Outside, the air was sharp as a razor. I stood on the porch, let the cold bite my face, and listened to the wind cutting across the fields.
The house behind me was silent, but I could feel her there. Waiting.
I was done pretending.
From now on, every move would be war.
And I was ready for it.
Chapter 10
Parker
It was like a bad dream that circled back and circled back, chewing its own tail until only the nerves were left. I was in Wrecker’s living room, sitting on a large cushioned sectional. My leg bounced up and down like I was giving pony rides to toddlers. I wish I had brought Rocket with me. I was always more relaxed with that dog around.
A stone fireplace dominated the wall in front of me with a gigantic TV mounted above the mantle. I looked over my shoulder toward the dining area. Wrecker was in the closed-off kitchen to the right, making coffee. A tall sofa table sat behind the long part of the sectional where I was sitting, and I noticed several framed photos there. My curiosity got the better of me, so I ventured around to look at who Eli Leonard would find important enough to memorialize in photos.
I leaned down and saw that most of the photos were candid shots. There was a professional family portrait that made me smile. It looked only a few years old. Thinking of Wrecker putting on a suit for his mother and going to a studio for posed photos is such a ‘good son’ thing to do. The portrait was of his mother, father, Wrecker, and his two younger sisters. If I rememberedcorrectly, they were about 8 or so years younger than me. Beautiful and blonde. They had none of Wrecker’s dark features. The others were military photos. Shots of him in the desert in full military gear with big guns and amazingly bigger smiles. Photos of him and Bronc when they were kids also filled a couple of frames. Seeing him happy made my insides twist.
I was a little worried I’d see pictures of him with other women. He had quite a reputation with the women around here. All the Iron Valor officers did, except Bronc. They’re all known for having had lots of women in their beds or flown off to the vampire king’s club where supposedly they all had a penchant for domination. Clearly, Wrecker had shown me that side of himself. And I soaked up every bit of that dominance with my own need to submit. Happily, though, the photos were simply a reflection of his family and friends, and they made me feel closer to him, somehow.
A large bookshelf took up the bulk of the adjacent wall. I was surprised to see several fantasy series by Sanderson and other of my favorite authors. He also had a good number of classic novels as well. I don’t know why I was shocked to learn that he was apparently well read. Genius-level people tended to be. His tastes ran parallel to mine if you discounted the smut I loved so much. I giggled to myself at the thought.
Thanks to my stream of consciousness, thinking of my smutty books reminded me of when everything broke loose: Wrecker’s mouth on mine, his hand clamped at the nape of my neck, the world going white-hot and then blank, like someone tripped a kill switch behind my eyes. But even now, after a night of sleep and a morning of black coffee, the memory still burned in my muscles, so real it made my skin ache.
Standing in front of the bookshelf, I shut my eyes. It didn’t help.
Instead, I saw Wrecker’s eyes—gray as unlit metal—and heard his voice, the way it buzzed through me: “You’re mine now. Say it.” I hadn’t said it. I didn’t know if I ever would. But somethingin me had already bent, and I felt that break echoing down every nerve.
I tried to focus on something practical, the way I always did when reality threatened to drag me under. Like, what would I do if I could leave? Where would I run? Who would I even call? But every time, my mind doubled back to the same fucked-up equation: If Wrecker wanted me dead, I’d be dead. If Wrecker wanted to use me, I’d be used up, and there would be nothing left to salvage.
But why would I want to run? If I could be anything in the world, I would want to be Wrecker’s. That is the only thing that makes sense. It’s the only thing that computes inside my soul even if at this moment it was more physical than emotional. Wrecker was my mate.
The word stuck in my throat. It sounded like the punchline of a joke nobody dared to tell. Wrecker. My mate. The man who’d spent his whole adult life barely noticing me, who’d treated me with a kind of detached disregard that only made me want him more. Who had now, in a masked encounter and in another single night, stripped me down to a raw wire and then left me to short-circuit by myself.
I clenched my hands into fists, pressing my knuckles white.
It wasn’t just Wrecker I had to worry about. There was Silas, lurking out in the world like a slow-acting poison. There was Axel, whose debts had started this avalanche. There was Iron Valor, who would never forgive me for what I’d done, even if I was technically a hostage now. I tried to catalog my fuck-ups, to assign blame in neat little packets, but the truth was: this was always going to be the end of my story. Alone, cornered, desperate.
I thought of my parents, and my stomach flipped. I tried to reroute. I tried to remember something less painful.
Instead, a memory surfaced: me having just turned eighteen, huddled in front of my old desktop, watching the live feed from the front porch camera. Wrecker, in a T-shirt and jeans, hadknocked on the door, arms full of groceries. His hair was buzzed short then, military-style, and there was a line of blood on his cheek. I watched the way his eyes flicked left and right before he set the bags down, checked the lock, and then walked off into the night. He never came in, never said hello. He just made sure Axel and I had what we needed, then vanished again.
I remembered sitting there, watching the grainy video on repeat, trying to decode the message in his body language. Was he worried about us? Was he angry? Did he even know who we were, or was he just running errands for Bronc?
At the time, I told myself I hated him. I told myself that if he ever tried to talk to me, I’d tell him to fuck off. But he never tried, so I never had to. I just watched him, the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. He came and went several times, always just out of reach.
Now I understood. The mate bond had always been there, dormant and malignant, like a tumor nobody saw until it metastasized. My wolf must have recognized him first, which was why I’d spent the next seven years trying to recreate him in every man I dated. None of them came close, obviously. None of them could have.
He appeared from the kitchen entryway, and my heart shot up into my throat. I quickly walked from the bookshelf to the dining table.
Wrecker filled the doorway, all six foot four of him, and for a second I thought I might faint. Not from fear. From want, which was so much worse.
He wore a black T-shirt and jeans, his hair longer than he had always worn it, falling in a careless, perfect mess over his brow. His arms looked like they could break cinder blocks for fun. He carried a mug of coffee in each hand, and when he set one in front of me, his eyes never left my face.
I couldn’t look away.
He stared down at me, silent, as if he were searching for something under my skin.
