Chapter 13
LENA
The mountains parted like a curtain, and Paradise Peaks spread out below us in the morning light.
I tightened my grip on Raphael’s fur, my throat closing at the sight.
The town looked exactly as I had left it.
Red and gold leaves scattered across Main Street, dancing in the October breeze.
Smoke rising from chimneys into a sky so blue it hurt to look at.
The church steeple caught the sun, its white paint gleaming.
And there, rising above the smaller buildings, the stone turrets of the Hughes Palace Hotel.
My hotel. My home. The place I had built from my father’s wreckage into something that was truly mine.
Home.
I had spent every day dreaming of this moment, of seeing my hotel again. Now that it was here, real and almost at my fingertips beneath the autumn sky, I could barely breathe.
Beneath me, Raphael’s wolf settled. The constant vigilance that had hummed between us for days began to ease, replaced by territorial contentment. We were crossing out of pack-acknowledged territory now, and even the predator in him recognized that the running was over.
Dmitri slowed beside us, his dark wolf form pulling to a stop at a ridge overlooking the valley.
This was as far as he would go. Viktor needed him back at the compound, helping to consolidate power, and Dmitri’s loyalty had always run in that direction.
He had been our guardian for days. Now he was passing us home.
Raphael shifted, and I slid from his back as his body reformed into the man I loved. He was naked, of course, and completely unbothered by it. I had learned not to be. Wolf shifters had a different relationship with their bodies than humans did.
“Brother.” Raphael clasped Dmitri’s shoulder as the other wolf shifted. “Thank you.”
Dmitri’s expression stayed grim, but warmth surfaced in his eyes. “Keep her safe.”
Raphael nodded once.
They embraced briefly, the fierce grip of men who had survived together. Then Dmitri stepped back, shifted, and disappeared into the trees without looking back. I watched until even my human eyes could not track his dark form anymore.
“Ready?” Raphael asked.
I turned to look at him, at the scars on his chest still pink and healing, at the silver threading through his dark hair, at the eyes that had watched me with such intensity for months now. My husband. My mate. The monster and the man, both of them mine.
“Yes,” I said. “Take me home.”
We walked the last mile into town. Raphael had stashed clothes at various points throughout Paradise Peaks, a paranoid precaution that I now appreciated.
He pulled on jeans and a sweater from a cache hidden beneath a fallen log, and we emerged from the forest looking almost normal.
Almost like any other couple out for a morning hike.
The first person to recognize me was old Mrs. Janssen from the Christmas ornament store. Her face lit up with genuine delight. “Lena! You’re back! We heard there was a family emergency.”
The cover story. Clara had maintained it all week, fielding questions from guests and locals alike while I ran for my life through mountain safe houses.
“All resolved now,” I said, the lie sliding smoothly from my tongue. “Thank you for asking.”
Mrs. Janssen patted my arm and bustled off to spread the news. By noon, the entire town would know I had returned. Small towns ran on gossip like cars ran on fuel.
Raphael’s hand found mine as we walked the rest of the way down Main Street.
His touch was warm and grounding, and I squeezed his fingers without thinking.
We had held hands through so much worse than a walk down a familiar street.
But this felt different. This felt like a beginning instead of a holding on.
I stood in the doorway for a moment, just breathing it in.
The enormous marble columns that spanned multiple stories, the scent of breakfast from the hotel’s restaurant.
The familiar squeak of wheels as the bellboy pushed a baggage cart toward the elevator.
My world. My legacy. The thing I had nearly lost.
“Lena?”
Clara’s voice cracked on my name.
I turned, and she was already moving, crossing the lobby at nearly a run. She hit me hard enough to stagger us both, her arms wrapping around me with fierce strength. The tears I had been holding back finally spilled over.
“You scared the hell out of me,” she whispered against my hair. “You disappeared for an entire week with nothing but cryptic texts. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if you were coming back.”
“I’m sorry.” I held her just as tight, my cousin, my best friend, the only family I had left that mattered. “I’m so sorry. I’m home now.”
“Don’t you ever do that to me again.”
“I won’t.”
She pulled back, her eyes red-rimmed but fierce. “I managed. The hotel is fine. Christmas bookings are strong, the renovation on the third wing finished last week, and I only had three minor crises that I handled without setting anything on fire.”
A laugh bubbled out of me, surprising us both. “Only three?”
“Well.” Clara’s mouth curved. “Four, if you count the time Ratty accidentally ordered five hundred pounds of avocados instead of fifty. But I fixed it. I donated the extra to the food bank and got us a nice tax deduction.”
“You’re amazing.”
“I am.” She looked past me to where Raphael stood watching, his posture protective but his expression carefully neutral. “And you. You kept her alive.”
“Always,” he said simply.
Clara studied him for a long moment. Whatever she saw must have satisfied her, because she nodded once and stepped back.
“The staff will want to see you. Marjorie’s been worried sick.
I told them it was a family thing in Denver, that your husband’s relatives needed help, but I don’t think they all believed me. ”
“I’ll talk to them.”
“Later.” Clara’s hand found mine and squeezed. “Right now, you look exhausted. Marjorie’s been waiting for you.” She glanced at Raphael. “Go home, Lena.”
My penthouse. The private residence on the top floor where I had grown up, where Marjorie had raised me after my mother died and my father retreated into his grief and his schemes.
I had not stayed there since the wedding.
Raphael’s manor had become ours. But Clara was right.
After days of safe houses and bunkers, I needed home. My real home.
Raphael’s hand found the small of my back as we crossed the lobby to the private elevator. The touch was proprietary, possessive, and I leaned into it without thinking. When the elevator doors closed behind us, sealing out the world, I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding.
“Your home,” he said quietly. “I’ve never seen it.”
“You haven’t.” I watched the numbers climb. “It is where I grew up. Where Marjorie and I baked cookies while my father was too busy racking up debts and secret children.”
The elevator opened onto the private foyer, and the scent hit me first. Warm cookies. Cinnamon. Something savory simmering on the stove. Marjorie.
She stood at the entrance to the main living area, her gray hair pulled back in its usual severe bun, her apron as pristine as always despite the number of pots on the stove, her eyes suspiciously bright.
She was smaller than I remembered, her shoulders slightly stooped, but she held herself with the same quiet dignity that had anchored my childhood.
“Well,” she said, her voice rough. “You certainly took your time getting home.”
I wrapped my arms around her. She smelled like she always had, like bread and soap and the particular warmth of someone who had loved me when no one else would. Her arms came up to hold me back, and I felt her trembling.
“I am sorry for making you worry,” I whispered. “I am home now.”
“Do not do that to me again.” She pulled back, gripping my shoulders with surprising strength. “Alice called. She told me enough.” Her sharp gaze moved past me to where Raphael stood in the foyer entrance, watchful and still. “So this is him. The one Alice speaks so highly of.”
“Marjorie.” Raphael inclined his head respectfully. “Alice has told me much about you as well. She said you taught her everything she knows.”
Something softened in Marjorie’s expression.
Not quite approval, not yet, but acknowledgment.
“She is a good woman. Learned fast when we used to work together. I was glad when she found a position with your family.” She studied him for a long moment, cataloging, assessing.
“She says you have been good to Lena. That you protect her.”
“With my life,” Raphael said simply.
Marjorie’s mouth pressed into a thin line, but she nodded once. “Then you are welcome in this house, Mr. Antonov. Just mind you keep that promise.”
I watched Raphael look around the penthouse.
Taking in the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the mountains.
The photographs on the walls, me as a baby with my mother, with Marjorie, conspicuously few with my father.
The worn velvet couch where I had read a thousand books.
The kitchen where Marjorie had taught me to cook when my father forgot to feed me.
His gaze returned to me, something indefinable in his eyes. This was where I had been made. This was the girl who had grown up to become his mate.
Marjorie pressed a key into my palm. “The master bedroom is ready. Fresh linens, flowers on the nightstand. I will leave dinner in the warming oven.” She squeezed my hands once more, then stepped back. “You are too thin. Eat something before you sleep.”
She gathered her coat and left through the service entrance, giving us privacy with the same quiet discretion she had always shown. The penthouse fell silent except for the faint hum of the building and the distant sounds of the town below.