Page 18 of The Forgery Mate (Taken by His Alpha #6)

T he morning sun filters through my blinds, casting thin strips of light across the wooden floor of my loft. I lie still in bed, watching dust motes dance in the golden beams, reluctant to disturb them with my movement.

Three months since Halcyon Hall, and I still wake with his name stuck in my throat, the ghost of his fingers on my skin. Some mornings, I can almost convince myself it was just another role I played, but the charcoal drawing on my easel tells a different story.

I push back the thin blanket and pad across the cool floorboards, my body moving through the familiar morning ritual while my mind drifts elsewhere.

The loft is sparse, with a king-sized bed, kitchenette, bathroom, and the large area I designated as a studio. No one else’s belongings clutter the surfaces. No one else’s scent lingers in the air.

Just me and the masks I put on and take off like coats.

My bare feet carry me to the easel where his face stares back at me, rendered in smudged charcoal on thick paper. I drew him from memory the day after I fled Halcyon Hall, desperate to exorcise his image from my mind.

It didn’t work.

If anything, the act of creation crystallized him further, trapping him on paper where he continues to haunt me.

Ezra’s eyes follow me across the room, the silver streak in his hair catching nonexistent light. I captured him in a rare moment of vulnerability, head tilted, lips parted as if about to speak. Before the tattoos. Before I left him the first time.

I traced the contours of his face for hours, fingers blackened with charcoal, chest aching with each stroke. Trying to take us back to before I broke his heart. Before he mapped his pain across his body.

The box of charcoals sits untouched beside it, layered with dust thick enough to trace my name through. I’ve told myself a hundred times I’ll put it all away tomorrow. The drawing, the charcoals, and the memories.

But tomorrow becomes another day of the same promise, broken before it’s made.

In the kitchen corner of my loft, I prepare my morning tea with the precise movements of Tobias Crane. Two level spoonsful of sugar. A splash of milk to turn the liquid the exact shade of wet sand. Tea steeped for three minutes, not a second more or less.

Tobias is methodical, reliable. Everything I’m not.

Of all my personas, Tobias most resembles a well-worn sweater, comfortable, if a bit itchy around the edges.

The quiet bookseller with irregular hours and a penchant for obscure volumes is unremarkable enough to fade into the background of anyone’s memory.

The perfect disguise for a man who needs to disappear.

I carry my mug down the narrow staircase to the bookshop below.

The steps creak beneath my weight, announcing my descent to an empty room.

The shop sits caught between night and day, shadows retreating into corners as sunlight creeps through the front windows.

Shelves tower to the ceiling, crammed with books arranged in an organizational system only I understand.

Fiction bleeds into philosophy bleeds into forgotten academic texts that no university library wanted.

The familiar scent of paper, leather, and the faintest hint of vanilla wraps around me.

The perfume of aging pages no candle has ever successfully replicated.

A thin layer of dust covers the less popular sections, undisturbed for weeks despite my half-hearted attempts at cleaning.

The register on the counter is digital but designed to appear antique, another layer to Tobias Crane’s carefully constructed world.

This shop, with its maze of aisleways and sagging armchairs tucked into corners, is the closest thing to a sanctuary I’ve allowed myself. No one looks twice at a bookshop owner. No one questions a man who spends his days among stories instead of people.

The shop is the perfect cover, the perfect hiding place, the perfect lie.

I sip my scalding tea as I flip the sign on the door to Open , not out of hope but habit.

Weekday mornings rarely bring customers.

On good days, perhaps a literature student searching for an out-of-print collection or a retiree browsing with nowhere else to be.

On most days, there’s only silence, dust, and the steady tick of the wall clock counting hours until I close again.

Behind the counter, I settle onto my stool, the wood worn smooth from years of previous owners. My own tenure here spans five months. Two months before Halcyon Hall, two months when I convinced myself I needed to run further, change my name again, and become someone new.

Thirty-one days since I slunk back to this city, to this shop, to this life as Tobias Crane.

A treacherous whisper in my head says I stayed because of proximity, because in a city this size, the chance of crossing paths with him again is always a possibility.

I drown out the voice with another sip of tea.

When the bell above the door jingles, it startles me enough to slosh tea over the rim of my mug. My head lifts, the practiced smile of Tobias Crane already forming on my lips with customer service muscle memory, when it freezes in place.

Aaiden Rockford stands in my doorway, sunlight at his back casting him in an imposing silhouette. His body fills the frame, his Alpha presence radiating outward as a physical force that compresses the air in the shop.

He steps inside, allowing the door to close behind him with a jingle of the bell.

He doesn’t look at me or acknowledge my presence at all.

Instead, he moves through the stacks, fingers trailing along book spines with the proprietary touch of someone accustomed to owning whatever he desires. His tailored pin-stripe suit looks out of place in the shabby charm of my shop, a shark swimming among minnows.

I set my mug down with unsteady hands, tea spilling over my fingers.

The liquid burns, but I don’t react to the pain.

My heart hammers, fight-or-flight instincts warring within me.

There’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

My sanctuary has been breached by the very man who paid me to disappear from his family’s life.

Aaiden pulls a leather-bound volume from a shelf, opens it with careful hands, and begins to read as if he has all the time in the world. As if this isn’t an invasion. As if my world isn’t collapsing inward with each quiet turn of the page.

Heartbeats stretch into long minutes as Aaiden continues his unhurried exploration of my shelves, each book he touches another intrusion into my fabricated world.

My fingers curl around the edge of the counter, muscles tightening until my knuckles go white. The silence between us grows thicker, heavier, until I break.

“What are you doing here?” The question comes out sharper than Tobias Crane would ever speak to a customer, but Tobias is slipping away beneath the upheaval of Aaiden’s presence.

He turns, raising a single eyebrow in a gesture so reminiscent of Ezra that my stomach clenches. “Do we know each other?”

The casual dismissal ignites a fire beneath my ribs. “Don’t play games. How did you find me?”

He replaces the book he holds, lining its spine up with its neighbors. “You didn’t go far. Same city, different name.” He takes in the cramped shop. “Not particularly imaginative, hiding in plain sight.”

“I wasn’t hiding.” The lie sours on my tongue. “If I’d wanted to disappear, you wouldn’t have found me.”

“Perhaps.” The word holds no conviction either way.

Which begs the question of why it’s Aaiden here and not Ezra. He searched for me for a year. Were a few more months too much? Did he finally give up?

The thought hurts too much, so I bury it in the grave where Lorenzo now lives, alongside Nico. Little by little, pieces of me are dying, and I only have myself to blame.

Aaiden continues to browse, moving deeper into the stacks as if we’re having a casual conversation about the weather instead of a second confrontation since he paid me to leave his cousin’s life.

“If you’re just here to lurk, you can leave.” I step out from behind the counter, needing to reclaim some territory in this unbalanced standoff. “The shop’s closed.”

“The sign says open.” Aaiden doesn’t look up from the book he’s examining. “Aren’t bookstores made for lurking among forgotten thoughts?”

His philosophical turn catches me off guard, forcing me to reassess. Aaiden Rockford has always been direct, borderline brutal in his efficiency. This measured approach suggests an agenda I can’t yet decipher.

Suspicious of why he’s here, I clutch the corner of a bookcase. “It’s not a violation of the NDA if you invade my workplace.”

Now Aaiden turns to me, green eyes sharp with intelligence. “You remember the terms quite well for someone who never cashed the check.”

So, he did notice. But he never told Ezra, or the young Alpha would have used it as another blade to cut away at my defenses.

“The money was never the point.” I move to a nearby shelf, straightening books that don’t need straightening. Anything to avoid Aaiden’s penetrating gaze.

“Then what was the point, Mr. Knox? Or do you prefer Duran? Vescari?” Aaiden picks up one of my business cards from the small holder on a side table, examining it with detached interest. “Or is it Crane today?”

My pulse races, the sound of my aliases in his mouth a violation I wasn’t prepared for. “It’s Tobias here.”

“But is it your real name?” He sets the card down with precise movements.

“Are any of us ever just one person?” The question spills out before I can stop it, a truth wrapped in a philosophical deflection.

Aaiden’s mouth quirks in what might be amusement on a less controlled man. “Most people manage just fine with one.”

Aaiden closes the distance until only a few feet separate us. “Which brings me back to my question. Why not cash the check?”

I cross my arms to create a flimsy barrier between us. “I left as required. Does it matter why I didn’t take the money?”