“Because it never does.Not for me.”I looked up at him, and the words came spilling out before I could stop them.“My mother died when I was four.My father spent the next fifteen years keeping me at arm’s length, treating me like an ornament instead of a daughter.He called it protection, but it was doubt.He never believed I could run the hotel, never trusted me with the business he spent his whole life building.And then he died, and I got my chance to prove him wrong, but he’ll never know.He’ll never see what I’ve done with it.”I swallowed hard.“And you…”
“I hurt you.”His voice was quiet.“After our first night together.I pushed you away.”
“You did.”The memory still ached, even now.“Every time I let myself be happy, something comes along to take it away.I lost my mother.I lost my father.I lost my innocence to a contract I thought I understood.Every time I allow myself to hope…” I shook my head, frustration and fear tangling in my throat.“I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
He reached across the table and took my hand.Through the bond, his certainty.His fierce determination.His refusal to let me be right about this.
“The threat is gone,” he said.“Joe is dealt with.My men are watching the hotel.You are safe, Lena.I won’t let anything hurt you.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can.I do.”He squeezed my hand, his grip firm and warm.“The danger is over.What we have now is real.It’s permanent.No one is going to take this away from us.”
I wanted to believe him.
Looking into his eyes, feeling his certainty like a warm current running beneath my skin, I almost did.Almost.But the fear was still there, a small cold kernel at the center of all this warmth.It would not go away simply because he told it to.It had been part of me too long.
But maybe, with time, it would shrink.Maybe, with enough mornings like this one and enough nights in his arms, I would learn to trust that the happiness would last.Maybe I would learn to believe that I deserved it.
That night, we made love slowly.Tenderly.None of the desperate urgency of the claiming, none of the angry passion of our earlier encounters.Just connection, deep and steady, our bodies moving together while our emotions tangled together.His pleasure and mine intertwined, the sensations doubling back on themselves until I could not tell where I ended and he began.
Afterward, I lay in his arms and listened to his heartbeat.Through our connection, he drifted toward sleep, his consciousness softening at the edges, content and at peace in a way I had never sensed from him before.
Safe, I thought.We’re safe now.
I wanted so badly to believe it.
I fell asleep with the bond humming between us, warm and present and real.The collar was around my throat.The ring was on my finger.His mark was on my shoulder.I belonged to him in every way a person could belong to another, and that belonging did not feel like a cage.
It felt like home.
The fear was still there, that small cold voice warning me that happiness never lasted.But I was tired of listening to it.Tired of bracing for disaster.Tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Maybe, just this once, there was no other shoe.
I let myself believe it.Let myself sink into the warmth of his arms, the steady pulse of the bond, the quiet certainty that we had made it through the worst and come out the other side together.
For once, I allowed myself to be happy.
24
RAPHAEL
Joe Bishop was rotting in an unmarked grave, and my mate was safe.
The satisfaction that thought brought should have troubled me.It did not.I was Bratva.I was wolf.I had killed before and would kill again if anything threatened what was mine.Joe had been sniffing around my wife, breaking into restricted areas, taking photos of her like some obsessed stalker.The evidence had been damning.The outcome had been inevitable.
I would do it again without hesitation.Without regret.Without a moment’s pause.
The drive to the hotel had been peaceful.Summer morning, the mountains green and lush beneath a sky so blue it hurt to look at, the road winding through countryside that smelled of pine and wild grass and the faint distant promise of rain.I drove with the windows down, letting the wind carry the scents of the world to me.Clean air.Growing things.Freedom.
Through the bond, I could feel Lena’s contentment, that warm steady hum of a mate who felt protected, safe, and trusted me to keep her that way.The bite had changed everything.Her presence lived inside me now, steady and sure, a warmth where there had once been only wanting.The bite on her shoulder would be healing well by now, the raised skin where my teeth had pierced her marking her as mine for anyone with eyes to see.
Ours.My wolf’s voice was quiet.Satisfied in a way I had never felt from him before.
This was what I had killed for.This feeling, the peace and the knowledge that my mate could work through her day without fear, could laugh with her staff, could build her legacy, all because I had eliminated the threat to her safety.
But somewhere between the manor gates and the hotel parking lot, the wolf stood at attention.
