Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Astra
I wake to warmth surrounding me like a cocoon, my body more relaxed than it has been in weeks. Something solid and firm presses down on my back, and there’s a heavy weight across my hip that I can’t seem to identify.
My eyes flutter open slowly, consciousness drifting back like fog lifting from water.
Something’s different.
I’m warm—warmer than I should be, sleeping outdoors. There’s a slowly pulsing rhythm beneath my ear that isn’t my own heartbeat. Something solid and firm presses against my cheek, rising and falling in a hypnotic pattern.
I blink, my vision slowly focusing on smooth, tanned skin stretched over muscle. My hand rests flat against what I gradually realize is a bare chest, and I can feel the strong, steady beat of a heart under my palm.
A man’s chest.
Lucian’s chest.
The realization floods me like cold water. I’m sprawled half on top of him, my leg somehow threaded between his, my body molded against his side like I belong there. His arm wraps around my waist, holding me close, while his other leg is thrown possessively over mine.
We’re completely entwined, our bodies fitting together with an intimacy that makes my breath catch.
He’s shirtless.
The morning light filtering through the inn’s window casts shadows across the planes of his chest, highlighting every ridge of muscle, every scar that speaks of violence survived. He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, all sharp angles and raw power even in sleep.
My heart hammers against my ribs as I take in how intimately we’re situated. When did this happen? The last thing I remember is dancing in the town square.
I should get out of this compromising position. I should untangle myself and put distance between us before he wakes up and sees me staring at him like some lovesick fool.
But I don’t.
Instead, I lift my head slowly and let myself drink in the sight of him. The steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my palm. The way his dark hair falls across his forehead. The sharp line of his jaw, the fullness of his lips that have kissed me with such devastating hunger.
It has been a week since Andrew died. Seven days since Lucian ended the man who betrayed me without hesitation or remorse. And in all that time, I haven’t felt a single moment of grief for the human I once believed I loved. No sadness, no regret, nothing.
Instead, thoughts of this mercenary with his arm around my waist consume me at all times.
Lucian has forced his way into my every waking thought.
He is everywhere I look, his voice always in my ears, his touch constantly lingering on my skin.
This infuriating, insufferable man who dotes on me openly, who calls me precious and appears to mean it, who looks at me like I’m important to him, like my wellbeing matters to him.
Does he even understand what he’s doing?
Does he really not have an ulterior motive?
I study his sleeping face, and my heart tightens painfully in my chest. Last night, we danced under twinkling lights to festive music, and I laughed so much.
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed like that before.
I don’t remember if I’ve ever felt so lighthearted.
In those few hours, I wasn’t Astra, the despised latent wolf that everybody spits on.
I was just a girl having fun with the man who treats me like he cares about me.
“If you’re going to leave me,” I whisper almost inaudibly, my fingers tracing Lucian’s jaw, “you should kill me before you do. I don’t think I’ll be able to survive.
” Suddenly I feel suffocated, terrified, along with a plethora of emotions I don’t want to think about.
“I wish you would be cruel to me so that I could hate you.”
I know he has his motivations for doing what he’s doing.
I wish he would just tell me the truth. My pack spent years drilling my worth into me, and Andrew finally cemented it.
Now, I wonder if I even am somebody who can be loved.
What Lucian is doing terrifies me because I’ve never been treated like this before, and it makes me want to believe that he really does care about me.
But how can he, when nobody else ever has? And if he truly does care, when will he change his mind?
I trace a finger along the edge of a scar that cuts across his collarbone, marveling at how warm his skin is, how firm the muscles are beneath my touch. He is pure strength and power, and yet he holds me like I’m a delicate blossom.
“I could get used to this,” I continue to whisper. “And that’s dangerous.”
The thought terrifies me more than anything Andrew ever did. This feeling growing in my chest, this need for Lucian’s touch and attention and the way he makes me feel like I’m the center of his world—it’s going to destroy me when he inevitably realizes what everyone else has.
That I’m not worth it.
I start to pull away, to disentangle myself before I can fall any deeper into this fantasy, but the moment I try to move, Lucian’s free hand swings over and wraps around my wrist.
My breath catches as he turns both of us in one fluid motion, rolling me beneath him and pinning my hands against the bed. His eyes are sharp and alert, no trace of sleepiness in their blue depths.
“Do you know you’re playing with fire?” His voice is rough with sleep and something darker that makes heat pool low in my belly.
I try to tug my hands free, my face burning with embarrassment at being caught. “Let me go.”
“If you touch me like that,” he says, his grip tightening just enough to keep me still, “then I should get something in return.”
I nearly choke on my own saliva. “In return?”
The corner of his mouth curves up in a smile that’s purely sinful. “A kiss.”
“You’ve already kissed me plenty of times.” The words come out breathier than I expected, my body responding to his proximity despite my protests.
“Not the same thing.” He leans down until his lips are inches from mine, his weight pressing me into the bedding. “You have to kiss me, or I won’t let you go.”
My heart is pounding so hard, I’m sure he can feel it. The logical part of my brain knows that if I really pushed him, really demanded that he release me, he would. He has never hurt me, never forced me into doing anything I didn’t want to do.
And right now, I don’t want him to let me go.
“You’ll really let me get up if I kiss you?” I ask doubtfully.
“I promise.”
“I don’t believe you.”
His eyes darken in a way that makes my skin feel too tight. “You’re the one who was trying to sleep with me last night. And I showed great restraint.”
I shudder at the reminder. I was completely drunk. The memory makes me want to disappear.
“I was—”
“Kiss me, Astra.”
The command in his voice, the way he says my name like a request and a demand all at once, undoes something inside me. To shut him up, to stop the knowing look in his eyes, and to silence the voice in my head that’s screaming warnings, I surge upward and press my lips to his.
It was meant to be quick, chaste, just enough to fulfill his demand so I could escape. But the moment our mouths touch, fire explodes through my veins.
His lips are warm and firm against mine, and when he makes a low sound in his throat, a primitive hunger awakens in my chest. My fingers run through his hair as he deepens the kiss, his tongue tracing the seam of my lips until I open them for him with a gasp.
The kiss turns greedy, desperate. He tastes like morning and danger and something uniquely him that makes me want to devour him whole. One of his hands supports his weight while the other traces down my side, setting every nerve ending on fire.
I arch into him, my body moving on instinct, seeking more of his touch, more of this fire that’s consuming me from the inside out. When his teeth catch my lower lip, I make a sound I don’t recognize—needy and wanton and utterly shameless.
“Astra,” he growls against my mouth, and the yearning in his voice makes me shiver.
This is madness. This consuming need, this desperate desire for his touch—it’s everything I swore I wouldn’t let myself feel again.
But I can’t stop. I can’t pull away. I can only kiss him back with everything I have, pouring all my confusion and craving and frantic longing into this slide of lips and tongues.
When we finally break apart, we’re both panting, our foreheads pressed together as we struggle for air.
“That,” he says, his voice rough and satisfied, “was worth the wait.”
My head falls back to the bed, and I stare up at him, my lips swollen and tingling, my body humming with need. The way he’s looking at me—like I’m a cherished thing he wants to protect and possess and never let go—scares me to my core.
Because I want to believe it.
“You said you’d let me go,” I murmur, making no attempt to escape.
His smile is pure male satisfaction. “I lied.”
Before I can reply, his mouth claims mine again—fiercely this time, demanding. The kiss burns through me, igniting something deep and dangerous, something I didn’t know was waiting to be awakened.
It’s hunger.
Raw, insistent hunger that coils in my belly and spreads like wildfire through my veins.
My fingers curl into his hair and hold him closer, as if I can pull the heat from him and make it my own.
Every stroke of his tongue, every graze of his teeth fans the flame higher, until I’m lost in it, in him.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs against my lips, his voice hoarse with desire, “and I will. But if you don’t…”
The rest of the sentence is lost as our mouths meet again, his kiss slow but deep, coaxing me into a rhythm that feels like it’s unraveling me.