I watch her face, reading fascination beneath the professional composure. "We all ended up on Stormhaven for different reasons. Exile, duty, running from things that wouldn't stop hunting us. The island became our sanctuary."
"And the women?" Her voice holds careful neutrality. "Eliza, Isla, Moira. They mentioned mates."
Here it is. This is the question she's been building toward since the mate bond came up at the meeting. The bond—the thing she needs to understand before proximity pushes us past the point of control.
"You want to know about the claiming." Not a question. I watch her face, reading the fear beneath her composure. "About what happens when a shifter transforms their human mate."
Her knuckles whiten on the glass. "Yes."
"The claiming bite rewrites your DNA. You become like us, permanently bonded." I watch her process this, seeing the horror dawn. "Enhanced strength, healing, longer life. But you lose your humanity. Some don't survive the transformation. The ones who do are changed forever."
I hold her stare, letting her see the truth. "Some see it as a gift. Others, a burden they can't undo. Either way, there's no going back."
She sets the glass down with deliberate care, hands shaking slightly despite her control. "And you think I’m your mate?"
The question hangs between us, loaded with implications neither of us wants to acknowledge. She already knows what the brotherhood told her, but hearing it from me, alone in the darkness, makes it real in a different way.
She deserves the whole truth. After everything tonight, after I killed to protect her, I owe her that much.
"My tiger thinks so." The words come rough, dragged from somewhere deep and dangerous. "He claims he recognized you in that alley. Insists you're ours. Won't shut up about claiming and marking and binding you to me in ways that would destroy everything you are."
Her breath catches. Her pupils dilate. The pulse in her throat hammers visibly, and fear flickers across her face along with something else, something darker, before professional composure slams back into place.
"But predators are wrong sometimes." I continue before she can speak, before the panic I see building overwhelms her curiosity. "The beast wants what it wants without caring about reality. You're human. You're a cop. You built your life on lawand justice. Even if the bond was real, even if you could accept what I am, you'd never accept what I've done."
I force myself to hold her gaze, to let her see the truth of it.
"The crimes, the compromises, the bodies I've left behind. You'd hate what you became if I claimed you."
She's silent for long moments, working through the implications. When she speaks, her voice holds steady despite the turmoil rolling off her in waves. "Would I have a choice? If the bond is real, if you decide to claim me, do I get a say?"
"Yes." The answer comes immediate, absolute. "Claiming requires consent. You have to accept the bite willingly, have to want the transformation despite knowing what it costs. Without your consent, I'd be declared outlaw. Hunted down and executed by any shifter that found me. It's one of the few universal laws among our kind."
I close some of the distance between us, needing her to understand. "I'm a bastard, Catriona. An exile and a criminal who's made peace with moral compromise. But I'm not a rapist, and I'm not a murderer of innocents. Your choice remains yours. Always."
Relief floods her features, visible even in the darkness. She believed I might force the issue, might take away her autonomy the way the syndicate tried to take away her life.
The fact that I won't, that I'm giving her control even when the beast rages against it, means something to her.
"Thank you for that." Moving past me toward the bedroom, exhaustion finally overcoming adrenaline. At the doorway, she pauses.
"And Kian? For what it's worth, I don't think you're just the crimes you've committed. Tonight proved you're more than your worst choices."
Then she's gone, door closing with soft finality, leaving me alone with a creature that wants to howl at the injustice of matebonds that can't be consummated and attraction that can't be explored and need that can't be satisfied without destroying the very thing we desire.
I return to the couch, sleep won't come. The cottage feels too small with her presence saturating every corner, marking my sanctuary in ways I'll never be able to erase.
Outside, the wind howls off the Atlantic, carrying salt spray and the promise of storms.
This is going to be harder than I anticipated.
Exhaustion eventually drags me under despite the impossibility of rest. Waking comes with the realization I've been unconscious, which shouldn't be possible given the hyper-awareness that usually keeps me alert even in my own territory.
The beast must have relaxed enough to let me rest, satisfied with her presence under our roof, convinced she's safe enough for us to lower our guard.
Dangerous thinking.
Grey dawn light filters through the windows, painting everything in shades of silver and shadow. The fire has burned low—I fed it through the night out of habit, keeping the temperature comfortable for human tolerances even though I barely feel the chill.
