“I love you so much it hurts,” he confessed, and I knew exactly what he meant.
He pulled back and cupped my cheek with one hand. His thumb found a streak of dried blood and wiped it away with care. His gaze searched my face as if memorizing every freckle.
“Where are you hurt?” he asked.
“Everywhere and nowhere,” I said honestly. My physical cuts were already healing. They were no big deal. But my heart hurt for him. Over a decade, he’d been waiting for this, and now he was in an empty house with no family but me.
His jaw eased at my admission. “Harrow is dead,” he said softly, as if the room needed to hear it said, as if his childhood walls deserved the truth out loud.
“He is,” I said.
“Good.” He let out a breath that seemed to empty him of ten years. “Thank you.”
I set Valkaryn on the small table by the bed.
‘Rest,’Val murmured.‘I can keep watch.’
I eyed the adjoining bathroom. “I want to wash up,” I told him.
Without a word, he led me inside, drew me a hot bath, and added lavender castile soap that an attendant brought. Perks of being an alpha, he could mentally speak to any of his wolves at any time.
“I’ll leave,” he said, giving me his back.
“Stay,” I told him, and he spun around, eyebrows raised.
I undid the buckle of my pants and shimmied them to my knees, then my ankles, slowly kicking them off. Kaelric’s eyes burned yellow at the sight of the cut on my thigh.
“I’m okay,” I said, slipping out of the rest of my clothes, not caring to hide my nakedness.
Kaelric stopped breathing when I dropped my underclothes on the floor and slipped into the bath, his eyes tracking me the entire way. When I was under the bubbles, he kneeled beside my bath and cleaned my wounds with water and soap. I made quick work of getting clean, using two fresh pitchers of water to rinse my hair. All the while, Kaelric watched me with a look of fascination. When I was done, I wrapped myself in a linen and didn’t bother with clothes.
I wanted to bed my mate. I’d been patient. So had he. It was time. We walked out to the bedroom, and Kaelric stared at the sword on the nightstand.
“That’s going to need to go in the bathroom,” he said, and I burst into laughter.
Little did he know, his mother could see through my eyes. But I knew she would give us privacy. I already felt her retreating.
Once Val was tucked safely in the bathroom with the door shut, he lifted my hand and kissed the bruised knuckles.
“My little wolf,” he said, but it was not a tease. It was reverent and a little tired.
I touched a lock of his dark hair. “My little alpha,” I said back, which caused him to tip his head back with a throaty laugh.
When his laughter died, his eyes went half-lidded. We undressed each other slowly, his hands at my shoulder. “If you want to sleep, we sleep,” he said.
“I want you,” I said.
He kissed my scars as if the mere act could erase them from my body, as I traced the lines of his ab muscles and we kissed passionately. The bond between us hummed until it felt like the very air was charged with it. When the world went soft at the edges, and energy slid down my spine, I let it. We spoke no words, but he taught me a new language, one of kisses and breath and touch.
When we lay still, he pulled the gray blanket up and tucked it around my shoulders tenderly to keep the cold out, and we looked out the same window at a city he once loved as a child. His heartbeat slowed under my ear as I rested on his chest, soaking in the peace that had finally been gifted to us after everything we’d been through. But as much as I wanted peace, there was something lingering at the back of my mind. Unfinished business.
My promise to the Creator.
‘Are you going to tell him?’Val whispered.
I should have. I wanted to, but I was scared. I didn’t want to tarnish the beautiful moment we just shared. I wanted him to remember that moment forever without the crushing news I’d given him after. The corner of the room where the wooden hawk kept watch held its breath as if waiting for my decision. Kaelric’s breathing went even. The bond between us quieted into a sweet, heavy hum. The chant outside faded into drunken songs.
I stared at the ceiling and counted the boards. I followed the seam where two planks met and set my palm flat on Kaelric’s chest.
