CHAPTER 74: _ CRUSH?

Ace begins to rise. His chair screeches back against the polished lobby floor. His grin sharpens as he rolls his shoulders, like he’s seconds away from stepping into Darien’s space.

But Lucan finally moves. He doesn’t even shift his stance fully. He just lifted a hand to stop his friend. "Cut it out, Ace."

The command in his tone is soft but weighted, enough to stop Ace in his tracks. The latter mutters under his breath but collapses back into his chair, drumming his fingers on the armrest.

With that, Darien doesn’t give him the satisfaction of a second glance. He proceeds to walk past them, shoulders square, and eyes forward.

And Isolde? She’s still nailed to the floor by the weight of Nash’s stare. Her wolf is literally somersaulting in her chest.

"We have to claim him before your sister finds out, Isolde. We can’t lose our mate!"

But her rational side? Her logical side is clawing at the walls of her sanity. Claim Nash? The very same Nash who’s dated half the girls in three packs combined? The one Daphne doodles about in her journals with little hearts around his name? The one she’s rolled her eyes at a thousand times, calling him a shallow, swaggering waste of Alpha-adjacent genetics?

Absolutely not.

And yet...

The bond is sizzling. It’s irresistible, like a current sparking under her skin. Every nerve in her body is lit, tuned, and pointing like a compass to the boy standing ten paces away. Nash.

His lips part slightly, as though he wants to speak. But he doesn’t. For once, the notorious charmer has nothing to say. He’s staring at her, stunned, the same disbelief mirrored in his eyes.

Isolde grips the strap of her bag so tightly she’s half afraid it will snap. She forces her feet to move, to follow Darien, to get away before she does something humiliating like... like smell Nash’s neck. Gods, she can smell him from here. That oat scent with the sharp tang of wolf beneath it.

Her wolf is practically drooling. "Home, Isolde. Maybe he’s the home you’ve been dreaming of."

Home? Daphne’s crush is ’home’?

Isolde snarls under her breath. "Shut. Up."

"Stop whining, he’s perfect."

Maybe he is too perfect for her. Or maybe he’s perfect for some other girl... like Daphne. But Isolde knows—every cell in her knows that this is only the beginning of her worst nightmare wrapped in destiny’s glittering bow.

Oh... the universe must really hate Isolde Bellamy.

She’s still reeling from the shockwave of Nash’s stare, and the bond scorching her veins raw, when the double doors of the suite lobby burst open with the energy of a hurricane. Enter Daphne. Of course. Bright, bubbly, bouncing Daphne, who comes tumbling in with Lira at her side, the two girls are tangled together in giggles and blushes.

The first thing that comes to Isolde’s mind is: what are these two up to? It’s not like Lira to go around giggling and gisting with Daphne, since everyone knows the only company Lira enjoys the most is Amias’s when her books are kept away. It’s not like Lira isn’t friends with Isolde and Daphne, but she sometimes acts like having friends is a taint on her ’bookworm’ reputation.

In the end, Isolde shrugs her suspicion off as this being one of those times when Lira accepts that she’s not the mysterious beauty with a brain facade she maintains daily, but literally no different from Daphne.

"Liraaaa, I swear, I don’t know if I should wear this to the ball!" Daphne whines dramatically, tugging at the sleeve of her shimmering gown. She’s half sprawled over Lira’s arm like she might faint if she doesn’t get an answer this very second.

Lira just laughs, shaking her head. "It’s perfect, stop being dramatic."

They’re so wrapped in their conversation they don’t even notice the tension rippling through the lobby. Not Nash’s taut silence, not Ace’s sulking, not the way Isolde looks like she might hurl her guts onto the floor at any moment. It’s like fate has decided to stage a comedy show right inside Isolde’s personal hell.

Lira spots her first. "Isolde!" she chirps, waving.

Isolde jerks around, trying to paste something neutral onto her face. But the movement is enough to draw Daphne’s eyes too. Her little sister follows the turn of her head and—oh no. No, no, no.

Daphne freezes mid-step as her gaze lands on Nash.

The air leaves the room like someone hit pause on reality. Daphne’s lips part, her blue eyes going wide, shimmering with something far too hopeful, and far too vulnerable. It’s the look of a girl seeing her dream boy standing ten feet away.

And Isolde’s insides shrivel. She usually finds this look Daphne wears around Nash disgusting, but right now... what she feels is a different ball game. Her chest tightens and burns as though the sight playing before her is a pool of hot water her heart has been dipped in.

What... what is this feeling? She stutters internally, unable to find an answer to that one dire question.

"Hey, Nash," Lira says casually, clearly unaware of the nuclear bomb that has just dropped into the room. "Do you have a date for the ball yet?"

Isolde’s pulse beats louder in her ears. Oh no. Don’t do this. Don’t...

Nash blinks at his little sister, caught off guard. "Uh. Why?"

Lira tilts her head toward Daphne with a mischievous grin. "Because I think you should take Daphne. Obviously."

The word obviously detonates like dynamite in Isolde’s head. Daphne gasps, covering her mouth with her hand. The pink flush that blooms on her cheeks is so bright it could light the whole lobby.

Why.. why tonight of all the years of this Daphne’s schoolgirl’s crush toward Nash that Lira has to try to match them up?

Ace is the first to snicker. "Bro, no way! You finally get to take your crush to the ball. Look at that. Guess fate’s on your side."

Crush?

Isolde’s heart jumps into her stomach. She whips her head to Ace so fast her neck cracks. Crush? Did he just say Daphne is Nash’s crush too?