“Good.”
I look at her sharply.“Tessa—”
“I’m not some fragile thing that needs protecting from you,” she says, her voice gaining strength.“I’m scared, yes.Terrified, actually.But not of you.Not anymore.”She takes a breath.“You want to know my worst secrets?My biggest mistakes?”
Now it’s my turn to listen.
“I left everyone behind,” Tessa blurts out as the words tumble out fast and raw.“After the fire, Sarah’s family took me in.They gave me a home, stability...everything, for years.But I kept feeling this pull, this need to come to Alaska.As though something was calling me, dragging me here, and I couldn’t ignore it.”
The pain in her voice hits me harder than I expect.My fingers flex where they rest on her knee, fighting the urge to pull her into my chest and never let her go.
“I left them.The only people who stayed when my world fell apart.Packed up and drove thousands of miles because of a feeling I couldn’t even explain.”
“Tessa—”
“I felt so guilty.Still do.”She wipes at her eyes, and the sight of her tears makes something cold and vicious coil in me.I hate seeing her hurt.I hate I wasn’t there to stop it.“They deserved better than me just...leaving.But I had to go.I had to figure myself out.”
Her voice fades, and she finally looks at me.
“And then I met you.First day I hit town, I knew it was the right decision.That whatever pulled me here was worth it.Not until...”
“Until what?”My voice is low, rough.If she hears the edge of desperation in it, she doesn’t mention it.
She takes a shaky breath.“Until you.”
The words slam into me.My chest tightens, my fangs press against my gums, responding before I can stop them.I curl my hand around hers, thumb brushing the inside of her wrist where her pulse jumps under my touch.She must feel the way my body goes still.
“Until all of this,” she whispers.“The club, the mark, the danger.It made me live again.Made me fight.Made mewant.”Her hand tightens around mine.“Made me want someone.”
A growl slips up my throat, not loud, not threatening, just instinctive.Possessive.I lift her hand to my mouth, pressing my lips to her knuckles, breathing her in because I need the grounding.
“You wanted me,” I murmur against her skin, the truth pulling something dark and fierce through me.“Tessa, I—”
I stop myself before the words break loose, but it’s too late.She’s already in every part of me.
She looks up at me, and the vulnerability in her expression nearly undoes me.
“Until you,” she whispers.“Until all of this.The club, the mark, the danger—it forced me to actuallyliveagain.To fight for something.To want something.”Her hand tightens on mine.“To wantsomeone.”
The confession hangs in the air between us, heavy with possibility.
“You should want someone who isn’t a monster,” I say roughly.
“Maybe.But I don’t.”She shifts closer, and I can smell the chamomile on her breath, can hear the way her heartbeat quickens.“I want you.Monster and all.Every dark corner, every dangerous instinct, every terrible thing you’ve ever done.”She brings her free hand up to my face, her palm warm against my cheek.“I want all of it.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“Yes, I do.”Her thumb traces the line of my jaw.“I’m asking you to stop holding back.To trust I’m strong enough.To trustus.”
Something in me breaks.
Or maybe it doesn’t break.Maybe it finally,finally, lets go.
I close the distance between us in a heartbeat, my mouth finding hers, and this kiss is different from the others.No hesitation, no restraint, no voice in the back of my head screaming to stop.Just her and me and seven hundred years of loneliness dissolving in the heat between us.
Tessa melts into me, her hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer.I can feel every emotion through the bond, want, need, fear, love, all of it tangled together and amplified until I don’t know where she ends and I begin.
“Bedroom,” she gasps against my mouth.
