CHAPTER 2 – FIVE AM

I didn't sleep.

I went back to my dorm with my inhaler in my fist and my neck burning where his mouth had been. My roommate was snoring. I stood in our tiny shower for twenty minutes and scrubbed until my skin was red.

It didn't work.

I could still smell him. Not cologne. Heat and chlorine and something wild underneath, like the locker room but deeper. It was on my hoodie. On my skin. In my hair.

Every time I closed my eyes I heard him: You smell fucking irresistible.

At 3:47 am my alarm wasn't even set yet and I was already dressed. Sweats. Old team t-shirt. Inhaler in my pocket. I told myself I wasn't going because of pack law. I was going because if I didn't, he'd come find me. That was the lie I needed.

The service door to the natatorium is around the back by the dumpsters. The keycard reader was dead at that hour. The door was propped open two inches with a folded kickboard.

He'd left it for me.

The pool air hit me at 4:52 am. Warm and wet and full of chlorine. The overhead lights were off. Only the underwater lights were on, so the whole room glowed blue.

Karl was already in the water.

He wasn't doing sprints. He was doing slow, brutal laps, like he was punishing something inside him. No cap. No goggles. Every time he turned, water sheeted off his back and shoulders. He looked human from far away. Up close, you could see the control shaking in his arms.

He didn't stop when I walked in. He finished the lap, hit the wall, and surfaced. His eyes were brown again. Normal. He was breathing hard.

"You came," he said.

"You left the door open."

"I said five," he said. "You're early."

"I don't sleep much."

He pulled himself out in one motion. Water ran down his chest, his stomach, the dark waistband of his jammers. He didn't bother with a towel. He walked straight to me and stopped a foot away.

He inhaled. Once. Slow.

His jaw tightened.

"Still there," he muttered. "It's worse in here."

"What is?"

"Your scent. Chlorine should kill everything. It's making it louder."

My face got hot. "Is that bad?"

"It's dangerous," he said. He grabbed a towel finally, but he didn't dry off. He just held it. "For you."

He led me to the lifeguard office and shut the door. It was small and warm. He tossed me a sealed water bottle from the mini fridge. Then he pulled his own bottle out of his parka from last night. Half empty. The plastic was warped where his hand had crushed it.

"Smell," he said.

I unscrewed it. It smelled like normal sports drink and something metallic underneath. Bitter.

"Wolfsbane extract," he said. "Not enough to drop me. Enough to spike the bleed on the third night. Whoever did it knows my cycle."

"Who knows it?"

"The pack. The team," he said. "Half the A-relay are wolves. That's why we're fast."

My stomach dropped. "The whole team?"

"Enough of it," he said. "And they wanted a human witness. A scared freshman with a phone. They didn't expect you."

"Why me?"

He looked at me then, really looked. Not through me like two years of practices.

"Because you're invisible, Theo. Ghosts don't get noticed until they scream."

He sat on the edge of the desk, close enough that his knee brushed mine. He was still too hot, even wet.

"Pack law is real," he said, quieter. "You saw me mid-shift on our territory. That makes you my responsibility. I have to keep you alive, keep you quiet, and keep other wolves off you. The easiest way to do that is a claim."

"Like last night."

"That wasn't a claim," he said. "That was me losing my mind because you smell like a compatible. A real one. Not just pretty. Right."

"Compatible for what?"

He didn't answer. He reached out and turned my head gently with two fingers under my chin, exposing my throat where he'd mouthed me in the locker room. The skin was pink. No mark. It still tingled.

"They'll smell me on you at six am practice," he said. "Coach will. Jace will. Jace is my beta and he hates that I'm heir. If he smells a human I haven't formally claimed, he'll think you're fair game. Or leverage."

"So what do we do?"

"We cover it," he said. "With me."

He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit down. Fast. Not deep. Blood welled, dark and bright. The smell hit the small office instantly — copper and ozone and that wild thing from last night, ten times stronger.

My knees went weak for a different reason.

Karl pressed his bleeding wrist to the side of my neck, right over my pulse. He held it there and rubbed once, slow.

Heat shot straight down my spine. My breath caught. It wasn't pain. It was wrong and perfect at the same time, like my body recognized something my brain didn't.

He pulled back. His eyes had gone gold at the edges.

"There," he said, voice rough. "Now you smell like mine, not like something I licked in a locker room. It's a surface claim. It'll last through practice."

I touched my neck. My fingers came away with a smear of his blood. "Is this normal?"

"No," he said. "Nothing about you is normal."

The main pool door banged open out in the natatorium. Voices. Early arrivals.

Karl was on his feet in a second. He pushed me behind him, one arm back like a bar.

"Stay," he breathed.

Jace walked in with two other guys from A-relay. Tall, broad, laughing. Jace stopped when he saw Karl. His nose twitched.

He looked past Karl, straight at me.

"Well," Jace said, smiling but not with his eyes. "Look who finally decided to show up for morning practice. And bringing a pet."

Karl didn't move. "He's with me."

Jace's smile faded. He inhaled deliberately. I saw his pupils blow wide.

"You marked a human?" he said. "On a bleed night? Are you stupid, Maddox?"

Karl stepped forward, blocking me completely now. His shoulders went wide. The air in the office got heavy.

"Pack law, Jace. He saw. He's mine. You touch him, you answer to me."

The other two went still.

Jace stared at Karl's throat, then at me behind him. "He smells... fuck. What is he?"

"Not your concern," Karl said. "Practice starts at six. You're early."

Jace didn't leave. He was watching my neck where Karl's blood was drying.

"Alpha's going to love this," Jace said softly. "His golden heir claiming a wheezing benchwarmer three nights before the full moon. Real strong optics."

Karl smiled, and it was terrifying. "Tell my father yourself. See how that goes for you."

For a second I thought Jace would swing. Then the pool door opened again and Coach's whistle blew.

Jace backed off, but he pointed two fingers at his own eyes, then at me.

"See you in the water, Ghost," he said.

They left.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. My hands were shaking.

Karl turned around. His eyes were still gold.

"You okay?" he asked.

I nodded, but I wasn't. My whole body was buzzing from his blood on my skin. From the way he'd stepped in front of me like I was worth a fight.

"Five am was to hide you," he said quietly. "That didn't work."

"What do we do now?"

He looked down at my neck, at his mark, and his thumb brushed over it, gentle and possessive at once.

"Now," he said, "you get in the pool with me. If you're going to smell like mine, the team needs to see you at my side, not hiding behind the bleachers."

He handed me a spare pair of goggles from the desk.

"Can you swim a warm-up without dying, Ellis?"

For the first time in two years, Karl Maddox was looking at me and waiting for my answer.

I took the goggles.

"Watch me," I said.