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“Would you have…if you’d been given the choice?” she asked gently.

A weird feeling curled in my chest. Would I? A short time ago, I wouldn’t have even had to think about that answer. I gripped the wheel tighter. “There’s a lot at stake. They could declare war if you try to take me back,” I said instead of answering. “Draven wouldn’t just let me go, Mom.” My belly swirled at the thought of that, of him coming after me. God, I was messed up. Why the hell was I trying to talk my mother out of this? I was starting to like Draven, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be mated. After Brody, I swore never to make myself so vulnerable again that my family was all I needed. That’s still how I felt, right? Doubt filled me, and I quickly shook it off. “Let’s just not talk about it now. We’ll worry about the logistics of it all if it happens.” And it wouldn’t. Because again, the council never went back on a decision.

“If that’s what you want.” Mom said. “Will you come for dinner soon, sweetheart?”

“Try and stop me.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too,” I said, then ended the call.

As I drove up the road to the keep, goosebumps lifted all over my skin, because I felt him. His energy was thick, and kind of dark, and urgent. Somehow, I felt all that as well.

I had the sudden urge to turn around and drive home, to go to my family, to my old room, but I could admit there was a part of me that was excited to see Draven as well, and the heavy energy he was throwing out the closer I got to him, seemed to fill me, curling deep inside, heating me.

I’d left the keep hours ago, and knowing he was waiting for me had my heart rate spiking.

By the time I parked the car and shut off the engine, the air around me was electric. Draven’s presence was everywhere. It seemed impossible that I could be the only one who felt it.

I shut the door behind me and walked toward the keep. The moon was high and the air crisp.

He stood at the front of the keep, his tall frame highlighted by the light shining from the windows behind him. He looked kind of wild, his green eyes watching me hungrily as I approached. The intensity of it was so strong I had to take a steadying breath.

“I’m back,” I said stupidly when I reached him, suddenly feeling awkward. I was finding it hard to breathe all of a sudden.

He moved in, crowding me. His arm came around my waist and he pulled me in against his hard body.

“I didn’t like being parted from you today,” he said.

“It was only a few hours.” But I’d felt it, too, this yearning I couldn’t explain. I knew what it was now, it was Draven. The realization was so terrifying, I almost jerked back. Not that I could with the hold he had on me.

“Eleven hours, Iris. You’ve been away from me for eleven hours.” His voice was rougher.

“We’re mates, but this isn’t some…love match. I have a life away from you, and that will never change.”

“We mated yesterday,” he said and dipped his head, his mouth an inch from mine. “A wolf is at his most volatile after taking his mate for the first time. Today has been torture for me.”

I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want to admit that it had been kind of hard for me as well. Not torture, but it had been weird. All day I’d felt like something…someone was missing.

His nostrils flared, and his grip on me tightened. “Do you wish you hadn’t come back? That tonight you could crawl into your old bed, in your old room, alone?”

I’d thought that, hadn’t I? A short time ago, but I could admit that maybe that hadn’t felt right either. I didn’t want to encourage this connection between us, though. It was a one-way road to heartache. We were nothing but fate’s puppets. But the way he was looking at me, the desperate hunger, the need, god, the vulnerability, I couldn’t bring myself to lie. “No.”

He dipped his head closer, so his lips brushed mine when he spoke next. “I’m going to fuck you all night, Iris.”

I dug my fingers into his biceps—

The door opened behind us.

“Dinner’s ready! Come get it while it’s hot,” Sally called.

Draven

Iris was sitting at one of the tables, her plate piled high with food. Maybe I went a little overboard, but caring for my mate was ingrained, and that meant making sure all her needs were satisfied.

Asher was sitting with her, and whatever my warrior had just said had my new mate laughing.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her.