Page 45 of Nikolay

The two men rose when I turned their way, which was gentlemanly enough to be funny given the fact that both of them looked fully capable of tearing through drywall with their bare hands. The bearded one took my hand first, his grip easy and unhurried, palm warm and rough enough to remind me money had not sanded all the work off him.

“Good meeting you, Texas.”

“You too, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir. I’m too pretty for that.”

“That is tragically true.”

He grinned, and the scar-mouthed one beside him shook my hand next, quieter but no less warm. He held my gaze with the steady ease wolves sometimes did when they’d already decided you were fine and no further ceremony was necessary.

“See you again,” he said.

There was no question in it. No pressure either. Just simple expectation, like he believed paths crossed more than once when they were meant to.

“I reckon you might,” I said.

Then there was only Sage.

He had been standing at the end of the banquette already, one hand resting lightly on the back of it while his pack traded their last little remarks with me, and when I turned toward him, he moved almost without seeming to. Just a shift. A step a little off from the group. Natural as breath. Unhurried. Enough to place maybe a foot of space between us and the rest of the table, which meant the others remained within sight and easy earshot while still somehow giving the moment its own shape.

It was a hell of a skill, that kind of space-making.

He was handsome in a way that did not ask much labor from the viewer. No mystery to it. No danger hidden under beauty like a blade under silk. Just a powerful, polished alpha looking at me directly enough to make pretending ignorance feel childish.

I offered my hand because that was what made sense.

He took it.

His grip was firm, warm, deliberate, and it lasted a moment longer than it needed to. Not long enough to become awkward. Long enough to become noticeable.

“Madelyn,” he said.

Most people who heard my full name did one of two things with it. They softened it into something sweet, or they turned it formal enough to feel like distance. Sage said it as if he believed it already belonged in his mouth. Not intimate. Not presumptuous. Just certain.

“Sage.”

His dark eyes held mine with that direct, alpha steadiness I had been feeling all night, but there was something else braided through it now. Not overt enough to challenge. Not vague enough to miss.

“The pack runs the full moon in three nights,” he said. “You should come.”

For one stupid, exposed second, my whole body answered before my pride got there.

A run.

Not metaphorical. Not social. A real run. Open ground under my paws. The smell of dirt and grass and cold night air. Muscles stretching out into wolf shape. The clean, holy violence of speed with nobody watching but the Goddess and whatever stars the city had not managed to kill. My gut lifted so fast it almost embarrassed me. I could feel the phantom of it already—the relief of being in my own skin all the way through, of not having to tuck my wolf in tight behind manners and fitted black clothing and city walls.

I smiled before he could see too much of what hit me. Or maybe he saw it anyway. Hard to say with men who made a profession of paying attention.

“I’ll think on it,” I said, keeping my tone easy.

His mouth moved at one corner like he knew exactly what kind of answer that was.

It was not difficult to tell myself a story about this. A safe one. He was an alpha. Alphas noticed strays. They noticed loners. They noticed wolves running too thin around the edges and did something about it when they were decent men. Bronc had spent my whole life collecting people that way—wayward kids, lost wolves, veterans too tired to pretend they were fine, women who needed somewhere they would not be preyed upon. That didn’t mean he wanted them. It meant he was built to gather, protect, command, and hold.

Sage inviting me to a run could mean exactly that. Nothing personal. Nothing romantic. No reason at all for my brain to get stupid over a handsome man with a rich voice and a serious face.

A man like this, with a pack like this, did not look twice at a lone wolf from a map-dot Texas town.