32. Milo
MILO
“ T hink she’ll put two and two together?”
Milo arched a brow, glancing over at Titan.
The younger wolf was hunched over a laptop, a textbook spread open beside it, the glow of the screen brightening his face.
The van around them was kitted out like a command post—rows of monitors, wires, gear—and looked entirely nondescript from the outside.
“What?” Milo asked, voice flat.
“That the McGarvey I’ve been talking about is the same McGarvey who wants to fuck our shit up.”
Milo snorted, turning back to the wall of camera feeds flickering in front of him. “Maybe when it’s pointed out to her in a very obvious way.”
If there was one thing he’d learned about Willow, it was that she wasn’t exactly the observant type. And maybe that was for the best. Ignorance could be bliss. He was willing to let her live in it as long as he could, if only to protect her for longer.
It had been a week since the kittens came home, and their care had somehow become part of a mutual rhythm between himself and Willow. Every night since, he and Willow had found each other in their dreams—always the same delicate tether, as if fate itself kept drawing them back together .
There, it was all light touches and the ghost of lips brushing, moments stretched thin with anticipation. Never more than that. Willow wasn’t ready. He could feel it in the way she leaned into him and then pulled back, warmth tempered by caution.
And he took what she offered, no matter how little it was compared to what he wanted. He held her close when she allowed it, memorizing the weight of her against him, the scent of her hair, the small sighs she let slip when her guard faltered.
She was warmer with him now. The ice had cracked, melting in places, but the wall was still there—stubborn, unyielding. She gave him pieces, never the whole. And Milo accepted it, even as a part of him ached with the certainty that she was his.
He could wait. He’d take the warmth she offered and bide his time, holding her in dreams until she finally let him hold her in truth.
It had also been a week of chasing his own tail, trying to pin down Jenner.
They’d caught glimpses of him here and there, but his presence was always fleeting, a mirage swaying above hot pavement.
By the time Milo had boots on the ground, the little weasel had already slipped away, vanishing as though the city itself had conspired to protect him, swallowing him whole.
Now Milo was on the ground himself, hunting Jenner the old-fashioned way.
Sometimes that was what it took. You couldn’t delegate instinct, couldn’t catch a scent through a screen.
And being the one in charge meant leading by example, never asking his men to get their hands dirty in ways he wouldn’t.
Not that they could match him in training anyway. Except Arlo.
That absence gnawed at him. It was a gap in the unit that couldn’t be patched no matter how tightly he pulled the rest together.
Without him, every move felt just a little less sharp, every plan slower to lock into place.
It was proving harder to ignore by the day.
Even so, Milo understood that Arlo was needed elsewhere.
The show had to go on. War would wait for no one.
Something flickered on the feed, familiar enough to snag Milo’s attention. His eyes cut to the right-most screen, chair swiveling as he locked onto the image.
There he was.
“A cannoli? Yo, is he serious?” Titan scoffed from behind him, abandoning whatever half-assed work he’d been pretending to do in favor of crowding Milo’s shoulder .
Sure enough, Jenner strolled out of a bakery—one owned by the weasels’ grandmother’s cousin’s great-granddaughter, or something equally convoluted. Unlike Milo, Jenner had fairly humble origins, and had clawed his way to the top of the city.
Their circles were small. Everyone knew everyone, and the bloodlines twisted tight. At the top, things stayed stable enough, but the lower rungs were always gnawing at each other, packs snapping at each other for territory and rank.
They’d all grown up in that same mess, which made tracking Jenner easier in theory. In practice, it just meant the bastard knew how to slip through the cracks better than most.
“Should we make a move? Bag him?” Titan’s voice buzzed with eagerness, the kind of reckless energy only inexperience bred.
Milo didn’t take his eyes off the feed. “No. We’re here for intel, nothing more. We lay low, we watch, we collect. The end.”
One wrong move now and it would end in blood on all sides.
He dragged a hand down his face, exhaling slow. It was going to be a long night, made longer with Titan vibrating in his seat, itching for action he wasn’t ready for. Milo’s patience was stretched thin.
And beneath it, another sense pulled at him.
His mate.
She’d be at home, slipping into bed by now, drawing the blankets over her body. The image hit him hard, clawing at his composure.
He ground his teeth, jaw tight. The month was only half-spent, the moon climbing toward her peak, and already he could feel the beast pacing inside him.
Hungry. Restless. Possessive. He had high hopes that she’d let him knot her this time, that their union would be completed and she’d belong to him entirely.
It amazed him sometimes, that everything he felt for her now, all this burning, unrelenting need, was only a shadow of what it would be once they were fully mated.
If this was only the fraction, he couldn’t imagine the intensity waiting for him on the other side.
Milo couldn’t fathom how far he’d be willing to go, how much blood he’d spill in her name, once their bond was sealed tight.
But it wasn’t just the bond. It wasn’t just instinct, or the beast clawing in his chest.
It was her.
Willow, with her stubbornness and wary eyes.
The way she softened when she thought no one was looking, how she pressed kisses into the kittens’ fur with a tenderness that made his heart ache.
He remembered crouching on the floor beside her, both of them laughing as one of the little terrors tried to climb his arm like a tree.
She’d looked up at him then, cheeks flushed from laughing too hard, and something inside him had shifted permanently.
He loved her because she was fire and steel, because she was stubborn enough to stand toe-to-toe with him, because she still carried gentleness in a world that had done its best to strip it from her.
And he knew once she was his in truth, there would be nothing in this world or the next that could take her from him.
***
The house was quiet when they returned, Titan peeling off to his own quarters with a muttered good night. The mission had yielded little in the way of results, but Milo didn’t care anymore. Not once he crossed the threshold of his room.
Willow was there .
In his bed.
She was curled on her side, the blankets tangled around her legs, hair spilling across his pillow. The kittens were tucked into the crook of her knees, their small bodies rising and falling with the rhythm of her sleep.
For a long moment, he just stood in the doorway, silent. His chest clenched so hard it almost hurt. He’d envisioned this, dreamed of it, craved it, but he hadn’t expected it to hit him like this.
Not lust, though that was always there, simmering under his skin whenever she was near. This was something heavier. The sight of her in his space, on his sheets, her scent already woven into the air…
It undid him.
He stepped inside quietly, every movement controlled. His boots were silent as he set them aside, his hands deliberate as he shrugged out of his jacket. Willow’s presence pulled at him like a magnet, drawing him closer until he stood beside the bed, looking down at her.
Her lips were parted slightly, lashes brushing her cheeks. She looked peaceful, unguarded in a way she never was awake. He could almost imagine this was normal. That she was his fully bonded mate, asleep after waiting up for him, the bed warm from her body as he slid in beside her.
Milo dragged a hand down his face, exhaling slowly. The beast inside him stirred at the thought, whispering, “Mate.” His mate.
Careful, he sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. One of the kittens stirred, stretching before tucking itself back against Willow’s legs. She shifted, just barely, her hand brushing over the empty side of the bed as if searching for him even in sleep.
His throat tightened.
Milo let himself feel it all—the want, the devotion, the bone-deep certainty that she belonged to him. And he promised himself, silently, that one day she’d wake up in this bed and know it too.