"Strip. Everything off. Water in sixty seconds."
Nobody moved for about two seconds.
Then everyone moved at once.
Daciana did not move.
She stood at the back of the group and ran the numbers. Thirty recruits. All male. All already pulling their shirts off without thinking about it. The beard was holding. The binding was tight. The voice was ready.
She was fine.
Then Rodrigo walked down the sand and the bite mark blazed and she was significantly less fine.
Not gradual. Not a slow warm-up. Just — immediate. Heat flooding from her neck down her spine like a switch flipping, her body announcing itself to someone who hadn't even looked at her yet. She pressed two fingers hard to the mark and told it very specifically to stop.
It did not stop.
She kept her head down, shoulders square, hands in pockets, and watched Rodrigo move to the front of the group with Zarek behind him easy and grinning and Kruze last — steady, already scanning, already cataloguing everything.
She waited until most of the group was busy being loud about the cold, then stepped forward.
Low voice. Steady. Completely forgettable.
"Alpha. I've got an injury. Under the wrapping. If I strip it open on the beach it'll get contaminated and I'll be out for three weeks. Requesting to swim clothed."
Rodrigo turned.
He looked at her face.
She looked at his collarbone.
"Reed."
She stopped.
Rodrigo was looking at her face like a man trying to remember where he'd left his keys.
"You seem very familiar."
"Common face," she said. Dropped voice. Eyes forward.
He kept looking.
Then the boy beside her — broad shoulders, expensive watch, the specific arrogance of someone whose last name opened doors — said: "Alpha, if he wants to keep his clothes let him. Gives the rest of us a better shot."
Rodrigo turned. Very slowly.
"Recruit." His voice was pleasant. That was somehow worse. "Who asked you to speak."
Vey — Marcus Vey's son, she'd recognise that jaw anywhere, she'd stared at photos of his father for too long — opened his mouth.
"Are you still talking," Rodrigo said.
Vey shut his mouth.
Rodrigo looked back at her.
And she saw it. The exact second it clicked. His eyes going from you seem familiar to I know exactly who this is.
She held his stare. Didn't flinch. Didn't blink.
He smiled. Small. Private. Not a nice smile.
He's not going to say anything, she realised. He's going to make this harder instead.
"Fine," Rodrigo said. "Keep the clothes, Reed. But the last to finish is disqualified. No exceptions." He leaned in slightly. "Good luck."
She walked to the waterline before she said something that got her thrown out before she even got wet.
Thirty wolves at the water's edge.
She looked at the bay. Dark. Cold. The kind of cold that had opinions about you.
Lily, she thought. Mum. Stepfather. Westmonts. All of it.
She jumped.
The cold hit like a full-body slap. She went under, came up gasping, and immediately felt every bad decision she'd made in the last twelve hours.
The clothes were already drowning her.
The hoodie soaked through in seconds — dead weight pulling at her shoulders. The track pants wrapped around her legs like they had a personal grudge. And the binding. God, the binding. In air it was manageable. In freezing water, swimming hard, every breath was half what she needed and her lungs were already burning.
"Okay," she said out loud to nobody. "Okay."
She found a rhythm. Ugly. Inefficient. But forward.
The other recruits were pulling ahead — clean strokes, no extra weight, no secrets strapped to their chests.
She kicked harder.
A recruit surfaced beside her, glanced over, and laughed. "Should've stripped when you had the chance, smart pants."
"Why don't you focus on swimming," she said, "instead of worrying about what's under mine."
"Hope you drown." He pulled ahead.
Halfway out the heavy clothes dragged her down. The binder squeezed her chest, making every stroke harder. She was drowning.
She couldn't be last.
She pulled the jacket off. It sank immediately.
The hoodie next — harder, the wet fabric fighting her, cold pouring in as she wrestled it over her head — and then it was gone and the cold hit differently. Total. Her whole body suddenly awakened..
The cold air hit her bare skin. Her nipples hardened instantly.
A recruit laughed behind her. "Look at the skinny kid — he's freezing his balls off!"
She kept swimming, heart slamming. Every stroke made her breasts press against the binder. The cold water made her clit ache.
She kicked harder. Found her rhythm. Started gaining — past two recruits, then a third, the buoy close now, almost there —
"Smart," said a voice to her left. Recruit keeping pace, grinning. "Losing the clothes. Should've done it at the start."
"Thanks," she said. Kept swimming.
Two recruits swam up behind her.
Boys will always be boys.
One grabbed her waist, the other looped rope around her ankle and tied it to a rock they'd dragged out.
"No little boy is beating us," one laughed.
She struggled, voice low. "Let go, assholes."
One of them pressed against her back, hand sliding down her stomach under the water. "You feel weird, kid. Soft."
She kicked hard. "Touch me again and I'll drown you myself."
The rope tightened. She started sinking.
She was drowning.
Those stupid boys. She was going to pay them back.
"Enjoy the swim," they said. And left.
She went under.
The knot was tight — fingers already numb, current pulling her sideways, the weight doing exactly what it was supposed to. She came up for air. Went under again. Got one loop loose. Came up.
The other recruits were almost at shore.
She went under a third time and her lungs were burning and her fingers weren't working and she got the second loop almost and then the current shifted and she went deeper and the surface looked very far away and she thought, with strange calm:
Lily is going to be so angry with me.
On shore Rodrigo took one step toward the water.
"Don't." Kruze's hand on his arm.
"She's drowning—"
"He," Kruze said. Flat. Quiet. "Alex Reed is drowning. And you're the head trainer. You step in for one recruit, every wolf on this beach sees it. They'll talk. The whole program gets questioned."
Rodrigo's jaw went tight. "Kruze—"
"I'll go." He was already pulling his jacket off. "You stay here and look like you don't care."
"I don't—"
Kruze looked at him.
Rodrigo stopped talking.
"Right," Kruze said. And went in.
So he stayed.
He stood on the shore and watched the water and counted and kept his face blank because twenty-eight recruits were looking at him and this was his program and she had walked onto his beach in a fake beard and a stolen name and he'd known since the moment her scent hit him in the lineup — before she'd spoken, before he'd seen her face — and he'd said nothing because she'd wanted to be here and some part of him had wanted to see if she'd make it.
Eleven seconds.
He watched Kruze go under.
Twelve.
He watched them come up.
He exhaled once. Turned back to the group.
"Anyone else need a rescue," he said, "or are we done?"
Nobody spoke.
Daciana was going under for the third time when hands grabbed her from behind. Firm. Careful. Lifting.
He reached her fast. Wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her against his naked chest.
"Stop fighting," Kruze said. "I've got you."
She coughed. Kept coughing. She was too exhausted to care about anything except breathing.
"Binding's loose," he said. Quietly. Just for her.
"I know—"
"I'm fixing it."
His hands moved under the water. Quick. No hesitation. Like he absolutely knew what he was doing and wasn't going to make it weird and she was going to think about that — his hands, the dark water, all of it — at a much less dangerous time.
"Breathe," he said against her ear, voice low.
His body was warm in the cold water. She felt every inch of him — hard chest, strong arms, his cock brushing her thigh as he held her up.
She coughed, gasping. "I'm fine."
"You're not," he said, hand sliding to her side to fix the loose binder. His fingers brushed bare skin under the water. "Stay still."
She shivered — not just from cold. Her nipples tightened against his arm.
He noticed. His grip tightened. "You're still playing this game."
She whispered in her fake voice, "Let go."
He didn't. "Not until you're safe."
He swam her back to shore.
When they reached the beach Zarek was already waiting with a jacket to cover whatever would give her away.
She pulled it on, coughing.
Arms shaking. The recruits who'd already finished stood in a loose circle watching. Someone laughed. "Thought small-pack wolves were supposed to be scrappy."
Rodrigo was standing ten feet away.
Still. Hands in his pockets.
She could see his hands shaking from here.
He looked at her the same way he'd looked at her in the chapel, in the ritual room, across the bachelor party fire. Like something he'd decided not to want and wanted anyway.
Then he walked toward her.
The recruits stepped back automatically. He stopped in front of her. Looked down.
She looked up.
Neither of them said anything for one second.
"On your feet, recruit," he said.
She got up. Legs shaking. She got up anyway.
"Congratulations, Alex Reed," he said. "You're disqualified."
"Rodrigo." She caught herself. Dropped her voice. "Alpha. Those boys cheated."
Something moved in his face. Quick. Gone.
"Rules don't have footnotes," he said.
"That's—"
"Get warm." He stood. Looked down at her one more time and she couldn't read it — couldn't tell if it was sorry or decided or something she didn't have a name for. "And get off my beach."