When his eyes meet mine, the world stills. All that’s left is him and me, and the rhythm of our shared heartbeat. With our drastic height difference, he’s not that much shorter than me when on his knees. He looks at my face, restless, almost pleading in his search for whatever answers he thinks I might give away there. He’s terrified of what I’ll say.
My thumb traces the corner of his mouth. If I cared about retribution, he’d just handed me the perfect opening. I could spill every truth about what these days have been like. The pain, the conflicting desire to find a way to carve his name out from where it etched itself into my ribs.I could make him carry the ache of the invisible bruises he left on me, if only for a moment, just long enough for him to understand.
But evening the score, tallying the scars on my heart and marking them onto him so we match in our pain isn’t what I crave.
I crave the peace waiting for me on the other side once I let it all go—the fear, the doubt, the instinct to keep him at a distance, all the things I convinced myself I needed to make sure I never shattered again.
It’s a wild free fall, like stepping off a ledge and trusting he’ll be there at the bottom waiting to catch me.
But I choose to take the step anyway.
“I believe you.”
Three words. That’s all it takes. But they hit him like salvation, sinking into him as if he’s been waiting a lifetime just for this moment. His shoulders loosen, his breath slips out in a rough, shaking exhale. The strain that’s held him captive unspools, then slips away entirely.
Spectators watched him reject me once, and now they’ll watch me reclaim him.
I lean down and kiss him.
It isn’t desperate. There’s no frantic edge in it, no frenzied rush to close the space between us. It’s a soft press of my lips to his, more a vow than carnal hunger. Acknowledgement and acceptance wrapped into one. A quiet promise that I see what he’s done here today, that this public and brutal offering wasn’t wasted on someone unwilling to understand what it could have cost him if the risk didn’t pay off.
When I pull back, my mouth hovers just over his. My voice drops, my whisper only meant for him to hear, though I know some of the closer pack members will catch it.
“You can get off your knees now, Alpha.”
He’s moving before I finish the sentence, rising in one fluid motion and taking me with him. His arms catch my waist easily, lifting me against his chest so my socked feet dangle uselessly. The small gasp that slips out of me is all the invitation he needs.His lips find mine again, and this time, the kiss is deeper. More certain and leaving no room for doubt. It’s another bold and unapologetic public claim, showing everyone exactly where his heart has chosen to stand.
When he finally lets me go, the world is tilting and I’m breathless. My feet hit the stage and my knees nearly buckle. His arm hooks around me, holding me upright and close enough to his side that I can steal the warmth from his strong body.
“My submission belongs to you alone, my Luna,” he murmurs, voice low and rough.
If his vow wasn’t enough to make my wolf feel like she might combust in her cage and take me out with her, the title finishes the job. Heat rolls through me as my chest tightens, but not in the aching way I’ve grown accustomed to.
In a way that feels settled, feels like something right has finally fallen into place.
Against my will, and much to my annoyance, my gaze cuts to Talis. She’s still by the wind cage containing her seething father,her chronically pinched face twisted even tighter than usual.There’s another shadow of emotion sitting beneath them, though. Grief. I know better than to believe it’s for the loss of Rennick. It’s for the lie she’s been spoon-fed her entire life that she swallowed whole and believed. The promise that she’d own the title of pack Luna someday.
The moment she finds me watching, her mask snaps into place, anger blazing through every line of her angled face.
I don’t give her anything to feed on. My expression stays calm. Still.
My wolf, though, isn’t so subtle. She stretches within me, almost lazy in her smugness over her victory, as she pushes images at me that makes my heart rate climb. Along with them comes the fierce and territorial desire to claim Rennick right here and now. My head fills with thoughts of dropping to my knees before my alpha on this stage and taking him down my throat—marking him as mine in such an unmistakable way while Talis can do nothing but stand there and watch.
Heat crawls up my neck, and I force myself to focus. This isn’t the moment to indulge the sudden, feral urge to see just how far I can push my untested gag reflex.
Rennick’s gravelly and commanding voice cutting through the air once more pulls me fully from the fantasy. “I told you if you couldn’t stand with me as your Alpha, I wanted you gone,” he reminds the room. “The same goes for Noa. If you have aproblem with her being your Luna, get the fuck out now. Leave with the rest. I won’t ask my mate to live among people who won’t accept her.”
My mate.
Those two words used to unravel me. They would ignite a war between dread and longing every time he said them. But now they fall differently,softer, because I finally trust them.
I hold my breath, waiting to see if anyone will step over the line he’d just drawn on my behalf.
No one moves.
I exhale.
Rennick scans the room once more, making eye contact with his pack. Whatever he finds there satisfies him. He nods and checks the expensive watch on his wrist.“Pack McNamara, and any wolf of mine who has chosen to align themselves with you,” he says, voice level. “You have fifteen minutes to remove yourself from my territory. Or we will remove you ourselves. Your escort is waiting for you outside.”
