“Please.” She took his hand, her small fingers wrapping around his much larger ones. “I don’t want to be alone tonight. Not after everything that’s happened. Not when I finally have someone who—” She stopped, swallowing. “Please, Baylin. Just stay.”
He should have said no. His beast was still too close to the surface. His control was still too fragile. And every moment he spent with her made it harder to imagine walking away.
But she was looking at him with those wide blue eyes—trusting, hopeful, achingly vulnerable despite her bravery—and he found he couldn’t refuse her anything.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll stay.”
They settled onto the bed together, and for a while, neither of them spoke.
She curled against his side like she’d been doing it her whole life—one arm draped across his chest, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. He kept his arm wrapped around her, overwhelmingly conscious of every place their bodies touched. Of her warmth. Her softness. The trust implicit in the way she relaxed against him.
“I never thought I would have this,” she murmured eventually.
“Have what?”
“Someone to hold me.” Her fingers traced idle patterns on his chest. “In my books, there are always scenes like this. Two people together, just... being close. I used to wonder what itfelt like. I used to lie in this bed alone and imagine there was someone beside me.”
His arm tightened around her involuntarily. The thought of her lying here night after night, year after year, with nothing but imaginary companions for comfort... it made his chest ache.
“You’re not alone anymore,” he said.
“No.” She smiled against his skin. “I’m not.”
Silence fell again. Outside the windows, the jungle hummed with nocturnal life—the calls of night birds, the rustle of creatures moving through the canopy, the distant roar of something large enough to command the darkness. Inside the tower, everything was still.
Her breathing gradually slowed and deepened. Her body grew heavy against his as sleep claimed her. But he remained awake, staring at the ceiling, his mind churning with thoughts he couldn’t silence.
His beast was quiet now, satisfied by Liora’s closeness. But it wasn’t gone. It was waiting. Watching. And every time he looked at her, every time he felt her warmth against him, it whispered the same word.
Mate.
He didn’t know what to do with that.
Vultor took mates for life. The bond, once formed, was unbreakable—a connection that went beyond love, beyond choice, into something instinctive and eternal. His parents had been bonded. Rykan’s parents had been bonded, before the alpha’s first mate died and he’d made the political marriage thatproduced Rykan’s half-brother. The bond was sacred, and once it took hold, there was no escaping it.
His beast believed Liora was his mate.
He wasn’t sure what he believed. He’d known her for a day. Less than a day. Long enough to learn her smile, her curiosity, and her fierce determination to understand everything around her. Long enough to feel the pull between them—the attraction that had sparked the moment he’d looked up and seen her standing on that balcony.
But a day wasn’t enough to build a life on. A day wasn’t enough to promise forever.
And yet...
He looked down at her sleeping face. At the way her lashes fanned across her cheeks, dark against pale skin. At the scatter of freckles across her nose. At the slight curve of her lips, as if she was dreaming about something pleasant.
He thought about how she’d touched his beast without fear. How she’d called him beautiful. How she’d asked him to show her everything, to hide nothing, to let her see the parts of himself he’d always believed were too much.
Maybe a day could be enough. Maybe time wasn’t the point. Maybe some connections transcended chronology, existing outside the normal rules of how relationships were supposed to develop.
Or maybe he was just a lonely fool, grasping at the first person to show him kindness in years.
Either way, it didn’t change what he knew he had to do. He had to help her escape this tower. Had to give her the freedomshe’d been denied her entire life. Whatever happened after that—whether she still wanted him once she’d seen the world beyond these walls—that was her choice to make.
He wouldn’t take it from her.
His thoughts drifted backwards, as they often did in the quiet hours. Back to the pack. Back to Rykan. Back to everything he’d left behind.
Baylin, I need you to stay.
