Marriage.The word echoed through me like a bell struck in an empty cathedral.
Marry her.
My wolf lunged toward the idea with desperate hunger.Our mate, ours forever, protected and claimed.No one would dare touch what belonged to the Vor.He saw only the prize, only the chance to bind her to us permanently.
But the man understood what the wolf couldn’t.She would hate it.Hate me.I had already broken her once, had taken her virginity and then dismissed her like she meant nothing.And I knew exactly what traps she was already caught in.My men had been watching since I left her.Had reported on the will’s marriage clause, the ticking deadline, the way her options narrowed with every passing week.They had told me other things too.That she took her coffee at six-twenty sharp, black with one sugar, the same way she had taken it in my kitchen.That she worked sixteen-hour days now, as if exhaustion could fill the space where I used to be.That she still reached for her throat sometimes, fingers finding bare skin where the collar used to rest.This would be using all of it.The contract.The will.Every cage her father had built around her.Forcing her into a marriage she didn’t want with a man she had every reason to despise.
I would be saving her life by destroying any chance she might ever forgive me.
“There is no third option,” Max said quietly, reading the conflict on my face.“Kill her or marry her.Those are your choices.And you have until tomorrow to decide.”
I didn’t need until tomorrow.
“Marriage,” I said.The word tasted like ash and salvation in equal measure.
Max nodded slowly.“I thought so.”He glanced at Viktor, then at Dmitri.Both kept their faces carefully neutral, but I saw the tension in Viktor’s shoulders.The way a muscle jumped in Dmitri’s cheek.They knew what was coming.“But your weakness still requires correction.You understand.”
I understood.
The enforcers at the door moved forward.They held me down on the floor of that office, my cheek pressed against cold concrete, while they shifted.The sound of bones reshaping, of muscle stretching, of claws extending from fingers that had been human moments before.The heavy panting of wolves barely contained in human skins.
The first strike carved a line of fire across my shoulder blade.I bit through my lip to keep from screaming.The second opened my back from spine to hip, three parallel grooves that went deep enough to scrape bone.
I didn’t scream.I thought of her.Of the night we had spent together, the only night, when she had given herself to me completely and I had nearly lost control.The scent of her arousal, rich and intoxicating.The sounds she had made when I finally pushed inside her, tight and hot and perfect around me.The way she had arched into me, trusting me completely, having no idea how close the wolf was to the surface.
I had nearly claimed her then.Nearly let my teeth find that tender place where her neck met her shoulder and sunk into her flesh, binding her to me with a bond that could never be broken.My fangs had lengthened.I had pressed my mouth against her pulse and tasted the salt of her skin.
I had stopped myself.Pulled back at the last moment, fighting the beast into submission, telling myself it was for her own good.
Another claw strike, this one across my ribs.Blood pooled beneath me, warm and spreading.
This is the price,I thought.This is what it costs to keep her alive.And I would pay it a thousand times over.
When it was finished, Viktor helped me to my feet.My legs nearly buckled.The wounds would heal faster than a human’s, but not fast enough to spare me weeks of pain.His face was carefully blank, but his hands were gentle as he steadied me.
“You’re sure about this?”he asked, too quiet for the others to hear.
“Yes.”
“She’ll hate you.”
“I know.”
Viktor nodded once, respect flickering in his eyes.Or maybe it was pity.Hard to tell with him.He had been my brother in the pack for fifteen years.Had seen me kill.Had seen me bleed.Had never seen me love.
“Then I hope she’s worth it.”
She was.God help me, she was.
The memory faded as the SUV climbed higher into the mountains.Parsons drove in silence, his eyes on the road, his presence a steady calm beside me.He knew where we were going.Knew what I was about to do.He had been the one to make the call to Lena yesterday, announcing my arrival like a death sentence.
The landscape outside the window shifted from bare trees to evergreens, the last patches of snow clinging to shadowed mountain valleys.Paradise Peaks in early spring.The Hughes Palace Hotel would be preparing for the summer season.Planning events and marketing campaigns and all the things that kept a luxury resort alive.
She would be there.Working.Proving herself.Fighting to save the hotel her father had nearly destroyed.
I had been watching from a distance.Reports from Petrov’s security team, updates on the hotel’s recovery, carefully collected information about her daily routines.Not because I was stalking her.Because I needed to know she was safe.Needed to know the stalker who had been tormenting her had not struck again in my absence.
The thought of that faceless threat made my wolf snarl, the sound rumbling low in my chest.Someone had been terrorizing her for months.Dead animals left where she would find them.Damaged property.Threats that escalated with each incident.And I still didn’t know who.The scent trail had gone cold every time.
