Chapter 14 #2
Thea just smiled her cat-that-caught-the-canary smile as Trouble let out a pissed-off yip in agreement.
Harkan's eyes hadn't left my face. Pride burned in them, and hunger, and a heat that made my blood run hot the longer his gaze was on me.
"Sable stays," he said, his voice rough. "Anyone who disagrees with that can leave. Now."
Aldric looked around the room, found no allies, and stood stiffly. "This isn't over."
"Yes," Harkan said quietly. "It is."
The older wolf left without another word, the door slamming behind him.
The rest of the meeting passed in a blur of patrol schedules and defensive positions as I ran my fingers through Trouble’s soft fur. I contributed where I could, but my mind kept circling back to the same questions echoing in my brain.
Who's Helene?
Why do I care so much?
How am I going to keep these people safe?
When the council finally dispersed, I lingered in the room, unwilling to let those festering questions eat at me anymore. Harkan was studying one of the maps on the wall, his back to the room.
"Harkan," I murmured, as Trouble leapt from my lap, slipping from the room like he wanted no part of what was about to happen.
He didn't turn around, his shoulders rigid with tension. "You should rest. Tomorrow, we start preparing the—"
I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d tried. "Who's Helene?"
The name landed like a blade. His spine went rigid as his hands curled into fists at his sides. The breath left his body like I'd punched him, but I couldn’t take the words back, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, even if I could.
"Where did you hear that name?" His voice was barely a whisper.
I swallowed, a thread of fear sliding through me. "You said it last night. In your sleep."
Silence stretched between us, long and terrible and suffocating. Then he moved—not toward me, but away as he headed for the door.
"Harkan—"
"Not now."
"Yes, now." I moved to block his path, planting myself between him and the exit, my back pressed against the door. "You say I'm yours? You nearly killed Aldric for suggesting they hand me over? Then you can damn well tell me who you're dreaming about."
His eyes finally met mine, and what I saw there made my breath catch.
Pain. Raw, devastating pain lined every feature on his face from the pull of his brow to the angle of his jaw. His eyes were filled with devastation and fear and guilt, and I couldn’t decide whether that damned him or saved him.
"Sable. Please."
"No." I held my ground, even though every instinct screamed to give him space. "I've spent all day thinking—imagining—the absolute worst. Who is she? A former mate? Someone you loved? Someone you still lo—"
His eyes flashed that glowing amber shade that meant his wolf was far too close to the surface. "She was my sister."
The words hit me like a physical blow.
"My twin." His voice cracked, broke, then kept going. "And she died because of me."
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Could only stare at him as the truth rearranged everything I'd thought I knew.
"There was an assassin. Sent by one of my father's rivals." Harkan's whole body was trembling with the effort of keeping himself together. "He came for me. I was the target since I was next in line. But Helene—she saw him coming and she—"
He stopped. Swallowed. His eyes squeezed shut.
"She put herself between us. Took the blade meant for me." A sound escaped him, half-laugh, half-sob. "She was always doing that. Protecting me. Even when I didn't want her to."
"Harkan..."
"I killed him." The words were flat. Dead. "Shifted into my wolf and tore him apart. But I couldn't—after, I couldn't shift back. The grief, the rage, it swallowed me whole. My human side just... fell away. I was trapped in wolf form for decades. Feral. Lost."
My heart was cracking open in my chest.
"When I finally came back—when I finally found myself again—my father kept me chained, anyway. Said I was too dangerous. Too unstable." His laugh was bitter as poison. "A century in the dark, alone, because I couldn't save her. Because she died saving me."
"That's not your fault." The words burst out of me before I could stop them. "She made a choice—"
"A choice she shouldn't have had to make." His eyes opened, and the anguish in them was unbearable. "She should be alive. She should be here. Instead, I'm the one who survived, and every single night I close my eyes and I'm back there, watching her die again when I know I can't st—"
His voice broke completely.
I didn't think. Just moved.
Crossing the scant distance between us, I fisted my hands in his shirt and pulled him down to me, crushing my mouth against his.
This kiss wasn't soft. Wasn't tentative.
It was lips and teeth and desperation and two broken people trying to hold each other together.
He made a sound against my lips—grief and hunger and relief all tangled into one—and then his hands were on my hips, gripping hard enough to bruise, and he was lifting me like I weighed nothing.
My back hit the wall. I gasped at the impact, and he swallowed the sound, his mouth slanting over mine with a ferocity that stole my breath. I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him closer, needing to feel the solid weight of him against me.
"Sable." My name was a growl against my lips, rough and broken and desperate. His hips pressed into mine, pinning me to the stone as the hard length of him against my center made heat pool low in my belly.
I didn't answer. Just kissed him harder, my fingers raking through his hair, my teeth catching his lower lip. He groaned—a sound that vibrated through my entire body—and one of his hands slid up my side, thumb brushing the underside of my breast through my shirt.
I arched into the touch, chasing more, needing more.
His mouth left mine to trail down my jaw, my neck, teeth scraping against my pulse point before his lips closed over the spot and sucked.
A moan tore out of me, shameless and wanting as something primal within me ached to have his fangs in my throat, his mark on my neck, his cock inside me.
"We should stop," he rasped against my neck, even as his hips rolled against mine in a slow, devastating grind. "If we don't stop now, I won't be able to—"
"Don't." I pulled his mouth back to mine. "Don't stop."
He claimed my mouth like I was the only thing keeping him from drowning. Like I was air and water and salvation all at once. His hands were everywhere—my hips, my waist, my thighs—and every touch burned through my clothes like a brand. I wanted them on my skin, inside me, anywhere, everywhere.
I kissed him back like I was trying to burn away every terrible memory. Every lie Rafe had ever told me. Every year I'd spent in chains. Every wall I'd built to keep myself safe.
Here, pinned between cold stone and the furnace heat of his body, I didn't want to be safe anymore.
I just wanted to be his.
My fingers plucked at the buttons of his shirt right as an explosion shook the building.
We broke apart as shouts erupted outside, the acrid smell of smoke filtering through the windows. Harkan was moving before I could process what was happening, claws sprouting from his fingers as he ran for the door.
"Stay here," he growled over his shoulder.
Like hell.