Page 63 of Never Submit

I finish the last bite of my sandwich and wipe my hands, steeling myself. “She’s Noble’s mate, Mathis,” I say finally, my voice even. “She can’t belong to either of us now.”

The words land like a fist to the gut. Mathis freezes, his shoulders stiffening as his head snaps up to stare at me. “I know.”

I cross my arms, my tone firm but not unkind. “He felt the bond. It’s done.”

Mathis stares at me, the words hanging heavy in the air between us. For a moment, he doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, but I can see the exact second they hit him. His expression shifts—just a flicker, a crack in the alpha armor he wears so well.

“I’m still trying to process it,” he replies softly. “I actually thought…”

I nod, watching him closely.

His hands grip the edge of the desk, his knuckles whitening as the tension ripples through him. Then his shoulders sag, the fight draining out of him like air from a punctured tire.

“I don’t understand how it’s possible. She’s a human.”

“Not anymore, remember?”

A single nod, that’s all he gives me but it says a lot. “Nothing we can do about it now. Wolves have one mate. Even not-so-wolves like Ren.”

I shrug. “Noble had mentioned it in the woods when he found us, but she didn’t seem to know what it meant. Maybe there’s room for interpretation.”

I fucked her, after all. The lure to anyone other than your mate is not supposed to exist in a true bond. Right?

For a few seconds, the room is quiet except for the faint hum of voices in the hallway and beyond.

“Flora was right. You care about her,” I say, not an accusation, just a simple truth.

Mathis’s head lifts, and his eyes meet mine. There’s no denial, no attempt to mask it. Just that same flicker of raw, unspoken pain that I saw from him before. “I do,” he admits, the words barely above a whisper. “I…did.”

I want to sayme too,but the words stick in my throat. I like fucking Red—reallylike it—but Mathis clearly feels something more for her. He must have been hoping he’d be in Noble’s place.

Damn it, seeing him like this—raw and broken in a way Mathis never lets anyone see—makes me hate Noble even more.

I clear my throat, forcing the tension down as Mathis grabs one of the sandwiches for himself and leans back in his chair. “This is going to get messy,” he says, his voice heavy with resignation.

I snort. “It already is.”

The elevator groans as it crawls upward, steel and cables clanking like some mechanical beast swallowing us whole. My eyes dart to every corner of the tiny, confining box.

Can’t breathe here. Can’t move.

Can’t do shit other than swallow the panic.

Cameras. Four of them. Each one watching us like we’re specimens under a microscope.

I hate this. My wolf hates this.

“This place is a fortress,” I mutter. “Cameras on every floor, armed deltas, and who the hell knows what else hidden in the walls.”

It’s like Torin and his shitty pack expects an attack any day now.

Mathis stands next to me with his arms loose at his sides. He looks calm, but I feel his tension—his wolf is as uneasy as mine.

“That’s the point,” he says, not looking at me. “Get it together. I can’t have you lose it now.”

I huff out a ragged laugh but my lungs burn and my throat tightens. The red lights flicker up one floor after another and mark our rise, but fuck, I’ve got to get off this thing.

Flora, standing between us, raises a brow. “Maybe you should be grateful for the security instead of grumbling about it. If we had half of this, maybe I wouldn’t be the only omega left at Grey Valley.”

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