Chapter 18 #2
“Nearby,” I repeated flatly. “You just happened to be nearby when someone with wolfsbane bullets attacked us.”
“Isabella—”
“No. I don’t believe you.” I crossed my arms, moving to stand in front of him. “You got there too fast. This wasn’t a coincidence, Dimitri. This was—” I paused. “You knew. You knew something like this might happen.”
He didn’t deny it. So, someone was trying to hurt us, and Dimitri knew about it.
“How long?” My voice shook. “How long have you known someone wanted to hurt us?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me!” I moved closer, anger and fear and something dangerously close to hysteria bubbling up inside me.
“Someone just tried to kill us, Dimitri. Someone tried to kill our daughter. And you’re standing there acting like—like this is just another Tuesday.
Like getting shot is no big deal. Like—”
My voice cracked. The tears I’d been holding back since the attack finally spilled over.
“You could have died,” I whispered. “You threw yourself in front of a bullet for us. You could have died.”
“But I didn’t.” He stood slowly, carefully, wincing slightly at the movement. “You’re safe. Adele’s safe. That’s all that matters.”
“That’s not—” I shook my head, frustration and guilt and fear tangled together until I couldn’t breathe. “Why would you do that? Risk your life like that?”
Dimitri’s expression softened completely. The anger and determination from earlier—gone and replaced by something tender as he stepped closer, lifting his hands to caress my cheeks. Automatically, my eyes closed, and I nuzzled into his touch.
“Because you’re mine, Isabella.” The words came out raw. “You and Adele. Mine to protect. Mine to keep safe. And I don’t care if it costs me my life.”
The intensity in his eyes made something in my chest crack open.
I’d been so angry at him. For five years, I’d nursed that anger, used it as armor against the pain of what we’d lost—what he’d thrown away. But standing here now, looking at him bandaged and hurting because he’d literally taken a bullet meant for me…
My walls started crumbling.
“Dimitri, you can’t do that again.” And I wasn’t referring to him taking a bullet for me—I was referring to him getting hurt and leaving Adele and me alone.
“There’s so many things I’ve yet to tell you.
” His voice was almost a whisper. “And I want to now, because I would hate for—because I have the chance to now.” He moved closer, so that we were only a hair’s breadth apart.
“I made the wrong choice five years ago, Isabella. And I’ve spent every day since then wondering if you hated me as much as I hated myself.
Six years of regret so deep it felt like drowning. ”
He stroked my cheek as he spoke.
“I chose my duty over you. I chose the pack, my family, everything I thought mattered. And I lost the only thing that actually did matter. I forgot I had a duty to protect you, too.”
I didn’t think he cared. I’d been miserable for weeks. I hadn’t realized I was crying until his thumbs gently brushed away a tear on my cheek.
“I love you, Isabella. I’ve loved you since the day you walked into Ravencrest mansion, and I spent so long lying to myself, pretending I didn’t care, telling myself you were off-limits because you were supposed to be my stepsister.
And when we got together…” His voice cracked, emotions swirling in his eyes.
“That will forever be the best moment of my entire life. I fucked up, I know. But I never—ever—stopped loving you. And I don’t think I can. ”
I felt something inside of me, so akin to that night in his study five years ago.
My wolf. The Mate bond. It surged through me like wildfire, burning away the anger and hurt and leaving behind something raw and honest and terrifying.
Because I’d felt like this before, and I’d been absolutely broken. I didn’t want history to repeat itself.
“Dimitri, you can’t say that. It’s too late. You have a wife.” I said it more to myself, to remind myself of why I shouldn’t feel like this—to remind myself why I shouldn’t cross this line a second time.
He shook his head. “Selene doesn’t mean anything to me, Isabella.
She never has. There’s nothing between us—no love, no loyalty, nothing.
” His jaw tightened. “That marriage only exists because it keeps certain enemies close, and because it keeps them predictable. That’s all.
” He stepped toward me, slow and deliberate, his eyes locked on mine.
“But you…” His voice dropped, low and raw.
“It’s you, Isabella. It’s always been you.
I’ve only ever wanted you. I know I hurt you in ways I can never make up for.
But let me, Isabella. Let me show you that I choose you now. That I’ll always choose you.”
My wolf was screaming at me to move closer, to touch him, to give in to this pull between us that had never really gone away.
And my walls—those carefully constructed walls I’d built to protect myself—were crumbling to dust.
“You hurt me,” I whispered. “You destroyed me.”
“I know.” The pain in his eyes was genuine, devastating. “And I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for it, if you’ll let me.”
We stood there, inches apart, the air between us charged with five years of longing and loss and love we’d both tried to bury.
And then Dimitri closed the distance between us.
My breathing turned heavy, ragged, sharpened by the almost nonexistent space separating our bodies.
His hot breath brushed my lips—I could practically taste the blend of coffee and whiskey on him.
“Isabella,” he breathed, my name breaking apart on his tongue.
And that was it. Something inside me snapped.
The walls I’d spent years stacking, brick by careful brick, didn’t just crumble; they shattered—collapsing under the weight of everything I still felt for him, everything I’d never truly stopped feeling.
My fingers lifted first, brushing the edge of his jaw—tentative, trembling with want. His eyes fluttered shut, and the quiet, wrecked sound he made sent heat spiraling through me.
When he opened them again, they’d shifted to gold, that familiar fleck of desire simmering in his gaze.
I closed my eyes, and before I could think better of it, I rose onto my tiptoes and kissed him.