Because I’d built the same one.
She looked at me one last time, and there was nothing tender in her gaze now.Just cold assessment.The look of someone who’d learned a lesson and wouldn’t forget it.
The door closed behind her with a soft click.
She was gone.And she’d taken something with her that I hadn’t meant to give.
I stood at the window until I was sure my legs would hold me, then crossed to the dresser and poured myself a whiskey.My hand was shaking.The amber liquid trembled in the glass and felt a fury so vast I couldn’t breathe through it.
She was wrong.She had to be wrong.Because if she was right, if there was something inside me worth seeing, worth knowing, worth staying for, then everything I’d built was a lie.
The monster.The control.The walls.
All of it, useless.
She’s our mate, the wolf said, and there was no gloating in his voice now.Only truth.She sees us.All of us.And she’s still here.
I threw the whiskey against the wall.Glass shattered.Amber liquid dripped down the wallpaper like tears.
It didn’t help.Nothing helped.Because she was right, and I knew it, and tomorrow I would have to face her again and pretend that nothing had changed.
When everything had.
18
LENA
I made it to my room before I let myself feel it.
The door clicked shut behind me and I slid down against it, pressing my back to the wood until I sat on the cold marble floor.My legs wouldn’t hold me.My hands were shaking.I could still taste him on my tongue, still feel the ghost of his release on my skin even though he’d wiped it away with hands that had been almost tender.
Almost.
What did you just do?
I pressed my palms against my eyes and tried to breathe.Tried to think.Tried to understand how I’d gone from “guard your heart” to tracing his scars like I had any right to his pain.
I’d touched his face like he was something precious.I’d tasted him like I wanted to know what he was made of.I’d felt his arms wrap around me, holding me like I mattered, and I’d forgotten every warning, every wall, every promise I’d made to myself just hours ago in this same room.
And then he’d thrown me out like I was nothing.
Clara’s voice cut through the fog in my head, sharp as broken glass:Whatever tenderness he shows you, it’s all part of the hunt.The wolf doesn’t actually care about the rabbit.He just wants to eat it.
I’d been so sure I understood that.So certain I could keep my heart locked away while my body paid the price of our arrangement.But tonight, when he’d kissed me slowly instead of claiming me roughly, when his hands had moved over my skin like I was something to be cherished rather than consumed, I’d let myself believe.
Stupid.So stupid.
The worst part wasn’t that he’d pushed me away.The worst part was the look on his face when he’d turned and watched me leave.For one heartbeat, I’d seen something raw behind his eyes.Something that looked almost like regret.
And I’d almost broken.Almost crossed back to him, almost reached for the wounded man behind the monster.
Then I’d remembered the hallway floor.The cold marble against my knees as I sobbed, dress bunched around my waist, while he walked away satisfied.I’d remembered that every moment of gentleness was followed by cruelty, every crack in his guard slammed shut harder than before.
So I’d built my own wall.Right there in his doorway, I’d felt it rise.Brick by brick, mortared with humiliation and sealed with resolve.
He’d seen it.I’d watched him see it, watched something flicker in his expression that might have been surprise.Good.Let him see what his hot-and-cold games created.Let him understand that I could play this game too.
I stood on shaking legs and stripped off my clothes, dropping them in a pile I’d deal with tomorrow.The shower was scalding, hot enough to turn my skin pink, hot enough to burn away the memory of his hands, his mouth, the way he’d held me after like I was something he couldn’t bear to release.
