“What do you feel?”
The wolf answered before I could stop him, a surge of certainty that bypassed my careful defenses entirely.
“Like I would kill anyone who hurt you.Like the thought of you leaving makes something inside me go dark, go quiet, go dead.Like I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone to look at me the way you’re looking at me right now, and I’m terrified that when you find out who I really am, you’ll stop.”
She didn’t say anything.Just looked at me with those eyes that saw too much, that cut through every defense I’d built like they were made of paper instead of stone.
Then she rose up on her toes and kissed me.
It wasn’t like the other times.Not dominance, not possession, not the power exchange that had defined every physical moment between us.This was soft.Tentative.Her cold lips warming against mine, her hands coming up to rest on my chest with fingers that trembled slightly, her body swaying toward me like a flower toward light.
I held myself still.Let her lead.Let her decide how much she wanted, how close she was willing to come, what she was willing to give.The wolf pressed against my control, demanding that I take over, that I devour her the way I’d been aching to for weeks.But this wasn’t about what I wanted.
This was about what she chose.
Mate.Ours.Finally ours.
The wolf’s voice was a purr of satisfaction, a rumble of contentment I’d never felt from him before.I could feel him settling, the constant restless energy that had plagued me since the moment I’d scented her finally going quiet.This was what he’d wanted all along.Not control.Not domination.Not even claiming.
Just this, her choice to come to me freely, without coercion or contract or the shadow of debt hanging over her head.
Her lips parted, and I deepened the kiss.Slow.Careful.Tasting her like she was something precious, something I couldn’t afford to break.She made a small sound in the back of her throat, half sigh and half surrender, and I swallowed it, added it to the collection of her noises I kept catalogued in my memory.
Her scent wrapped around me like silk, warming in the humid air, sweetening with the first threads of arousal.I could feel her heartbeat against my chest, rabbit-fast, could hear the catch in her breathing when I tilted her head back to kiss her more deeply.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright, her lips swollen from the pressure of mine.She looked dazed.She looked beautiful.She looked like everything I’d ever wanted and everything I didn’t deserve.
“That was different,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, let my fingers trail along the line of her jaw.Her skin was warm now, heated by the greenhouse air and by what had passed between us.
“Because you’re different.Because this is different.Because I’m tired of taking and I wanted to know what it felt like when you gave.”
She leaned into my touch, and the simple trust of that gesture hit me harder than I expected.Here, in this greenhouse full of my dead mother’s hope, surrounded by the evidence of love that had ended in blood and violence, Lena was choosing to trust me.
It was a gift I didn’t deserve.Would never deserve.
Especially not when she learned the truth.
I pulled her into my arms and held her against my chest, breathing in her scent, committing the feel of her body against mine to memory.Everything between us, every touch and kiss and moment of connection, had been built on the wreckage of her life.Wreckage I had caused.
She would hate me.She should hate me.I’d earned that hatred a dozen times over.
But for right now, in this single stolen moment, she was warm and willing in my arms, and the wolf was finally at peace.
I held her tighter and tried not to think about what came next.
The call came after dinner.
We’d spent the day in a fragile peace, walking the grounds, talking about nothing and everything.She told me about her mother, the fragments she remembered.I told her about mine.We ate in the small breakfast room instead of the formal dining room, our knees touching under the table, and for a few hours I almost forgot the web of lies I’d built around us.
Viktor’s name flashed on my phone.I excused myself, stepped into the hallway.
“We found someone.”His voice was clipped, professional.“The photographer.My contact in the police department traced him through a license plate caught on hotel parking garage footage.Name’s Dennis Kovac.Freelance PI, sells to tabloids.He’s been watching the hotel for weeks.”
