Cal:Anything weird?
I’d told him that I had to administer the antidote to one of my men. He kept asking for an update every few minutes.
Groaning in frustration, I turned my phone to silent for the first time in five years and tossed it onto the far pillow. I didn’t have the energy to deal with Calix’s constant “updates” and “vital checks.” Not when my heart was suspended between beats, too terrified to hope.
Hours crawled by, and time laughed at me, enjoying its torment until the whole world stopped when Nick’s eyelids fluttered.
I leaned forward just as he blinked up at the ceiling, confused but alive. A breath left me, so long and heavy it dragged the fear out of my bones. His head turned at the sound, eyes landing on me before he spoke.
“Have I been out long?” he asked weakly, scanning the room for a clock that didn’t exist.
I shook my head. “Just a few hours. A… troubling few hours.”
He nodded, his gaze falling as though he couldn’t bear to meet mine. I watched him take a deep breath, shift in the bed. His hands clenched and unclenched, moving his lips like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how, and yet, even after everything, he was drawing me in.
“You heard me earlier, right?” he asked, his tone shy but steady. He was trying to play it off, but the words were too big to ignore.
“Yeah.” Staring at the sheets I was playing with between my fingers, I kept my voice casual, even though my heart thumped harder.
The silence that followed was thick and awkward, charged with something that made the air warm and the floor feel too thin beneath us.
His throat bobbed before he whispered, “A-am I too late?”
My brows knit. “Too late? For what?”
“To be… your mate.” He sucked in a sharp breath, wincing at his own words.
I froze. Not because I didn’t know the answer but because hearing him say it made something in my chest break open.
His cheeks flushed at the admission. “I mean—if you still want me. If… I still have a place by your side.”
When the silence stretched, he panicked.
“I—I mean, I get it if I did.” His jaw ground together. “If I could just stay somewhere nearby, I think?—”
His face fell, and the insecurity I saw there punched me right in the ribs.
“No,” I said softly, wringing my hands together. “But I want you to think, really think, about it. I’m not accepting a mate who doesn’t choose me or someone who’s only here because his body told him to be.”
I hated saying it. Hated how my voice dipped. Hated how raw it felt… but I hated seeing him in this bed even more. Hated the feeling of losing him.
His next words hit like a wrecking ball.
“I quit the force.” The words were solid and sure. “I never told them a thing about you or your operation.” Words continued to tumble from his lips in a rush. “And I’ve… been watching you these past few days. Wanting… no,needingto help.”
I blinked. Hard.He quit?I’d read his file after I learned who he was. He’d been on the force for five years, an exemplary cop, and he’d even got turned into a werewolf after saving a young kid from drifting too far into the wrong woods. He was on track for a promotion. The perfect law-abiding cop. He had everything going for him.And he left it.
He reached for my hands and gently, reverently, lifted them to his lips, pressing soft kisses to each fingertip. My breath hitched at the tenderness.
“I didn’t know how to handle my life turning upside down,” he murmured. “The grief. The confusion. Then you came in. You demanded I choose. You pushed me. You lit something inside me.”
His voice trembled. “You made me want to find myself again.” His fingers laced with mine, warm and hesitant.
“Say something,” he whispered, eyes refusing to lift, his shoulders trembling.
I didn’t say a damn word.
I climbed onto the bed, ontohim, and crushed my mouth to his, answering in the only way my heart could speak. His lips parted on a shocked inhale, melting beneath mine like they’d been waiting for me since the day we met.
