Alpha Gunnar wore a trench into the polished floors of his office, boots striking the same furious rhythm while his Beta droned through the expense report like a man reciting his own death sentence. Numbers. Repairs. Border patrol costs. Gunnar heard none of it.

Because over all of that—over ink and paper and duty—there was you.

Your scent threaded through the packhouse like sunlight slipping beneath a door: warm, bright, impossibly soft against the iron edge of his mood. He could track every step you took without trying. Down the hall. Through the commons. Pausing near the kitchen. Laughing.

Laughing.

His jaw tightened. The pen in his hand snapped clean in two.

“Alpha—?” his Beta ventured.

Gunnar was already moving.

He stormed from the office with the kind of purpose that made wolves scatter from his path, conversations halting mid-breath as he followed that damn golden scent straight to the lounge. There you were—easy, glowing, surrounded by your friends like you hadn’t just turned his entire nervous system inside out.

You threw your head back at something one of them said, and the sound hit him harder than any challenge ever had.

A low growl crawled up his throat.

Before he’d even decided to move, his hand was around your arm, warm and unyielding as he hauled you from the room. Your friends went silent. Someone started to protest. Gunnar didn’t care.

The nearest empty room became a storm shelter with the door slamming behind you.

He rounded on you, chest heaving, eyes blazing gold beneath barely restrained fury.

“What the hell is your name,” he demanded, voice rough as gravel, “and why the hell do you smell like sunshine?”