chapter 8

CAIUS

I don't do needy or desperate.

Or wide eyes and shaky fingers clutching at me like I’m the last fix in a dying world.

But that night…

She begged so pretty, I almost forgot what I was.

It was supposed to be simple. A quick release just like the other nights. They call it funny, I call it maintenance. If I hadn't met her that stormy night, it would have been another faceless girl.

I wanted just one night to keep the beast sedated.

Because too long without one?

It starts pacing inside me—scratching, snarling, waiting for an excuse to tear loose. Sex keeps me level. Human. Grounded. I don’t like the man I become when I starve too long.

She was sitting at the far end of the bar. Red curls frizzed from the rain. Eyes big and brown, I can read through them. Haunted. She smelt cheap and broken, like a fighter in an armour that doesn't belong to her.

I clocked her, turned away, and ignored it.

Because, to be honest, she looked like much mess wrapped in soft skin.

But then… she turned those eyes on me like I was the answer to every silent scream she couldn’t voice.

And just like that, I was moving. Crossing the room.

I took her.

Not fast. Not even rough. It was not a normal day because it's strange. I don't do soft and slow.

That night, for the first time, I didn’t leave. I even slept.

And in the morning?

She was gone.

No note. Not even a name.

Just a wad of folded bills on the lampstand beside me like I was a fucking callboy.

Like she used me.

I remember staring at that cash for a long time, seething. I didn't take it.

And then today…

I finally learnt her name.

Kaia Merrick.

The name rolls off my brain like a goddamn punchline.

Because of course it’s her.

Of course it’s the woman who ghosted me like a trick and left cash on the bedside table like she just hired a callboy.

Of course she’s the one applying to work at my clinic—smelling exactly the same, acting like we’ve never met, like she didn’t grind her hips against me like I was oxygen.

She didn’t recognize me.

At least, she pretended not to.

I watched her sit in that chair, trying to play normal. Trying to impress me. That fake composure, the slight twitch in her fingers, the way her lips parted each time I ask her a question.

She had no idea I could still taste her.

So funny.

As the door closes behind her with a soft thud, I drop the pen and rub my eyes.

Because truth is, I wasn't even writing. I was pretending.

Pretending to focus.

Pretending she’s just another name in a file.

The night with her was the first night I had a good ten hours sleep.

And now, I don't know whether to hire or fuck her.

I grind my jaw and shut the thought down.

Unacceptable.

This? This is beneath me.

This is a distraction. A relapse. A misfire of instinct.

I’m not a fucking teenager chasing butterflies and memory ghosts.

I’m Dr. Caius Wolfe.

Alpha. Head of this clinic.

Discipline made flesh.

So I shut it down, locking it away and shove it into that place inside me that things go to die.

Then I mind-link Morgan.

“She’s hired. Send her the handbook.”

I don't let her reply before cutting the link. I glance at the NDA still sitting on my desk.

The corner of it curls slightly where she pressed too hard. Eager hand with nervous pressure. She didn’t even read it and just signed her soul away like it was a rental agreement.

My chest tightens—not with guilt.

I pity her, maybe. Just a little because her desperation made her blind to it.

I sigh and turn back to my actual work, dragging myself into a research file that’s been on hold for weeks.

However, I hear it before it happens.

The low chatter from the hallway just before the door swings open like it’s allergic to hinges.

And in come the goddamn disasters, the banes of my existence that I couldn't quite squash.

Leather. Loudness. That cocky, swaggering aura of testosterone and trouble.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I growl, slamming my pen against the table.“I told you not to wear your bike suits in here!”

Boots stomp in like it’s a bar fight, not a clinic.

Maddox is the first to step in—grinning, of course, hair tousled from the helmet, jaw cocky, that damn look in his eye like he just won something. Again.

It never ends.

The other one—Ronan, his brother,—isn’t far behind.

“Relax, Doc,” Maddox says, tossing his helmet onto my desk and I can only low-key thank the goddess for the water protection on the files. “The nurses love it.”

“This is a sterile facility,” I almost growl again.

Maddox throws himself into the chair across from me like this is some frat reunion. “That doesn't mean, brother. If you didn't want us making a mess of you, you would have come to that party yesterday's night.”

I can't believe it's this conversation again.

So, I inhale deeply. “First of all, I'm not your brother and will never be. And last of all before you fuckers disappear from—”

Ronan lets out a heavy sigh like I’m the problem here.

Typical.

He drops into the chair beside Maddox with all the grace of a bored god. Out of the two, I hate him more.

Not because he’s louder. Maddox is louder.

Not because he’s more reckless. Maddox wins that race too.

But because Ronan’s the kind of bastard who watches you bleed and makes you thank him for it. More like forces you to thank him for it.

“Can we not do this today?” he says, voice all exasperation and disdain.

Then he turns to Maddox. “Tell him why we came.”

And just like that, he flicks the attention back to me like I’m some roach they have to squash before lunch.

He leans back again and clicks his tongue. “You actually think people enjoy being in your presence.”

The sneer in his voice doesn’t miss. It never does.

See?

This right here is one of the many reasons I hate him.

I lean forward slowly, elbows to my desk, voice flat.

“You have three seconds.”

“We found our mate.” Maddox blurts.