I drive the knot in. It catches, swells, locks us together. The second it seals, she shatters—back bowing, thighs clamping around me as she comes with a broken sob that sounds like surrender and grief at once. Her teeth find my shoulder, and she bites down—marking me. I roar, hips jerking as I start to come.
The pulses are violent. I flood her, thick and heavy, pumping rope after rope straight into her womb while the knot pulses and holds us locked. I keep grinding, pushing my seed deeper, determined to breed her, to give her every possible tie—my knot, my come, my scent, the bite she’s leaving on me. Her body milks me greedily, fluttering around the knot, pulling more out of me until I’m shaking and half-delirious.
When the worst of it passes, I collapse over her, still locked deep. My hand finds the bond mark, and I press my palm over it. She’s panting beneath me, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. My shoulder throbs where she marked me. The bond sings now—complete, both ways, raw and new.
I don’t pull out. I can’t. I wouldn’t if I could.
“Mine,” I rasp against her throat, the word half-growl, half-prayer. “Every part. Inside and out. No more running. You’re staying right here with my knot in you until you believe it.”
She doesn’t answer with words. She just turns her face into my neck and kisses her bite mark, claiming me right back.
The knot keeps us tied. I stay buried and full of purpose, planning the next time I’ll fill her, how many more ties I can give her, how many ways I can prove she’ll never be free of me again.
When I can breathe again, I roll us. Carefully. The lock holds. She ends up curled on my side. I don't move her off. Her breathing is uneven. Mine is worse.
"Star." She doesn't answer. "Star, tell me about Robert."
A long silence. Then a laugh. Small. Wet. The kind of laugh that's the last thing before something else. "Robert Campbell," she says, "was my grandfather."
I go still. "He's been dead three years. This was his cabin. There has never been another alpha, Liam. There has never beenanyone."
The relief should feel like relief. It doesn't. I'd driven four hours planning a man's death. I'd put my hands on her body before I'd let her tell me. I'd asked her, mouth between her thighs, if another alpha had been there.
"Star—"
"Don't." Her hand braces against my chest. Pushes up enough that she can look at me, the lock between us still holding, my come still inside her. "Don't make a speech. I can't take a speech right now."
"Okay."
"You came in here, and you didn't let metalk." She glares at me. "You took your fix."
That one I deserve. I take it without flinching. "Yes."
She closes her eyes. Tears slip out of the corners. She doesn't bother wiping them. "I'm so tired, Liam."
"I know."
"You don'tknow."
She's right. I don't. She lifts off my chest as much as the lock allows, her hands flat on my stomach. The angle makes her wince. I put my hands on her hips to hold her steady, and she lets me, but her face has changed.
Whatever broke open during the sex is bleeding now in earnest.
"I built that nest on the floor," she says, "because I couldn't be in the bed without you." Her voice is whisper-soft. "Do you know what it's like to find out the person you dreamed of doesn't want you? To smell yourself going sweet because some part of you is stillwaitingfor him? To wake up in the corner on a floor with atowelpressed to your face because your body won't let you part with the last little bit of his scent?"
"Star, I came back. I ended it. Bethany. The merger. The contract. I flew to Singapore—"
"I know. Paula told me."
"You knew?"
"I knew before you got here. I knew the whole time you were yelling about Robert."
That should change things. It doesn't. Her eyes are very far away.
"I was looking for you night and day," I say. "Do you know what that's like? How it feels to have hurt your mate, but you can't find them to fix it?"
"What if it's too late to fix it?"
