The hair on my arms stood up. I could feel the wolf in me preen, half terror, half something closer to adoration.
“Okay,” I said, voice flat.
He stood, and for a second, we were only inches apart. I could smell the wild in him—oak and fire and something more than I wanted to name. His jaw worked, like he was chewing on something sharp.
“Don’t let him touch you,” he said. “Not Silas. Not anyone at Greenbriar. If they do, they’ll regret it.”
I nodded again, this time slower. The world seemed smaller, the air denser.
“Wren?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t fuck this up.”
“I won’t.”
Chapter 11
Parker
Wrecker didn’t tell me where we were going. He just appeared in the hall as I was stowing the micro-cam kit in my bag and jerked his head. “Downstairs. Now.”
I trailed him, my heart beating a little faster than I wanted to admit. The main floor of the house was immaculate, but the air changed at the top of the basement steps—cooler, spiced with the tang of old leather and a faint wisp of citrus. He unlocked the stairwell with a heavy key, opened it, and gestured for me to lead the way.
The steps were finished concrete; the walls lined with bare pine planks stained almost black. At the bottom was a steel fire door, which he keyed open and held for me.
The room beyond was not what I expected. No cinderblocks, no low-slung pipes. Instead: a single, high-ceilinged space, painted deep charcoal, lit by a bank of recessed LEDs set to a dying-sunset orange. Against the left wall, a long shelf over a row of hooks held things I recognized only from the darkest corners of the internet and the even darker corners of my own reading habits: floggers, paddles, cuffs, crops, ropes of every width and weave, and a row of beautifully sinister wooden canes mounted like museum artifacts. Against the opposite wall stood a pair of St. Andrew’s crosses—one steel, one padded black leather, each fitted with shackles at every joint. In the middle of the room wasa heavy padded bench, arched like a gymnast’s pommel horse. It had lower padded ridges with hanging straps for arms and legs to rest.
And near the far end of the room, suspended from the ceiling by chains so thick I could have hung my own body from them, was a swing.
I stopped dead. My first thought was,is this for me?And then, before I could stop myself, my wolf keened so loud a small whimper escaped my throat.
Wrecker was behind me in an instant. He put one hand between my shoulders and walked me forward, the pressure gentle but non-negotiable. “This,” he said, “is the only place in the house where the rules don’t matter. If you want to run, you run. If you want to fight, you fight. If you want to cry, you cry. But you don’t get to hide. Not here.”
I took two steps forward. The smell hit me—a combination of polished steel, oiled wood, and the sweet, dark undertone of submission. It made my head spin.
He circled around to face me. “You ever done this before?” he asked, voice flat.
I shook my head.
He grinned, but there was no mockery in it. “Good. Means you won’t have any bad habits for me to break.”
The words made me shiver. My mouth went dry.
“Last chance. Head up those stairs if you don’t want this.”
I looked over my shoulder at the door to the stairway and then back into his steely eyes. I never wanted anyone or anything more in my life. I stood taller as I faced him.
“I want this. But I want you to understand that my submission only extends to the bedroom. I want and need you to be the one in charge of my body, my pleasure, and my pain. Everywhere else, we’re on equal footing. Understood?”
“I will always want to keep you safe. That might look like trying to control aspects outside of the bedroom. But yes. I understand and agree. Now. Take off your clothes,” he said.
I hesitated just for a moment.
“Now.”
I stripped. Hoodie, tee, shoes, joggers. I folded them and set them on the nearest bench, careful to keep my hands steady. I kept my bra and panties on, unsure what the protocol was, but he made a tsk sound and hooked a finger under the band of my sports bra, snapping it. “All of it.”
