The heat was a haze.
I drifted in and out of it—surfacing, submerging, surfacing again—but the one constant was him. Always him. A cool washcloth when I was burning. A basin of water. Food that I barely touched. He’d arrived on day one with several cases of water lined up against the wall like he’d planned for a siege, which in retrospect was exactly what this was.
I couldn’t remember anyone caring for me like this.
Not since childhood illness, when my mum would sit on the edge of the bed and press her cool hand to my forehead. Not Finley—Finley had once asked me to keep the noise down when I had a stomach bug because he was trying to watch something. Not anyone in the years between.
And here was this Alpha wolf CEO—this composed, deliberate, thirty-six-years-of-waiting man—with a washcloth and a water bottle and infinite patience, tending to me like it was the most natural thing he’d ever done.
It may have softened me a touch.
It was probably why I kept eyeing his neck like something feral.
My room smelled like us now—completely, irreversibly. His clothes had stopped working on their own. The scent was flat without him in it, just an echo of something that needed the source. I took my hits directly from his skin now and any time he wasn’t within reach made me irritable in a way I didn’t bother to examine.
I lost count of time.
Days.
Responsibilities.
None of it reached me. All that mattered was whether he was there when I reached for him.
He always was.
Bad Girl hummed.
She seemed remarkably unbothered these days. Settled in a way she’d never been—not dormant, not watching from a distance, just present and calm and entirely at home.
Which told me everything I needed to know.
But that niggling voice reminded me how charming Finley had appeared in the beginning.
Chapter 47
Conrí
Day Four
While she slept I coordinated the day’s logistics and dealt with anything that couldn’t wait. My brother’s messages were not among the things that couldn’t wait.
I’d told Killian and Dubhán before they left on day one that if Cuán discovered this address there would be severe consequences. They’d looked at one another before lowering their heads in unison.
“We might have mentioned the general borough location.”
“Sorry, Alpha.”
And yet—Cuán had not appeared at Nika’s door.
The pack group chat was buzzing.
Most of it was warm—genuinely, overwhelmingly warm in the way only a pack could be. Congratulations stacked on top of congratulations. Voice notes from the elders. A string of messages from Neev that was mostly crying emojis and exclamation marks. Rua had apparently organised a meal rota for the week after the heat ended, which I hadn’t asked for and was deeply grateful for. Maeve had sent a photograph of Seán holding a sign that the older children had clearly made for him since he was eighteen months old and couldn’t write.
Welcome home, Alpha’s mate.
I stared at that one for a longer moment than I intended.
Then there was Cuán.
