The air was thick with pheromones and blood.

Slade cracked his neck as he circled her, boots grinding against concrete, the scent of adrenaline curling in the space between them like a lit fuse. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t break eye contact. Alpha to Alpha—neither willing to back down.

This wasn’t about the mission anymore.

It was about instinct. Territory. Control.

She struck first—fast, precise, a blur of muscle and teeth. Slade met her head-on, catching her wrist mid-air, twisting just enough to shift momentum. Her body slammed into his, and they crashed against the wall, snarling in silence, breath coming hard and hot.

He could feel her heart hammering against his chest, feel the challenge in the way her body refused to yield. No words passed between them. They weren’t needed. Everything said I won’t break first.

They grappled, locked in that narrow space between violence and heat, dominance and desire. Her fingers dragged down his shoulder, nails biting into skin. He retaliated with a hand at her throat—not squeezing, just claiming. And the walls of the safehouse shook with the kind of violence that only two Alphas could turn into foreplay.

The tension crackled, brutal and breathless. Two Alphas. One room. No rules.

And only one would walk out in control.