"If it does." He waits until I turn to look at him. "Ciaran takes command. That's automatic. But Ciaran inheriting Alpha authority doesn't guarantee your position. The pack vote didn't happen. Your protection is tied to my title."
"I'm aware of that."
"If I go down," he says, "you contact Graves. Immediately, before things escalate. He gets you off the property and away from the mountain. You don't stay to see how it resolves."
"I'm not running," I say.
"You're not a wolf," he says. "If the pack turns and I'm not here to hold the line, you can't fight that."
"I've managed so far."
"With me behind you." His voice stays level, but his eyes flare and I sense desperation. "This is not a conversation I want to have, Cassidy. But I'm having it because if I don't and something happens, you'll be in the middle of a pack power transition with no protection and no way out."
"And if I leave," I say, "what happens to the pack? To the testimony against the syndicate? To everything I've built here?" I take a step toward him. "You're asking me to run from the thing I came here to stop."
"You’ll need to run to survive."
“You don’t know-”
“Cassidy!” His voice is sharp and controlled. “Stop arguing for once and listen. There are no guarantees this time, so if things go badly, save yourself, got that?”
I look at him across the small space of the room, and the anger is real, flaring in his eyes with his wolf close to the surface. But underneath the anger is the thing neither of us are saying, which is that the thought of him going down and me not being here when it happens is an unbearable thought I can’t entertain.
"You're not going to fall," I say.
“That’s the hope.”
"I hate this conversation."
"So do I."
We stand there for a moment, the tension wound tight between us, and the mate bond is not helping, amplifying everything, the anger and the fear and the thing that lives underneath both of those, the thing that's been building since the first time he held my gaze a half-second longer than necessary in an east wing corridor what feels like a lifetime ago.
I don't know which of us moves first.
The kiss is nothing like the slow and intentional ones we've had before. It's immediate and urgent, his mouth coming down on mine, heavy with everything the last twenty-four hours have cost him.
I open for him without hesitation, kissing him back just as hard. His hands find my face, then my hair, then slide to my sides like he's taking an inventory, making sure I'm solid and real and here.
Arousal flares in my center, and my panties soak through immediately. I moan into Alden’s mouth, the sound swallowed by his kiss.
Our tongues meet and the argument dissolves. My hands grip the front of his shirt, pulling him toward me as if the spacebetween us is the problem, as if eliminating it will fix the fear underneath the wanting. A shiver runs down my spine.
He makes a low sound against my mouth and his hands move down my sides, tracing the curve of my breasts, my waist, and hips, and when his palms close over my backside and he lifts me clean off the floor, I gasp against his lips and wrap my arms around his neck.
“You’re not allowed to leave me,” I whisper against his lips.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he growls.
My legs lock around his hips and I slide my body against his, feeling every point of contact when my breasts yield to his unforgiving, sculpted chest.
The bulge in his pants rests at the center between my legs and I grind my hips against him, delicious friction shaking my legs and drawing a moan from Alden.
“Please,” I moan. “Please. I need you.” Each word is barely a whispered gasp.
He carries me to the bed without breaking the kiss, drops me onto the mattress, and strips his shirt over his head in one motion. His belt buckle rattles and his pants drop to the floor with a soft thud.
I drink him in with my eyes, the broad set of his shoulders and the new bandaging and the old scar and all the evidence of a life lived through dangerous things. My eyes trail down his chiseled chest to his powerful legs, and the firm length of his erection promising to deliver on what I want.
