They wanted to watch me. They wanted to see if I would break.
I stretched out on the bedspread, still dressed in the ruined blouse and black slacks from before. It took all my strength not to retch at the smell of myself: sweat, blood, the stink of fear. I pressed my face into the pillow and inhaled. It was clean,so clean it burned my nose with chlorine. I could not sleep. Every time I drifted, I snapped back awake to the vision of tomorrow—the Council chambers, the icy hands that would strip me bare, the ritual that would decide if I kept my mate or lost everything. I tried to picture Menace waiting for me at the threshold, but all I saw was Dominic’s smile, wide and white and hungry.
I lost an hour, maybe two. The sky outside the blackout curtains slid from blue to yellow, and I stared at the line of light crawling up the far wall, a soft, jaundiced pulse. I watched it grow, watched the angle change, felt the minutes tick down to zero.
There was a bathroom attached to the suite, and I made use of it. The tiles were marble, cold and veined in blue. A tub sat on lion feet, wide enough to drown in. The mirror was ringed with small bulbs, every one lit, an interrogation in glass. I stripped off my blouse and stared at my torso, cataloguing the marks—four on each wrist, two on each ankle, a pattern of bruising like handprints around my upper arms, a swelling at the cheekbone where Callum’s fist had landed. My neck was the worst. The mate mark had gone a sickly color, a bull’s-eye of purple and red, angry and raised.
I felt nothing. Not shame, not fear. Just an inventory.
I turned on the water and let it run until it steamed. I poured the perfumed salts into the bath, not for pleasure, but for the antiseptic properties. I slid into the water and let the heat sear my nerves. I scrubbed every inch of myself with the harsh bar soap, dragging the rough side of the washcloth over each burn, each raw place. The pain was pure, and it brought me back from the edge of nothing.
I washed my hair three times, then ran a comb through the tangles, yanking out strands and letting them float in the bath. The water was pink when I finished. I drained it and watched the color spiral away. I brushed my teeth until the bleeding stopped, then rinsed my mouth with the miniature bottle of whiskey I found in the medicine cabinet. The burn was exquisite.
There were expensive lotions on the counter, so I used them to polish my dry skin until it shone. I clipped my nails, buffed them with the emery board, then ran polish over the ragged edges. I took advantage of every product they’d made available to me. After adding leave-in conditioner to my hair, I took the hairdryer and worked a round brush through my long, thick strands until it was dry and laid in soft, pretty waves. I wanted to see myself as someone they could not touch.
When I was finished, I stared at myself in the mirror. I looked like a corpse, but a beautiful one.
Back in the bedroom, I pulled on a fluffy bathrobe from the closet—a white, soft, impossibly plush thing. I tied it tight and lay on the bed, my hair spread out around me. I pulled the covers just over my legs and stared at the ceiling, waiting. For what, I wasn’t entirely certain.
I was not afraid of dying. But I was scared to death of them removing Menace’s mark from me. Of feeling the bond snap and leaving me hollow. I was afraid of becoming a thing for Dominic to parade, a trophy. But most of all, I was afraid that my father would see the power of the Council break me with bureaucratic precision, that he would win.
I repeated my promise from the night before. I would not let them see me bow.
I rehearsed my answers. Thought of every possible way the hearing might unfold. If they asked, I would tell them everything: the pain, the blood, the way Menace’s hands felt on my hips, the sound he made when he came inside me. I would say it all, loud and clear, and let them choke on their rules. I would tell them I’d never known love until Bridger Hardin showed it to me. They would understand that I knew the moment he rescued me from that underground lab, the Goddess told me, not with words, but with an undeniable feeling, that this man, thisgoodman, was my mate that she had chosen specifically for me.
I would not let them win. Even if I lost everything, I would go down unbroken.
I closed my eyes just to rest for a few minutes. I kept thinking of how I had to be strong, how I would not break. I would not bend.
I waited for sleep, not expecting it, but welcoming it as a reprieve. In the quiet, the bond flickered—distant, faint, but still there. I sent a message down the line, not in words but in pure feeling.
Hold on. I am holding.
Let them come. I would be ready.
Sleep came in intervals, like drowning under ice. First, the numbing weight, then a gasp, then the world receding behind a pane of frost. I drifted, then I plunged.
Then there were hands. Menace’s hands, rough and sure, calloused from years of living and killing. They closed over my wrists, gentler than I remembered, and lifted me from the sheets. His voice followed—a low vibration, not words, but the echo of my own longing. I felt him behind me as he stood me up, his hands on my waist, solid and alive, radiating the scent I could never mistake. Cedarwood, night air, wolf, and the iron taste of blood that lingered from our first kiss.
“Red,” he said, mouth against my neck, tongue tracing the edge of my mate mark. “You miss me?”
I shuddered, the dream-logic making every nerve raw. “Always.”
He spun me around and pressed me to the wall, his body pinning me in place. My robe parted, the sash untied and fell away, the white pile sliding off my shoulders like a surrender flag. I was bare except for the bruises, which he kissed one by one, lips slow and reverent.
He moved lower. His mouth on my chest, his tongue painting lines of heat over every place I’d ever been broken. “They can’t have you,”he said, fangs bared, biting down just enough to send a shock through my spine. “You’re mine.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice. He read it anyway.
Two fingers inside me, sudden and deep, and I gasped. He was merciless in the way I needed him to be. The rest of the world—Dominic, my father, the Council—faded to fog. Only Menace was real, the outline of his body against mine, the rhythm he set with his hands and his hips.
He twisted his fingers, thumb grinding circles against my clit, and I bucked hard against him. “Easy,” he murmured. “Fuck, always so wet for me. Always so ready for me. But you’re gonna be a good girl and take what I give you.”
He drew it out, teasing, then he pulled his hand away and shoved me to the bed. I landed on my stomach; the impact muffled by the sheets. In the dream, I was strong, unbroken; my body obeyed. I spread my knees, arching my back, and he took his place behind me, hands bruising my hips as he pulled me up higher.
He entered me with one long thrust, no warning. The feeling was everything I’d missed—full, stretching, every inch a promise. He gripped my hair, yanking my head up. “Say it,” he growled. “Say who you belong to.”
“You,” I said. I wanted to scream it. “Always you.”
