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"Mine," she gasps, and it is not a question, and her pussy flutters around me, and her rhythm stutters, and I know she is close.

"Say it again."

"Mine, Ivan, miiiine—"

"And who do you belong to, little omega?"

Her eyes flash back at me, and there is the devil in them, and the cougar in them, and a reckless greed older than both.

"Yes, alpha," she purrs, facetious, glorious, mine, and she clenches around me on purpose, and restraint gives way under her next clench. I pull her back against every inch of me. I surge, wrap her in my arms, drive into her twice, three times, and we go over together, her cry in my mouth, my roar in hers, the bond between us blazing like a lit fuse, and the knot swells and locks us together one more time while the fire burns low.

Afterward, tangled and wrecked and stuck together in the most literal sense, her lips move against my throat. Sleepy. Smiling.

"I was so alone. I had my family," she murmurs, like a confession to the dark. "But I was still so alone."

Before I wrap us up, I check the fire to make sure my mate will have enough warmth, then pull the blanket around us. Outside, snow seals the windows white while the fire eats through the logs. There is a fire, and a knot, and a second heartbeat in my chest where an empty space used to be.

"Never again," I tell her. "You will never be alone again. Not while I breathe. Not after, mate."

She sighs into my skin. She falls asleep with my mark on her neck and my knot inside her and my heartbeat under her ear.

Mine.

At last.

Chapter 7: Cienna

I'm asleep on Ivan's chest, his heartbeat slow and steady beneath my ear, one enormous hand resting on the curve of my ass. His tiger purrs even in his sleep, a deep rumble that travels through his ribs into my cheek. I snuggle deeper into the nest he's built for me, a ridiculous mountain of flannel sheets, goose-down duvets, and cashmere blankets. Three days. That's how long we've been tucked away in this cottage, making love, eating when we remember, and sleeping tangled together. Three days of being his mate instead of somebody's surgeon, somebody's research partner, somebody's sensible fiancée. I'm not sure I remember how to be any of those things anymore.

When Ivan first opened the linen closet, I'd stared at all those luxurious sheets and comforters and blankets until he shrugged.

"My mother," he'd said. "This was all my mother."

We'd pulled them down and formed the nest on top of the bed, but when I snuggled into them I realized very few carried his scent. When I told him so, he'd said, "We'll fix that. Soon they won't smell only of me. They'll smell of us."

Now they do. I bury my nose in a fold of cashmere and smile against his chest.

A fist slams against the cottage door hard enough to rattle the frame.

"IVAN!"

Konstantin. His voice is raw. Stripped bare.

"IVAN, GET THE FUCK OUT HERE. IT'S ALEKSEJ."

Ivan snaps up, his thick arms uncoiling from around us. He leans down, cups my cheek, and presses a kiss to my lips before growling, "Wait right here. Don't move." His eyes narrow when I push myself upright. "Cienna. I mean it."

He is pulling his pants on before I've fully sat up. The firelight catches the lines of his back, the muscles bunching, and my core clenches around the memory of the last three days, his mouth, his hands, his knot, the bond tugging low beneath my skin. Then Konstantin's voice again, and the images vanish beneath the urgency in his voice.

"What is it?" I say. I grab Ivan's shirt from the floor and pull it over my head, wincing at the soreness between my legs, and part of me wants to crawl back into my nest and hide.

His brows lower when he sees me dressing. "I said," he starts, a growl in his voice.

I cut him off with a quick hug and keep getting dressed. "He's your brother, but he's my patient."

Ivan opens the door.

Konstantin stands in the snow, shirtless, breathing hard, his eyes gone amber with his tiger riding him. Behind him, in the distance, every light in the infirmary is blazing. That tells me everything.