Chapter 10 Impossible Choices
RYAN'S POV
I paced my room like a caged animal, my feet wearing a path in the carpet I had walked a thousand times before. The walls felt too close, the air too thick, and every breath tasted like failure. Sunset was three hours away. Three hours to decide if I would complete a mate bond with a woman I didn't love and sever any chance with the only woman I have always wanted.
The mate bond was permanent. Unbreakable. Once completed, my wolf would belong to Sophia forever, and Lisa would fade into nothing but a painful memory of what I had thrown away twice. My hands shook as I gripped the edge of my desk, my knuckles turned white because I couldn't hold myself together.
But refusing Sophia meant exposing Lisa to more danger. If Sophia truly was Viktor's pawn, if she was working to destabilize the pack from within, then keeping her close as my mate might be the only way to monitor her plans. It might be the sacrifice the pack needed from me.
Duty or desire. The choice my father had raised me to make without hesitation.
So why was I hesitating?
A knock on my door shattered my spiraling thoughts. Lisa stood in the hallway, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, her eyes red-rimmed but dry. She had been crying. That knowing twisted in my gut like a knife.
"I'm not here to beg," she said before I could speak. Her voice was steady, proud, everything I loved about her condensed into five words. "I'm here to tell you to make your own choice. Do what you think is right for the pack, for yourself, for whatever future you want. But don't do it for me."
"Lisa—"
"Truly, I mean it, Ryan." She stepped inside, closing the door behind her with a soft click. "I survived three years without you. I can survive the rest of my life if I have to. My heart might break, my wolf might howl until she loses her voice, but I'll survive." Her chin lifted in that stubborn way that made my chest ache. "So don't complete that bond thinking you're protecting me. I don't need your protection. I never did."
She turned to leave, and I caught her wrist without thinking. Her skin was warm under my fingers, her pulse racing despite her calm exterior. "What if I need yours?"
"What?"
"What if I need you to protect me from making the biggest mistake of my life for the second time?" I pulled her closer, desperate and done pretending I wasn't. "What if the only thing I'm sure of anymore is that losing you again will destroy me more completely than any rogue army could?"
Her eyes searched mine, looking for lies and finding only truth. "Then don't lose me."
Three words. Simple. Impossible.
Nathan's voice shouted from somewhere down the hall, urgent and panicked. We broke apart as he burst through my door without knocking, his laptop clutched against his chest and his face flushed with exertion.
"I found something," he gasped, struggling to catch his breath. "Sophia's finances. I've been digging through every account, every transaction for the past five years." He opened his laptop on my desk, pulling up spreadsheets covered in numbers that blurred together. "Look at these deposits. These are monthly payments from an offshore account. Always the same amount, always on the first of the month. They started the day she turned eighteen."
Lisa leaned over Nathan's shoulder, her brow furrowed. "How much?"
"Enough to live comfortably without working. Enough to fund a lifestyle beyond what most pack members could afford." Nathan clicked through several screens, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "I traced the account through three shell corporations before hitting a wall. But the last name on the ownership chain?" He looked up at us. "Viktor Ashford."
My wolf surged forward, demanding action. "That's proof she's working with him."
"It's proof someone connected to Viktor has been paying her," Nathan corrected carefully. "It could be a trust fund from her adoptive parents, or payment for services rendered, or—"
"Or Viktor's been funding his daughter's infiltration for years," Lisa finished quietly.
I checked my watch. It was Two hours until sunset. One hour until I was supposed to give Sophia my answer about completing the bond. "I need to confront her. Now."
The Alpha's office—Lisa’s father's office—had been transformed in less than a day. Sophia had replaced the heavy wooden furniture with lighter, more modern pieces. The scent of fresh flowers covered the lingering smoke smell, and new curtains framed windows that had been thoroughly cleaned. She stood behind the desk like she had been born for this, sorting through papers with the efficiency of someone planning to stay.
"Ryan." Her smile was warm, welcoming, completely artificial. "I wasn't expecting you until later."
"We need to talk about your finances."
Her smile didn't falter, but something flickered in her eyes. Caution. Calculation. "That's an odd conversation topic hours before we're supposed to solidify our bond."
"Nathan found monthly deposits from an offshore account linked to Viktor Ashford." I watched her face carefully, looking for cracks in the mask. "Care to explain?"
Sophia laughed, the sound light and genuinely amused. She opened a drawer and pulled out a folder, sliding it across the desk toward me. "This is exactly why I love Nathan. Always thorough. Always suspicious." She gestured to the folder. "Those deposits are from a trust fund my parents set up when they adopted me. The account is managed by a firm that Viktor Ashford happens to have invested in, along with about forty other clients. It's a coincidence, nothing more."
I flipped through the documentation. Everything looked legitimate. Legal papers, investment statements, and correspondence from the trust managers. Either Sophia was telling the truth, or Viktor had prepared an airtight cover story years in advance.
"Satisfied?" Sophia asked softly. She walked around the desk, moving closer with the grace of a predator approaching prey.
"Ryan, I understand you're scared. I know change is frightening, especially now with everything falling apart. But we can build something better together. Stronger."
Before I could step back, she closed the distance between us and pressed her lips to mine. The kiss was practiced, skilled, designed to trigger the mate bond completion through physical contact and emotional vulnerability.
My wolf recoiled violently. Every instinct screamed wrong, wrong, wrong. My body recognized what my mind had been denying….Sophia wasn't my mate. She would never be my mate. The bond the elders had tried to forge through politics and proximity was a pale shadow of what I felt every time Lisa breathed in my direction.
I pushed Sophia away, maybe harder than necessary. She stumbled back against the desk, and for just a moment—less than a heartbeat—her mask slipped. Her eyes went cold, calculating, empty of the warmth she'd been projecting. Then she blinked and the hurt, confused woman was back.
"Ryan? What's wrong?"
"I can't do this." The words came out rough, final. "I can't complete a bond with you when my heart belongs to someone else. It wouldn't be fair to either of us."
"Fair?" Her voice sharpened slightly before she caught herself. "We don't have the luxury of fairness right now. The pack needs—"
The conversation shattered as horns blew from the perimeter. Three short blasts, a pause, then three more. The signal for visitors approaching the pack lands. But Viktor wasn't supposed to arrive for another hour.
Sophia and I raced outside to find the pack gathering at the main gates. Daniel stood at the front line, he looked very worried. Nathan was beside him, his hand on a weapon I hoped he wouldn't need to use. And Lisa stood between the elders, her face pale but composed.
The gates opened slowly, metal grinding against metal in the sudden silence. Rogues poured through, not the handful we had expected for a diplomatic visit, but dozens. Maybe a hundred. An army dressed in civilian clothes, their eyes scanning the pack territory like they were mapping it for future invasion.
And at the front of that army walked a man who could only be Viktor Ashford. He was older than I had imagined, his gray hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, his face weathered but handsome. He wore simple clothes but carried himself with the confidence of someone who'd never been challenged and survived.
In his left hand, he carried a white flag of truce. In his right hand, held high enough for everyone to see, was Lisa's father's Alpha ring.