying to hide it, not looking back once.

I had to admit I was slightly shaken and my heart had softened a little. Was this really the influence my fated mate had over me?

She was a little different. I could admit that much, quietly. Every woman who had ever tried to get close to me had found reasons to stay close, had made sure I remembered her name.

I picked up my phone and dialed. Lucas, my cousin and Beta second-in-command answered on the second ring. "Chloe Vance," I said. "Full background — pack registration, bloodline, her father's name. Find out why her wolf soul hasn't awakened."

Silence. Then, carefully: "Understood."

I ended the call.

The wild rose scent was almost gone now. Just the faintest trace left in the fabric of the sheets, already fading, and my wolf soul registered its absence with that low persistent ache that was not going to resolve itself through discipline or distance .

I looked at the window.

We'll meet again soon, little rose.