How long had it been since I had last heard him call me that?

Back when we were first matched, Kieran had never bothered to hide how much he disliked me. He had even argued with the Bureau staff in the matching hall, loudly enough to draw a crowd.

Pathetic little fool.

Pathetic stray.

Those had been some of his favorite names for me then.

I think that changed after the first time I helped them through rut.

Most of the time, Adrian and Kieran were impossible men—cold, arrogant, controlled. Rut stripped all of that away.

It was the only time either of them let me touch their wolf forms.

The same men who spent most of the month acting untouchable became restless and needy during rut, crowding close the second I sat down. In wolf form, they pressed against me, shoved their noses into my neck, and rubbed against me until I was flushed and breathless. If I tried to move away, they whined and followed. They curled around my legs, climbed half into my lap, and started fighting the moment one of them thought the other was getting more attention.

They called me their mate in voices so rough and desperate they barely sounded human.

I used to blush every time.

Even Kieran softened then.

Afterward, once rut had passed, he always looked half humiliated, as if he wanted to deny every second of it. But after that first cycle, he stopped taking quite so many shots at me.

For a while, I told myself that meant something.

A friend once told me that once a beast had clung to you like that, once he had let himself need you, even the coldest one would begin to soften.

Those were some of the sweetest memories I had of them.

And the truth was, I wasn’t as ridiculous as Kieran made me sound.

Maybe I looked small beside the Blackwood twins, but I wasn’t some joke.

So I told myself Kieran hadn’t meant it. I told myself that was just how he was—spoiled, sharp-tongued, too used to getting away with cruelty.

I had turned him down when he asked if I wanted to watch the game with him, bruised his pride, and he had lashed out.

That was what I told myself.

It still didn’t help me sleep.

Near midnight, I finally got out of bed and went downstairs for water.

A thin strip of light fell across the hall from the balcony doors.

Adrian and Kieran were out there.

One stood at the railing. The other leaned against the brick wall, a cigarette burning between his fingers.

I stopped just before the doorway and stayed hidden in the dark.

“Second time you’ve hit me over her,” Kieran said.

He blew smoke into the night. One side of his mouth was bruised, but he was smiling anyway.

It wasn’t a real smile.

“All because I called her a pathetic little fool?”

Adrian stood across from him with both hands in his pockets, his face unreadable.

Lately, he had been so gentle with me that I had almost forgotten what he was beneath it.

Wolf beasts were not gentle by nature. Neither Blackwood brother ever had been.

“If you don’t want her,” Adrian said evenly, “then stay away from her.”

He flicked ash over the railing. “And if I see you treat her like that again, I’ll hit you again.”

Kieran laughed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. You were right there with me when we filed the appeal. You hated this match just as much as I did. And now suddenly you’re playing the hero?”

He shook his head, still laughing.

Then he said, “All right. I get it. The trial year’s almost over, so now you’re being nice to her. You want her cooperative when it’s time to end it. If we hadn’t already agreed that was the plan, I might’ve actually believed you.”

The trial year.

My heart lurched.

Things had been so peaceful lately that I had almost forgotten.

The matching system wasn’t completely merciless. Even with high compatibility, not every bond worked. So after the assignment, there was a one-year trial period. If it worked, the bond became permanent. If it didn’t, both sides could walk away.

My fingers tightened against the edge of the wall.

So that was it.

Adrian had been kind to me because he wanted me to leave quietly.

He wasn’t any different from Kieran after all. He was just better at hiding it.

My chest hurt so badly I could barely breathe.

And then Adrian said, very simply—

“No.”

Kieran straightened. “What?”

“No,” Adrian said again. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

Kieran stared at him. “You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

“You actually want to keep the match?” Kieran’s voice sharpened. “That wasn’t the deal. We said if the trial year didn’t work, we’d end it and apply again.”

He let out a harsh laugh.

“Jesus, Adrian. She’s awkward, she’s a mess, and being tied to her makes us look ridiculous. We’ll be a joke.”

“Not us,” Adrian said. “You.”

Kieran’s face tightened.

“I never said I wanted anyone else,” Adrian continued.

Then, for the first time, something in his expression softened.

“Lil is good,” he said quietly. “She’s smart. She’s sweet. I was too blinded by my own prejudice to see it.”

Lil.

No one had ever shortened my name like that before.

I had never imagined Adrian thought of me that way. Never imagined that, in his mind, I was anything more than an obligation he was slowly learning to tolerate.

Then he looked back at Kieran and said, “So stay away from my mate.”

Kieran recoiled. “What the hell are you talking about? We haven’t ended the match. How is she your mate?”

“You were the one desperate to walk away,” Adrian said. “If you’ve already made up your mind, stop hanging around someone else’s mate.”

“Who the hell is hanging around her?” Kieran snapped. “You’re the one acting like she’s some kind of prize.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, suddenly restless.

“And rut doesn’t count,” he muttered. “That was instinct. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Adrian gave him one cold look.

“Idiot.”

Kieran ignored him. He took another drag from the cigarette, then said, more roughly, “Whatever. If you’re not ending it, then I’m not either. A beast dumping a human looks bad, and I’m not wearing that.”

He paused.

“And besides… Lila’s always looking at me like I hung the moon. Like she can’t help herself around me. She’s clingy as hell, but I’m not that cruel.”

Every word felt like another blow.

He kept going.

“We can make it work. You get used to someone after a while.” He shrugged. “Useless is whatever. It’s not like I need anything from her. But if I’m the one who walks, I’m the asshole. That sticks.”

He dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his heel.

“So fine. She stays. I can live with it.”

Then he added, with ugly finality, “But I’m not going to be the one who ends it.”

I slipped back to my room without making a sound and lay there staring at the ceiling.

So Kieran had planned it from the beginning.

He didn’t like me. Not my personality, not my place in his life, not the thought of being tied to me for the rest of his life. Men like him cared too much about pride, status, and always coming out on top. Being matched to me was the one thing in his life he couldn’t twist into a victory.

But if he ended it first, people would talk. A beast walking away from a human never looked good. He would be the one blamed for throwing me aside.

So he wouldn’t be the first to say it.

At first, the plan must have been simple: let Adrian keep me calm, then wait for me to leave on my own when the trial year ended.

Except Adrian had changed his mind.

He wanted to keep me.

So now Kieran was stuck with me, unwillingly.

He could live with it, he had said. He could get used to me. He could make do.

But I didn’t want to be something a man merely made do with.

When I was little, the clothes I got in foster care were always wrong somehow—too big, too small, in ugly colors no one would ever choose. The adults told us to wear them anyway.

The food was the same too—lukewarm casseroles, canned vegetables, boxed mac and cheese gone cold. Still, we were told to eat it and be grateful.

So I did.

I made do for years.

But I wasn’t a child anymore.

For the rest of my life, I didn’t want to be endured.

If Kieran wanted out that badly, then I would be the one to end it.

The next morning, I sat at the breakfast table, distracted, turning my coffee cup in slow circles.

I still didn’t know how to say it. Should I tell him now, or wait until the trial year was almost over?

Then laughter broke across the room.

I looked up just as Adrian came downstairs.

Even half awake, he looked severe and put together, all broad shoulders and sharp lines. Kieran was pointing at the mug in his hand, laughing so hard he had to lean back in his chair.

“Jesus, Adrian,” he said. “What the hell is that? Did you drag it out of a kindergarten art sale?”

I followed his gaze.

It was a cream-colored ceramic mug, slightly uneven in shape, with the glaze thicker on one side than the other. Near the handle, there was a tiny painted crescent moon with two little stars beside it.

Supposed to be, anyway.

From a distance, it looked more like a crooked yellow smudge.

Heat rushed straight to my face.

I got up at once and hurried over. “The glaze ran a little,” I muttered, reaching for it.

Adrian stopped beside me without protest and let me turn the mug in his hand so the messy side faced inward.

Behind us, Kieran was still laughing.

Then Adrian glanced at him and said calmly, “Lil made it for me. Christmas gift. You get one too?”

Silence.

Kieran’s smile vanished completely.