After several minutes alone, a rap knocked on the door. "I heard shouting." Luke rested against the door frame. Shadows set under his eyes as if he hadn't slept in a week, and a fine layer of stubble graced his chin.

I shook my head, sifting through the right words to choose. "You shouldn't be here right now." Tears streamed down my face. There was no stopping them, even if I had wanted to. My shoulders weighed with the force of the entire universe.

Luke proceeded over with caution. His thumb went to catch a lone tear from my cheek as he held my eyes for a moment too long, but I recoiled, turning away from his touch.

"Since he met you, Paul has belittled himself that he's not right for you because he can't give you what you want without taking something from himself. You go; he loses you. You stay; he'll watch you lose yourself and the future you always planned—he knows this. Hell, I know it too, it's the sole reason my mother left my father, and I don't begrudge her for that, not anymore, not when I see what you have gone through. There's no way for Paul to win."

I met Luke's concerned stare. "He thinks I've been unfaithful in some way. I had a stupid dream and it wasn't even anything I could control."

Luke swallowed hard. "Last night, I dreamt of you. You and I were... we...fuck. And thanks to the car ride we just took whilst you slept for Benton, he now knows that, too."

"You did what and how does he know that?" How was it possible we had both had dreams where we were each other's character love interests the night after my first full shift?

"I'm sorry, Dana. The dream I had was like nothing I'd ever experienced. Besides counting sheep the whole journey, it kept replaying in my head. I couldn't stop thinking about marking you. He heard everything my brain wouldn't switch off."

My cheeks flamed crimson, and I didn't know where to look. My stare bounced to the floor, the bed, and then toward Luke's ocean-blue eyes. The sound of my buttons popping and scattering over the floor fueled a fire in them. Luke's gaze dropped to the same spot where I had watched them roll.

The same envelopment of feelings from my dream began to creep up in a betrayal I would be able to stop this time.

"Move further away," I commanded, and with sharpness in my tone, he did. I was grateful because, at that moment, I didn't entirely trust myself. I needed to sort this out. No guts-no payoff. Luke's gaze had drifted to my mouth and fuck for a moment I was about to accept that some shots you just can't land.

"I don't know what's happening," he admitted. "Paul said the damndest thing happened when you shifted. He had this crazy urge to mark you. To claim you with a bite."

"What's wrong, Luke? Just say it straight."

"Marking is an alpha's rite," Luke said slowly. "Not a beta's. Maybe he felt forced to mark you into our pack? An Alpha can mark a mate," he said. "Not the reverse."

My breath caught. I'd had the same urge with Paul, though its meaning eluded me until now. My memory shut down quickly, but too late.

"Have you wanted to mark someone?" His gaze pierced me. I shook my head, lying.

Luke shuffled closer, his jaw tightening. "Marking a mate is involuntary. The urge must be consensual. It's a primal recognition of the one you're meant to be with. It transcends mere attraction." His eyes softened. "It's not about dominance."

His words crawled over my skin. I nodded, feigning comprehension, though my mind raced with the image of Paul, his lips on mine, and the urge to bite him making a lot more sense, but the how was still a mystery. I was no Alpha.

He took a shaky breath. "Since you walked into the shop, I've wanted to mark you as mine."

The amber glint returned to his eyes. His muscles tensed under his shirt—signs of his wolf rising close to the surface. I shrank back against the headboard and stared at Luke in shock as his confession sunk in. He had wanted to mark me as his mate from the moment we met? The realization was staggering.

Luke must have sensed my unease. He held up his hands reassuringly. "There must be a reason I feel this pull towards you." He looked at me sheepishly. "Have you ever found my scent alluring?"

"No," I said quickly. Too quickly. I felt the color vanish from my face, leaving a pallor colder than winter's chill.

Suddenly, a rich, woodsy aroma enveloped me again. It wasn't exactly alluring, but something about it fascinated me, like an intoxicating perfume; like raw power.

Luke edged closer. "Why don't I believe you?" He inclined his head. "That's an Alpha's scent," he murmured. "As compelling as a mate bond. It draws lower-ranked wolves in. Sometimes, it compels them to bite to ascend. Easily confused. Often deadly."

I shivered again, unnerved by his nearness and the heady scent clouding my senses, leaving me a little light-headed. His scent was all around me; it was woodsmoke and rain-soaked earth, a whisper of wildness that stirred in me an unknown longing too frightening to explore.

Luke's inner wolf was perilously close to the surface now, a dangerous glint in his eyes. His fingers pushed the hair on my neck aside and a whole forest of goosebumps followed in their wake.

What was happening?

"Paul may have wanted to bite you..."Luke leaned in closer still, his eyes amber pools that threatened to drown me in their depths. "But," he continued, with a sensual edge to his voice that made my heart pound in my chest, "the Alpha's mark is the only one that matters. It overpowers all others."

I swallowed hard, struggling to keep my expression neutral.

Luke chuckled, running a hand over his darkly stubbled chin.

"You feel the effects of an Alpha too. What I haven't figured out is why I feel them about you."

His fingers now moved in slow circles up my arm, across the slope of my shoulder, and along the base of my neck, until they paused and he swallowed hard. Luke's eyes glowed like the embers of a fire about to rage.

I couldn't move. Not out of fear but because something inside of me didn't want to. A weighted pause followed until sanity snapped back: Paul had known about the dream before I'd even awoken from its encore. He knew that I had said nothing the whole time he sat there, and in his eyes, that made me both a liar and a cheat. This conversation could not have gone worse.

I deflected. "So, Paul knows everything about the dream?"

Luke nodded, and I began to panic, my mind considering a multitude of possibilities on how I could correct this mess and appease Paul. None of it added up because underneath it all sat another lie, one he would never forgive me for if it became a reality. And that omission made me cry harder.

I literally couldn't hear anymore. Maybe the dominance Luke had over Paul was a wolf thing but he was also his brother, and a fact our dreamland escapades needed to get a grip with.

"Dana, "I'll keep my distance. If I can. But I am not sure I'm going to be able to control the wolf in me."

It was not a question, but a declaration. A claim and a warning rolled into one. And for a fact, when Paul stormed out of here earlier, I now know he knew that too.