Storing away every detail like a man cataloging treasures he knew were about to be stolen.
Because they were.I was about to steal them from myself.
The Pakhan’s voice echoed in my skull, the same words that had been circling for hours.“We’ll talk soon.”Four words.No threat in his tone.No anger.Just that calm certainty that was somehow worse than any ultimatum he could have delivered.
I knew what those words meant.I knew the rules.The pack didn’t allow attachments to humans.Not real ones.Not the kind that made a wolf weak, made him vulnerable, made him forget where his loyalties lay.
And Max had seen it.Seen the way I looked at her, smelled her on my skin, heard her name in my silences.The old wolf missed nothing.
When we talked, there would be consequences.There always were.The pack didn’t tolerate loose ends, didn’t allow vulnerabilities to fester.Max would want to know what I intended to do about the human woman who had gotten too close to their Vor.
And I didn’t have an answer he would accept.
I could claim her.The thought rose unbidden, dangerous and sweet.Sink my teeth into her throat and complete the bond that had been screaming for completion since the first moment I’d caught her scent.Make her mine in a way the pack would have to respect.
And I’d watched what happened when wolves claimed humans.I’d been three years old, hiding in the closet, watching my father’s wolf tear my mother apart.The sounds she’d made.The blood on the walls.The way my father had howled afterward, human again, cradling what was left of her in arms that had destroyed her.
Different.The wolf was pacing now, agitated.We’re not him.We would never hurt her.We would die first.
My father had probably thought that too.Before the rage took over.Before the beast did what beasts do.Before his mate’s perfume mixed with another man’s scent and the wolf decided the betrayal was real, even though it wasn’t.Even though she’d only brushed past a colleague in the hallway.
The beast didn’t understand nuance.The beast only understood threat and possession and blood.
I looked down at Lena’s sleeping face.So trusting.So open.She’d given me everything last night.Her body, her virginity, her heart.She’d said she loved me, and the terrible part was I knew she meant it.
And I loved her back.The love I’d felt from the first moment, the recognition my wolf had known before my mind would accept it, made this destruction unbearable.
That was exactly why I had to destroy this.
Better I hurt her with words than risk hurting her with the beast.Better she hate me and live than love me and die.
No.Wrong.This is wrong.She’s ours.You can’t?—
I crushed the wolf’s protest before it could form fully.Locked it down.Built the walls higher, thicker, until its howling was just a distant echo in the back of my skull.
The cold was coming.I could feel it settling into my bones like frost, numbing everything it touched.The mask I’d worn for thirty years, the defenses that had kept me alive through boarding school and streets and the brutal climb through the Bratva ranks.I’d set it aside for her.Let her see what was underneath.
Now I had to put it back on.
She stirred against me, and I felt my heart shatter.
Not yet.A few more minutes.Just a few more minutes of this warmth, this peace, this impossible thing I’d allowed myself to want.
I pressed my nose to her hair and breathed deep.Apples and cream.My chest ached with how much I loved the smell of her.How much I wanted to wake up to it every morning for the rest of my life.
But the light was growing stronger through the curtains, and time was running out, and the man who loved her had to die so the monster could save her life.
I began the process of killing him.
It took longer than I expected.Thirty years of practice, and still the cold didn’t want to come.Not around her.Not with her scent filling my lungs and her warmth seeping into my skin.The wolf fought me every inch of the way, clawing at the ice as it formed, howling protests that I had to physically clench my jaw to ignore.
Don’t.Don’t do this.She’s ours.She’s home.Don’t.
But I kept building.Layer by layer.Until the cold finally reached my heart and froze it solid.
By the time her eyes fluttered open, the cold had settled completely.My face was stone.My heart was ice.The wolf was locked so deep I could barely feel it anymore, just a distant howling like wind across frozen tundra.
She smiled when she saw me.That sleepy, satisfied smile that made my heart ache.She stretched, reaching for me, her hand sliding up my chest toward my face.Her scent changed, sweetening with contentment.
