WYATT'S POV
Wyatt woke up gasping.
His heart was pounding so hard he thought his chest might explode. Sweat soaked through his shirt. For a second he didn't know where he was. Just knew that he'd been running toward something. Or away from something. The dream was already fading but the feeling remained. Desperate. Urgent. Like he was losing something crucial and couldn't do anything to stop it.
He sat up in the darkness of his bedroom. Victoria was sleeping next to him, her breathing deep and steady. She never woke up. Never seemed bothered by anything. Sometimes he wondered what it was like to be that comfortable. That settled.
His wolf was awake inside him. Pacing. Restless. Furious.
Wyatt got out of bed quietly and walked to his study. It was four in the morning. Too early to do anything productive. Too late to go back to sleep. He poured himself a drink and sat in the darkness, trying to remember the dream.
There was a woman. He could feel her presence like a ghost in his mind. He could almost remember her laugh. Almost remember the feeling of her hands on his chest. Almost remember the smell of rain and lake water.
But when he tried to grab those memories, they slipped away.
This had been happening for three months. Ever since the rogue attack. Ever since the gap in his memory. His father said it was normal. Trauma did things to your head. Forced you to make peace with confusion. He'd told Wyatt he'd always been engaged to Victoria. That the confusion was just his mind playing tricks. That he should accept it and move forward.
Wyatt wanted to believe him.
But his wolf knew better.
His wolf had been going insane for three months. Restless. Violent. Rejecting everything and everyone. Especially Victoria. His wolf's response to her was cold. Dismissive. Like his animal instincts recognized something that his human mind refused to accept.
That she was wrong.
That something was deeply wrong about this whole situation.
The sun started coming up around six. Wyatt had spent the last two hours sitting in the darkness, drinking whiskey and trying to remember things that refused to be remembered. His father would be awake soon. Already demanding his attention. Already expecting him to lead the pack through the day like he wasn't falling apart inside.
He went back to the bedroom and showered in the dark. Got dressed. When he came back out, Victoria was sitting up in bed, watching him with an expression that was too knowing for this hour.
"Bad dream?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"You should take one of those tea blends I made. For stress. They help me sleep better."
Wyatt had been drinking her tea for weeks. Some herbal thing she insisted was relaxing. It did make him drowsy. It also made the restlessness worse. Made the fragmented memories harder to grasp. But his father approved of it. Said it was good for an Alpha to manage his emotions. To stay calm. To not give in to the weakness of his wolf.
"Maybe," Wyatt said.
Victoria slipped out of bed. She was beautiful. Perfect features. Perfect body. Perfect pedigree. Her family was elite. Powerful. Connected. Everyone said they were a perfect match. A perfect union of two powerful pack families.
Except his wolf hated her.
She put her arms around him and he held her because that's what he was supposed to do. She smelled like expensive perfume and sleep. Not like what his fragmented memories insisted he wanted. Not like rain and lake water and something he couldn't name.
"My father's having dinner tonight," Victoria said. "To discuss wedding plans. Your father already agreed."
Wedding. Right. Because they were getting married. Because that's what powerful people did. They consolidated power through strategic unions. He and Victoria were a strategy. A business decision wrapped in romance.
Wyatt pulled away from her.
"I need to get to the office," he said.
He left before she could respond.
The North Ridge packhouse was massive. An estate that sprawled across hundreds of acres. His office was on the third floor, overlooking pack territory. He spent most of his days in meetings. Discussing pack politics. Managing disputes. Making decisions that affected hundreds of lives. He was good at it. Good at the cold logic of leadership. Good at putting emotion aside.
That was the problem.
He was getting too good at putting emotion aside.
By noon, Wyatt had attended five meetings and made three decisions that would impact pack law for years. He'd smiled at the right moments. Said the right things. Projected the image of a strong, capable Alpha who had everything under control.
None of it felt real.
He was sitting at his desk staring out the window when his phone rang. The emergency line. The one reserved for pack crisis.
"Alpha," the caller said. "There's been a major accident on the north ridge road. Multiple pack members injured. Some critically. We need you at the hospital now."
Wyatt was moving before the person finished speaking. This was the part of being Alpha that he understood. Not the politics. Not the strategy. The immediate crisis. The moment where he could be useful.
He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. River, his brother, was already waiting in the hallway.
"Heard," River said. They started moving toward the exit together. "How bad?"
"Bad enough that they're calling me in the middle of the day."
They got to Wyatt's car in minutes. The drive to the hospital took fifteen minutes. Wyatt spent the entire time on the phone, getting updates, coordinating response, making sure injured pack members got the care they needed.
When he pulled into the hospital parking lot, ambulances were already lining the driveway. Paramedics were moving frantically. Nurses in scrubs were running between vehicles.
Wyatt was out of the car before it stopped.
He took command of the scene the way he'd been trained to do. Assessed injuries. Coordinated with medical staff. Carried a severely injured pack member into the emergency room himself because that's what an Alpha did. He led by example. He didn't ask others to do what he wouldn't do himself.
He passed through the reception area carrying the injured wolf. The room was chaos. Controlled chaos, but still chaos. Medical equipment. Voices. The smell of blood and fear.
Then he smelled something else.
Something that made him stop dead.
Rain and lake water.
His wolf erupted inside him. Not the constant restless pacing. This was different. This was violent. Desperate. Like something inside him was clawing to break free.
He knew that smell.
He looked toward the reception desk and there she was.
Just standing there in her hospital scrubs. Real. Solid. Not a memory or a dream or a fragment he'd imagined. She was actually here. Actually real. And she was looking at him like she recognized him. Like she felt it too.
Like she knew.
His hand moved toward her without his permission. His wolf was screaming. Claiming. Demanding he cross that room and grab her and not let go ever again.
Then Victoria appeared beside him. Her hand slid possessively through his arm. The moment shattered. He forced himself to look away from the woman at the reception desk. Forced himself to focus on the injured pack member in his arms. Forced his wolf back into the cage where it belonged.
But he could still smell her.
And his wolf would never forget.