I failed.
Mother’s voice hisses in my ear like breath leaking through teeth.
She will leave you. She will betray you. Just like your father.
I rise without excusing myself. Rupert tries to call after me. I ignore him.
I take the speedboat back to shore. The woman who drives it is still topless. She giggles and asks
“Where do you want to go?”
“Same dock.”
She nods. “Want me to come to your hotel?”
“No,” I say firmly.
I need to get back to St. Andrews. That sinking feeling in my gut is not baseless. Not after knowing the Council might use her against me. Not after Rupert’s little trap.
Peighton wants out, but she also said she would be faithful.
I might lose her, and I don’t know what I will become if that happens.
As the boat skims across the water, I close my eyes and whisper the quietest truth I have never allowed myself to say.
“I need her.”
And that dismays me more than anything the Council could ever do. I need her. She doesn’t need me.
Chapter 25
Gustav
Her room smells like her. Faint sweetness. Something warm. Feminine. It settles in my lungs and softens everything inside me that should stay hard.
I sit in the chair beside her bed, watching her sleep.
It is a dangerous thing, allowing myself this pleasure. Watching her, unguarded, lashes resting on her cheeks, breath soft, lips parted slightly. I should not be here. I should not be letting this in. But I am a weak man where she is concerned.
I can’t let her know that.
I have been keeping my distance, believing school would smooth her edges. She is American. Loud. Emotional. Too honest. I thought structure would teach her to bend. Instead, it’s making her closed off. Punishing her only pushed over the edge.
And when I learned she bought a burner phone from a fellow student, the truth scalded me like acid.
She was preparing to run.
And then she did.
Straight into the snow, into the forest, into the jaws of wolves. My chest tightens at the memory. Her blood on the snow. Her cries. If I had been one minute slower...
No. I cannot think about that.
The real problem lies before me now. Sleeping in a thin cotton shirt that rides up, revealing a sliver of soft waist. My eyes trace the curve of her hips under the blanket. My hand flexes, aching to touch.
I like this. Too much. I like being close. I like having a wife. I like watching her breathe. It is pathetic.
She stirs. Her lashes flutter. Then her eyes snap open.
