Claimed by the Alpha and the Vampire Prince: Masquerading as a Man Chapter 108: She Knows

REED POV

Okay. Okay, I know what it looks like.

I was bored. Restless. My wolf wouldn’t shut up—he was pacing, whining, clawing at the inside of my skin like I was the idiot responsible for the distance between us and our mate.

(Which... okay, maybe he wasn’t entirely wrong.)

But it wasn’t like I planned to break into her room and go full stalker mode.

It just happened.

Sort of.

At first, I was just walking past the boarding house. Then I was just standing outside. Then I was just checking her window because, you know, safety check—soone had to make sure the place hadn’t been vampire-booby-trapped or sothing.

Next thing I knew, I was inside.

Yeah. That escalated fast.

The thing is, my wolf and I had questions. Real ones. Like—why the hell was she pretending to be a dude when we t? Why had she wrapped herself in baggy clothes and stuffed her boobs into damn near nothing until I almost didn’t recognize she was female? Made think I was turning into a gay wolf.

It made no sense. And I couldn’t ask her now. Not until she got back. Not while she was still god-knows-where with the bloodsucker.

Fine... yeah.I know.It wasn’t exactly right.

But in my defense, I was bored. And my wolf? He wouldn’t shut up. Pacing in my head like a damn lunatic, howling about our mate and how we needed to "understand her better."

So... we snooped.Yeah.We definitely snooped

We snooped a little. Opened a drawer. Maybe two. Peeked into her closet. Read the spine of a few books. Flipped open her notebook—just one! Just to see if she was writing poetry about bloodthirsty fanged bastards or moonlight and wolves. (Spoiler: she wasn’t. It was just howork.)

And then... I found her hoodie.

Okay, maybe I lingered a little longer than necessary. Maybe I stood in front of her closet just breathing in her scent like a hormonal psycho. Maybe I even picked up her hoodie and held it. And slled it. A little.

Okay. A lot.

But it’s not like I was sniffing her underwear drawer. I had so restraint.

Still. Not great, Reed. Not great.

God. That scent.

Lavender and sothing sweet—like vanilla and warm skin and sunlight—and I just stood there, hoodie in hand, trying not to breathe too deep, but failing miserably.

I lingered. Longer than I ant to.

It wasn’t even about the hoodie at that point—it was about her. Her scent, her mory, the piece of her that I could hold onto while she was gone.

I an, sue . My mate is missing. She’s in the clutches of a vampire family with more issues than a damn soap opera. I think I deserve a hoodie-sniffing pass.

Just... she can’t ever know.

She’s already wary of half the ti. And if she ever found out I was in here, in her room, slling her clothes like so over-possessive werewolf freak—

Yeah.

If she finds out I stood there like so lovesick creep, clutching her clothes to my face like a damn lunatic, I’ll officially be the world’s biggest freak in her eyes. And considering I already growl at anyone who so much as thinks about her, that’s saying sothing.

My wolf, by the way? Zero sha.

He was practically purring, tail-wagging like so oversized golden retriever. "Sll her again," he said. "Roll in her bed," he said.

No. Bad wolf.

I’ve already sunk deep enough. I need to claw my way back to sothing resembling dignity before she cos ho and realizes her mate’s a shirt-sniffing, drawer-rummaging disaster of an alpha.

But it’s not like I planned this. My wolf had started it. Whispering how this was the only place that still held her warmth, her laugh, the scent that made our lungs expand like we could finally breathe again.

So yeah, I followed that urge like an idiot. Curled my fingers around the sleeve of one of her shirts and let it sit in my hands like it was sothing sacred. My heart shouldn’t have been beating this fast, not when she wasn’t even here, but it was. And I hated how much comfort I got from it.

It made feel pathetic.

I sighed, finally putting the hoodie back exactly where I found it. Fluffed it like a damn pillow to hide any sign I’d been there. Closed the drawers. Straightened her books.

Stepped back.

One last breath in the room, trying to calm the storm in my chest.

Because the truth is, it wasn’t just curiosity. It wasn’t just boredom.

It was longing.

And a need that ran so deep it scared even sotis.

She had no idea what she’d done to .

And when she got back?

She was going to find out.

*******

Okay, okay—

Look.

Before you start thinking "this guy’s gone full stalker," let make one thing crystal clear:

I didn’t an to go back in the closet.

Really, I didn’t.

I told myself it was the last ti.

One last inhale of her scent.

One last brush of my fingers across the fabric she used to wear.

One last look.

And yeah, I might have been planning to "borrow" a shirt she wouldn’t miss.

Shut up. I know how it sounds.

Call it desperation. Call it my wolf’s madness. Call it... obsession, maybe.I’ll own up to it. Just not out loud.

I was about to reach for a worn grey hoodie buried at the back when sothing shifted beneath it—sothing solid.

A box.

Not big. Not flashy. Just a simple, cardboard box taped shut like soone hadn’t opened it in a while. The kind of box people keep secrets in. Or pain. Or... both.

I froze.

The wolf in leaned in, nose twitching.

Curiosity isn’t just a cat thing, apparently.

Because my hands were already reaching for it before my brain caught up.

Now listen—I wasn’t trying to dig into her secrets. Not really. I just... needed more pieces of her. To understand her. To feel close when she wasn’t here.

I sat down on her bed, the box cradled in my lap like it was fragile. I knew I shouldn’t. I really, really knew. But that didn’t stop . My fingers peeled the tape back. The lid creaked open like a warning.

And then I saw them.

Photos.

Stacks of them. Old, worn, faded in so places. So printed on glossy paper, others polaroids. All of her.

But not just her.

Her... and him.

My chest tightened.

The guy in the pictures wasn’t so rando. No awkward poses or friend-zone angles. He had his arm around her like he belonged there. She was smiling—not the guarded, hesitant smile I’d seen on her at school, but sothing real. Wide. Lit-up-from-the-inside kind of smile.

He touched her like he knew her.

Like he loved her.

And she looked back at him like maybe she had once loved him too.

Her life. Her past. Photos—dozens of them, bundled together with a fading ribbon.

She was in all of them. But never alone.

Always with... him.

Sa boy. Sa smile.Over and over again.

A boy with her eyes. Her nose. The kind of closeness in those pictures that blood alone couldn’t explain.

They were twins.

I blinked. My breath caught.

But the worst part?

I knew the guy.

Clark.

She knew.

She fucking knew.

That’s why she was here—because of him. That’s why she ca to this goddamn place.

That’s why she ca to this country. That’s why she dressed like a dude. Why she changed her hair, her posture, her everything—to not look like him.

And we were so fucking stupid for not seeing it sooner.

Did Blaze know? Did he figure it out before the rest of us?

Did he know she was Clark’s twin?

And if he did—was he just playing along? Was this mate bond real, or was it a setup? A trick? So carefully crafted illusion just to get close to us?

Was she sent to get close to us?

To ?

Was the bond blaze said he had with her fake too? Another ploy to draw him in the sa way she’s drawing ?

Or was it sothing else entirely?

Was it the blood?

Was it that she shared the sa genes as her twin, and that’s what was pulling us to her like a magnet?

The DNA?

Was it just that she shared his genes—his scent, his soul, his smile—and we were being dragged toward her by the ghost of soone we never got the chance to love?

Was this bond... just an illusion?

So twisted echo of what might’ve been?

What could have been between , Blaze, and Clark... if he hadn’t been killed before he even ca of age?

Because of that damn prophecy?

What if the universe didn’t care who fulfilled it? What if it just latched onto the bloodline—onto whoever was left behind?

And now it’s her.Her.

And we’re all just spinning in the wreckage of a fate we never saw coming.