Chapter 43
DROGO
I walk downstairs and stop at the couch. Damn that couch. The one where Oliver sat, where his hands touched her, where he kissed her neck and thought he had a chance. Pushed his… fuck, I can't even finish the sentence. The rage builds just thinking about it, hot and vicious in my chest.
I can't lie there. Won't. The thought of putting my body where his was makes my skin crawl.
I grab the blanket from the armchair—the one she likes to read in, the velvet one that's shaped itself to her body over months of use.
It smells faintly like her: roses and old books and vanilla, that particular scent that's uniquely Alena.
I layer it over the couch carefully, covering every inch of the fabric until I can't see where he touched anymore, until the evidence of his presence is buried under something that's hers.
Then I lie down, the velvet soft against my skin, her scent surrounding me like an embrace.
The house settles around me in the darkness—silent, safe, hers.
And upstairs, one floor above me, is Alena.
Sleeping. Breathing. Here. Something in my chest clicks into place, a piece I didn't know was missing sliding home with an almost audible snap.
She's above me, I'm below her, in her house, her space, protecting her the way I always have, the way I always will.
I can't even fully process it. For two years I watched her through screens, listened to her cry through audio feeds, saw her break and rebuild and break again—all from a distance that felt like miles even when I was only three houses away.
And now I'm here, in her house, breathing her air, close enough to hear if she calls.
I smile into the darkness. For the first time in two years—maybe longer—I feel the exhaustion hit.
Real, bone-deep tiredness, the kind that comes when your body finally believes it's safe enough to shut down, when the vigilance can finally ease because she's here and she's safe and I'm exactly where I need to be.
My eyes close, and I sleep.
· · ·
A noise wakes me—small, barely there, but my eyes snap open instantly. I'm on my feet before I'm fully conscious, fists tight, body coiled and ready, scanning for threats in the dark. Years of training, years of survival instinct, all kicking in before my brain catches up to where I am.
Then I see her standing at the bottom of the stairs in black pyjamas with little white cartoon ghosts printed all over them, her hair messy from sleep, bare feet on the wood floor, just staring at me with those dark eyes that see everything.
I start laughing. Can't help it. The tension drains out of me all at once, the adrenaline fading as quickly as it came.
Cartoon ghosts. Of course. Of course she has pyjamas with cartoon ghosts.
It's so perfectly her—this woman who writes horror for a living, who's haunted by actual spirits, wearing the most adorable ghost pyjamas like they're armor against the darkness.
"Hell, I love you," I mutter, still grinning as I cross to her. I move slowly, giving her time to run if she wants, but she doesn't. She just stands there watching me approach with an expression I can't quite read.
"Need something?" I ask when I reach her.
She stays silent for a moment, those dark eyes studying me like I'm a puzzle she can't quite solve, like she's trying to figure out if I'm real or another hallucination conjured by grief and loneliness. Finally, she says, "No," and the lie is so transparent I almost laugh again.
Then she turns around and starts walking back toward the stairs, and something in me rebels at the thought of her leaving, of her going back upstairs alone when I'm right here.
I grab her wrist as gently as I can and spin her back into my arms. Her hands land on my chest—small, warm, perfect—and the feeling shoots through me like lightning.
I've missed this so much it physically hurts.
Missed her, missed the weight of her against me, missed the way she fits like she was designed for this exact spot in my arms.
"Trouble sleeping, my love?" I lean down slightly, giving her my full attention, and she takes a moment to respond.
"No," she lies again, and then, quieter, almost vulnerable: "I'm sorry I shot at you."
I laugh, the sound low and rough. "Anytime, babe. You can shoot at me whenever you need to."
Her eyes flick up to mine and hold, and something passes between us in that look—acknowledgment, maybe, or forgiveness, or just the recognition of what we are to each other, what we've always been. Us.
I lean closer and lift her chin with one finger until she's looking directly at me, and I watch her breath catch, see her pupils dilate in the dim light. She doesn't pull away. Doesn't move. Just stares at me with those dark eyes full of confusion and anger and something that might be hope.
Then I close the distance and kiss her, and damn, it's like I've been starving my entire life and just now remembered what food tastes like. Her lips are soft and warm and real—not a screen, not a memory, not a fantasy I've conjured in the dark. Her. Actually her.
She moans against my mouth, and that sound—small and breathy and perfect—makes me lose whatever control I had left.
I lift her, wrapping her legs around my waist as I press her against the nearest wall, and my mind goes black with sensation, with her, with this moment I've been dreaming about for two years.
Then she pulls back, and for a moment she's just silent, staring at me while breathing fast. I can see her eyes flash dark and furious, see the exact moment confusion bleeds into anger. Oh shit.
"You—" she starts, then stops, breathing even faster. "You—"
She shoves me hard, and I let her down slowly, stepping back to give her the space she clearly needs.
"You left me!" She hits my chest hard enough to sting.
But how could her precious hand ever sting?
She is so perfect with her fists on my chest. I wonder, does she know how much I treasure every hit she gives me?
I would stay here forever if that meant she would touch me.
"You left! For two years! TWO FUCKING YEARS! "
"Alena—" I try, but she cuts me off.
"Don't!" Another hit, harder this time. Fuck, she is using her fists wrong. She could hurt herself. "Don't you dare try to explain! You don't get to kiss me! You don't get to—"
I catch her wrists and hold them while she struggles, fights, tries to pull free. "Babe," I say quietly. "Enough."
"GO TO HELL!" she screams, and then she spits in my face.
The saliva hits my cheek, warm and defiant and so perfectly her that I almost groan.
Everything from her is a piece of heaven, even this—her spit is soft, uniquely hers, and fuck me, I love it.
I'm the kind of man who would kneel for this woman without hesitation, the only woman I'd ever want to kneel to, and I'd do it every single time with a smile on my face.
I smile now and lick my lips slowly, tasting the salt, tasting her. "Okay," I say quietly. "Enough."
Then I crash my mouth to hers again, and she moans—angry and desperate at the same time—hitting my chest even as her other hand fists in my hair, pulling me closer, harder.
It's a wonderful surprise, this contradiction.
Alena has never been weak, and I'd half-expected her to shoot at me again, but instead she's fighting and yielding simultaneously, and it's the most perfect thing I've ever felt.
The punches slow, weaken, turn into grasping as I pull her shirt off in one smooth motion.
I didn’t realise I was doing that. But I did.
The fabric tears slightly because I can't be gentle right now, can't slow down when I've been starving for her for two years.
Her breasts spill free, perfect and mine, and I lean down to take her nipple in my mouth, sucking hard.
Shit. She is perfect. I could stay sucking her all fucking day. I want to.
She cries out loud, arching into me, and heaven—this is heaven. Her taste, her sounds, the way her body responds like it remembers me, like it's been waiting for me to come back and reclaim what's always been mine.
My hand slides into her pyjama pants and finds her slick heat, already wet, so damn wet that I groan against her breast. "My girl is ready for me," I murmur, circling her clit with my thumb slowly, teasingly, making her whimper and grind against my hand.
"Please—" she gasps, and I push two fingers inside, feeling her grab my forearm and push me harder into her. She's tight and hot, clenching around my fingers like she never wants to let go, and good, because I won't. I curl my fingers to find that spot deep inside that makes her whole body seize.
"Drogo—" Her voice breaks. "Please—I need—"
Her hand goes to my jeans, fumbling with the button before getting them open and wrapping around my cock, and my knees almost buckle. That touch—her hand on me after two years of only my own—nearly undoes me completely.
"You feel bigger," she breathes against my neck, and I groan because it's true.
"It's been two years. I've been working out," I manage to say as she strokes me with slow, firm, perfect pressure.
I bite her shoulder—not hard, just enough to mark her as mine—and growl, "Need you. Now."
I spin her around and press her against the wall. The surface is cool against her back, and she gasps at the temperature contrast. She's so small compared to me, delicate but strong, fighting and yielding all at once in this perfect contradiction that is purely Alena.
I lift her again and pull her pyjama pants down with one hand, positioning myself between her thighs with my cock pressing against her entrance. "Tell me no," I whisper in her ear, trembling, barely holding on to the last threads of my control.
"Screw you!" she spits back, and I smile because that's not a no, that's never been a no with us.
I pull her hips down and push inside slowly—so slowly it's torture—just the head first, stretching her, feeling her body resist and then yield to me.
She's tight, so tight it borders on painful, but perfect, scorching hot, clenching around me like she's trying to pull me deeper.
I push in inch by inch, savouring every second of this reunion, two years of dreaming and watching through screens and jerking off to memories finally culminating in this moment where she's here and real and mine.
She starts moaning and moving against me, grinding down on my cock. "More," she whimpers. "Please—more—"
I bite her neck to mark her, to brand her as mine, and when she gasps, "Deeper... harder..." I lose whatever control I had left. I turn her to face me and see in her eyes the same hunger I feel, the same desperate need that's been eating me alive for two years.
I grip her hips with both hands, lift her, and slam up into her hard and deep, filling her completely.
She screams and claws at my chest, at my arms, at anything she can reach.
Her nails dig into my shoulders, breaking skin, drawing blood, and it's perfect—the pain mixing with pleasure, the violence mixing with love.
I pound into her fast and brutal, two years of starvation finally given permission to feast. Every thrust punches a sound out of her—gasps and cries and my name broken into syllables. "Drogo—hell—Drogo—" My name in her mouth after all this time, finally, finally.
Sweat slicks our skin, making every slide easier and hotter.
The wet sound of our bodies meeting echoes through the house, obscene and perfect.
I change the angle slightly to hit that spot deep inside that makes her whole body seize, and she screams, "There!
Right there! Don't stop—don't you dare stop—"
I don't, I can't, just keep driving into her, feeling her tighten around me rhythmically as she gets close. "Come for me," I growl against her ear. "Come on my cock, babe. Show me you're mine."
"Yes—yours—always yours—" she gasps, and then she comes hard, clenching around me so tight I see stars. Fuck, I can't hold it, it's been so long. Her scream echoes through the house—loud and unrestrained and beautiful.
I try to pull out, try to give myself enough control to finish somewhere else, but she clamps down harder, her legs locking around my waist and pulling me deeper. "No," she gasps. "Inside. Inside—"
That's it. That's all I needed to hear. I bury myself as deep as I can go and thrust once, twice, then freeze as I come hard and endless, filling her, marking her, making her mine in the most primal way possible. "Damn—" The word tears out of me. "Alena—damn—"
· · ·
We stay there pressed against the wall, breathing hard, hearts pounding against each other in the aftermath. Slowly, carefully, I carry her upstairs while still inside her because I'm not ready to let go yet, not ready to break this connection we've finally reestablished.
Her bedroom. Her bed. I lay her down gently and pull out—she whimpers at the loss—before stripping off the rest of my clothes and climbing in beside her.
She immediately curls into me, her head resting on my chest right over her name tattooed above my heart. Her hand splays over the ink like she's claiming it, claiming me, and her eyes are already closing with exhaustion.
"I hate you," she mumbles, and pain flickers through my chest—brief but real, a sharp reminder that forgiveness isn't the same as forgetting.
I smile anyway and kiss her forehead, pulling the blanket over us both. "I know, babe," I whisper, and her breathing evens out almost immediately, deepening as sleep takes her fast.
I hold her and feel her heart beating against mine, feel her breath warm on my skin.
My fingers trace the little cartoon ghosts on her pyjama pants where they're bunched at her knees—ridiculous, she's ridiculous and perfect.
I trace the curve of her shoulder, the scar on her collarbone from the car crash, the faint marks my teeth left on her neck.
Mine. All of it. Every scar, every mark, every breath.
In the corner of the room, a shadow shifts—not threatening, just present. Her ghosts watching, maybe approving. I don't move, don't acknowledge them, just hold her tighter and whisper into her hair like a prayer, like a promise: "Mine. Finally."
She's mine. Finally. Completely. And I'll burn the world before I let her go again—Klaus, the Bratva, Oliver's family, anyone who tries to take her from me. They'll all learn the same lesson: you don't touch what's mine. Not even once.