Then, he bit.
He clamped down on the soft skin just above my collarbone. It was crushing pressure. It was the weight of the ocean, the weight of the earth. It grounded me so thoroughly I thought I might sink through the floorboards.
I screamed.
It wasn't a scream of fear. It was a scream of release. It was the final note in the symphony we had been writing for years, the exorcism of the girl who had been dragged off a stage in silence.
I slumped against him, my legs finally giving out completely. Daniel caught me effortlessly, sweeping me up into his arms, carrying me to the bed not as an invalid, but as a queen returning to her throne.
Anders and Simon followed, closing the ranks immediately.
We fell onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs and bruised skin. There was no desperate scrambling this time, no frantic race against a fever or a deadline. We had time. We had forever to memorize the new geography of our bodies.
They surrounded me. Anders settled at my back, his cool fingers tracing the fresh, hot bite on my shoulder. Simon curled at my feet, his hand resting possessively on my hip, his thumb stroking the fabric of my trousers. Daniel loomed over me, his forehead pressed to mine, creating a private world between us.
"Heroine," Daniel whispered against my lips.
"Pack," I answered.
And as the city lights twinkled outside the window, ignoring the chaos of the internet and the roar of the accolades, we sealed the rest of the contract in the only language that mattered.
EPILOGUE: ONE YEAR LATER
The convention center smelled like stale coffee, industrial carpet cleaner, and the nervous, pheromone-heavy sweat of three thousand romance readers. To anyone else, the air would have been stifling, a sensory assault of humidity and low-grade anxiety.
To me, it was the most beautiful smell in the world. It was the scent of people who had found a safe harbor in the pages of a book.
I adjusted my glasses, pushing them up the bridge of my nose with the back of my wrist. They had slid down again, slick with the heat of the room and the exertion of the last two hours. The sharpie in my hand was warm, the plastic barrel slippery against my fingers, the felt tip hovering over the title page of a hardcover copy ofThe Alpha's Oath: Definitive Edition.
"To..." I looked up, blinking against the harsh fluorescent lights to focus on the girl standing on the other side of the autograph table.
She couldn't have been more than nineteen. She was wearing an oversized hoodie that swallowed her frame, the sleeves pulled down over her hands so only her fingertips were visible. She was clutching a second book to her chest like a shield, or perhaps aholy text. Her eyes were wide, darting around the crowded hall like a prey animal scanning for predators, terrified of being seen but desperate to be here.
"Maya," she whispered. Her voice was barely audible over the dull roar of the crowd behind her.
I smiled. It wasn’t the practiced, media-trained smile Anders had tried to teach me during our prep sessions, the one that involved showing teeth and angling my chin for the cameras. It was soft. Real. A mirror of the shy girl I used to be.
"To Maya," I repeated, letting the name roll around my mouth before writing it in the looping script I had practiced until my hand cramped.
I shifted in my chair, trying to find a comfortable position. It was becoming increasingly difficult; gravity was no longer my friend, and my center of balance had shifted dramatically over the last few months. The baby, who Daniel insisted was going to be a linebacker based on the sheer kinetic force of the kicks, decided at that exact moment that my bladder was a trampoline.
I winced, then rubbed a hand over the distinct, heavy curve of my belly beneath my velvet dress. Seven months. And they felt like seven years of growth, stretching my skin and my soul in equal measure.
A shadow fell over the table, blocking out the glare of the overhead lights.
"Water," a deep voice rumbled, vibrating through the floorboards and straight into the soles of my feet.
A massive hand placed a fresh bottle of artisanal spring water next to my elbow. The cap was already discarded, and a straw was inserted at the perfect angle. Daniel stood behind me, looking like a private security detail that doubled as a lumberjack who owned a cozy bookstore. He was wearing a soft flannel shirt that strained across his chest, the sleeves rolled up to reveal honey-brown skin. He was scanning the crowd, hishazel eyes warm but vigilant, cataloging every movement near our booth.
"I'm not thirsty, Daniel," I murmured, leaning back slightly to catch his scent, which was a balm against the chaos of the hall.
"Hydration is non-negotiable," he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He rested a hand on my shoulder, his thumb brushing the faint, silvery scar of the bite mark on my collarbone, the permanent claim he had left there a year ago. "Doctor's orders. Pack orders. Drink."
"Drink the water, Tess," a teasing voice chipped in from my left. "He's been staring at your hydration levels for twenty minutes. It’s making him twitchy."
Simon was perched on the edge of the stage, ignoring the "No Sitting" sign with casual disregard. A DSLR camera was grafted to his hand, his long, ink-stained fingers adjusting the lens focus with fluid dexterity. He looked less like a haunted ghost these days and more like a rockstar who had wandered into a library, dressed in black denim and a hoodie that smelled faintly of dark chocolate and graphite.
He snapped a candid shot of the girl, Maya, capturing the exact moment her anxiety turned into awe as she looked at Daniel.
