And I wanted more.
I almost shiftedwith her in my arms.And if I had…
I’d have ruined her.
Just like I ruined…
No. I won’t think of her name. Not tonight.
But even as the wolf urges me to run—back to the wilderness, to the solitude I deserve—something stops me.
It smelled like lavender and honey and looked at me like I wasn’t broken.
Because when I close my eyes now, I don’t see my mistakes.
I see Tessa.
Still standing there. Brave and waiting.
And somehow, the man in me finds a reason to stay.
13
TESSA
The storm finally breaks at dawn, leaving behind a world drenched in silence and a frostbitten kind of beauty that catches in the throat. The snow outside lies thick and undisturbed, blanketing everything in deceptive stillness, like the world has decided to hold its breath along with me. I can’t sleep, not after last night. I stayed up until the fire died, until the cold crept into my toes and the dark thoughts crept into my heart. Darius never came back. Not to the house, not to me.
I wrap a blanket around my shoulders, pad barefoot across the freezing floorboards, and pour myself a cup of tea that tastes more like bitterness than comfort. I tell myself not to read too far into it. Maybe he just needed space. Maybe he regrets the kiss. Maybe I should.
But no matter how many ways I spin it, nothing about last night feels like a mistake. It felt real—raw, tangled, confusing as hell, yes—but real.
I find myself wandering through the east wing, the one Mary said was “not much in use these days,” which is her polite way of saying “off-limits” without being outright rude. It’s colder here, draftier, and the air smells faintly of cedar, dust, and somethingolder, like forgotten sorrow. One door is slightly ajar: oak with a tarnished brass handle that’s been worn to a dull gleam. I push it open and find a study, not unlike the one I saw Darius in last week, only this one looks... untouched.
Stacks of leather-bound books line the shelves, their spines cracked and faded with age. A thick layer of dust lies on the desk, except for one item—a small journal, bound in cracked red leather with frayed edges and a black ribbon holding the pages shut. It doesn’t look like it belongs to Mary or the other staff, and something in me knows, down in the marrow, that it’s his.
I shouldn’t.
But I do.
The journal creaks when I open it. The ink inside is dark and jagged, like it was written with fury or desperation or both. The handwriting is sharp, masculine, but messier the further I go. And then I see it.
The night she died… I should have stopped her. I should have sensed it. The moment the wind turned and her scent disappeared from the bond, I knew. And still, I waited. I thought I could fix it after, thought I’d clean up the blood and bury the memory and move on. But the wolf never forgets. The wolf remembers everything.
My breath catches. I flip the page with trembling fingers.
She called me a monster with her last breath. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was too far gone to deserve the way she looked at me. I thought love could tame this thing inside me. I was wrong.
There’s more—pages filled with pain, with rage, with guilt so thick it bleeds off the paper. I close the book slowly, my chest hollowing out with each word still echoing in my head. The Darius I kissed last night is the same Darius who wrote this, who lost someone, who maybe...hurt someone.
I’m not sure how long I stand there, staring out the frosted window with the journal clutched to my chest. Time doesn’t feel real in this house. I could be a ghost, reading the remnants of a man who doesn’t even exist anymore.
“Found that old thing, did you?”
I jump at the sound of Mary’s voice behind me. She’s holding a tray with folded linens, her expression unreadable. She steps inside, calm as ever, but her eyes land on the journal in my arms, and something sharp flickers across her face.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” I say quickly, hugging it tighter without realizing it.
Mary sets the linens down on a nearby chair, smoothing one with unnecessary precision. “You wouldn’t be the first,” she says. “But that doesn’t make it wise.”
