Page 63 of Bound

“You should join them,” Hunter says, and I turn to him with an eyebrow raised in question. “Seriously, have you even shifted outside of the pack runs?”

“I’m busy,” I tell him, turning back to my laptop andnotwatching Red from the corner of my eye.

“It will be good for your wolf. Isn’t he telling you to go to her?” he asks, sounding genuinely curious.

Yes!My wolf yells in excitement.No,I tell him firmly as I push him back, close my laptop, and stand.

“Where are you going?” Hunter asks as I head for the house.

“I’m too distracted out here. I have things to do.”

“You know it’s okay to take a break every now and then. Maybe it’ll even clear your mind.”

I ignore him, even though my wolf begs for me to stay and shift. How can I possibly run around and have fun when there are so many unanswered questions?

I can’t.

Failure isn’t an option. That’s something that has been driven into me since birth.

The Maple Bay Pack did not look like the kind of pack that demanded perfection, but it did. It hid its expectations behind polished boardrooms and charity galas, behind expensive suits and carefully managed public images, yet usefulness was the only currency that truly mattered.

My father was respected as a beta, steady and reliable, but no one ever mistook him for a future alpha. He met my mother in Korea, recognizing her as his fated mate at first sight. He brought her back to America to join his pack. She’d been raised in a strict household, one that valued intelligence and hard work, something she impressed upon me.

She was sharp-minded and exacting, the kind of woman who believed potential meant nothing if it was not fully realized. She did not raise me to rely solely on strength. She raised me to think three steps ahead, to anticipate weaknesses before they became threats, and to understand that intelligence is just another form of dominance.

That did not stop the pack from watching me like they were waiting for me to disappoint them. Maple Bay liked its wolves polished and predictable, and I was neither. I asked too many questions, noticed patterns other people ignored, and had no interest in pretending instinct was more noble than strategy.

During the day, I trained my body with the others as I was told, but at night? That was when I trained my mind.

I learned to code while the other kids were out partying. I studied markets the way they studied combat patterns. By eighteen, I had turned a small inheritance into significant wealth through legal and carefully calculated investments, and suddenly the traits they once viewed with suspicion became the reason they wanted me close.

That was when the alpha’s attention shifted toward me in a way that should have flattered me. But it didn’t.

What began as recognition gradually became expectation, and expectation slowly twisted into assumption. They started to demand more results, more money. When I pushed back, I was reminded that everything I built existed under Maple Bay’s protection, and that loyalty required contribution.

Contribution, however, was not enough for the alpha. He wanted control, and he wanted me to use my intelligence in ways that skirted legality, to move money through channels that would benefit leadership more than the pack as a whole. When I refused to cross those lines, the conversation changed from business to obligation.

A mate contract was proposed under the guise of strengthening alliances, but it was clear that binding me to a chosen female would secure my finances within pack bloodlines and make it nearly impossible for me to leave. The worst part? My father helped make the arrangements. Anything to be on the alpha's good side.

So I did what I had always done, and I prepared. I moved my personal money quietly and legally, making sure every asset was completely unattached to anyone in the pack long before I made my formal request for release. When they denied it, confident that the threat of rogue status would frighten me into compliance, I invoked the oldest financial clause in our pack law and paid back what they claimed I owed for my upbringing, down to the last documented cent.

My parents didn’t even say goodbye. They just turned their backs in disgust, showing me where their loyalties lay.

That’s why I cannot ignore unanswered questions now. I did not survive by hoping problems would resolve themselves, and I did not build independence by accepting uncertainty. Whatever is going on with Red,I will find it.

Because failure is not an option. I’ve already lost one family and I refuse to lose another.

Chapter 30

Cherry

When I wake with the need to pee, the room is still shrouded in darkness. Not wanting to wake all the sleeping men around me, I carefully maneuver myself out of the wolfy pile and into the hall. Tonight we’re sleeping in Chase’s room, since I refused to sleep in my room. I couldn’t. Not knowingBlazehad been in there.

Ever since the note was found, I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out who he could be. He must be someone I know from the facility to have left me such a personal message, but I don’t recognize his scent, and the burned vanilla makes me want to gag. Even though Maddox and Hunter changed the sheets in my room, I no longer feel comfortable there.

But right now I have to momentarily push that feeling aside as I don’t want to pee in Chase’s shower, and mine isn’t far.

When that’s taken care of, I head back to Chase’s room and pause at the door. Chase and Hunter are still in wolf form, curled up on the bed with the empty space for me between them. Maddox lies at Hunter’s side in human form, sleepingdeeply, and Bain is in the armchair in the far corner, his head tilted back and a tiny snore escaping his lips.