Chapter 21 #3
What I feel for Kier burns differently—hotter, deeper, with an intensity that terrifies me.
It’s not just attraction or gratitude or the bond forged through shared trauma.
It’s something that reaches into the darkest corners of my soul and demands I acknowledge it, something that makes my wolf pace with recognition and need.
That’s the difference, I realize with painful clarity. With Levi, I could choose to love him if I tried hard enough. With Kier, I don’t have a choice at all.
And that’s exactly why I can’t hurt Levi by pretending. He deserves someone who burns for him the way I burn for the copper-haired nomad. He deserves a mate who chooses him not out of duty or fondness, but out of the kind of desperate, consuming need that can’t be reasoned away or controlled.
I can’t give him that. I won’t lie to either of us and pretend I can.
This isn’t that life, and I’m not that woman.
I step back, removing his hand from my face. “I’m sorry, Levi. Truly. But my answer is no.”
His expression hardens, hurt transforming into something colder. “Fine. But don’t expect me to stand aside and watch you throw yourself away on some nomad who’ll leave the moment things get difficult.”
“Kier isn’t—” I catch myself before I can reveal too much.
“Isn’t what?” Levi’s eyes sharpen. “Isn’t temporary? Isn’t going to break your heart when he moves on to the next territory?” He shakes his head. “You’re smarter than this, Lithia. Don’t let desperation make you do something you’ll regret.”
Anger flares in my chest. “Get out.”
“Lithia—”
“I said get out.” My voice carries the full weight of my authority as Beta. “Now.”
He stares at me for a long moment, then turns and stalks from the chamber without another word. The door slams behind him hard enough to rattle the frame.
I slump back into my chair, emotionally drained. The food he brought sits untouched, my appetite destroyed by the confrontation.
That went well, my wolf observes dryly.
Shut up.
I try to return to my work, but concentration is impossible. My hands shake slightly as I organize papers, adrenaline from the argument still coursing through my system.
He’s not wrong about one thing, my wolf says quietly. You are scared.
Of course I’m scared, I snap back. I have good reason to be.
Do you? Or are you using fear as an excuse to avoid something that might actually make you happy?
I don’t answer, because I’m not sure I can handle the truth.
The night deepens around me as I work, the den settling into quiet. Most of the pack will be asleep by now, leaving only the night watch and insomniacs like myself.
By the time I finish the patrol schedules, exhaustion weighs heavy on my shoulders. I switch off the lights and gather my materials, finally ready to seek my own bed.
The corridors are dimly lit, emergency lighting casting long shadows on the stone walls. My room is at the end of the hall, past the guest quarters where Kier sleeps.
I pause outside his door, my wolf pressing against my consciousness with sudden intensity.
He’s awake, she whispers. Restless. Like us.
I can feel it—a current of unease, of want, radiating from behind the wooden barrier. My hand rises toward the door without conscious thought, then falls back to my side.
Not tonight. Not when I feel so raw.
I continue to my room, closing the door firmly behind me. The space feels larger than I remember, emptier. The bed that had seemed perfectly adequate for years now feels vast and cold.
I strip out of my clothes mechanically, pulling on a soft sleep shirt that falls to mid-thigh. The routine motions should be comforting, but restlessness coils beneath my skin.
Sleep, I order myself, climbing into bed. You need rest.
But sleep doesn’t come. I lie in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, hyperaware of every sound in the den. The distant murmur of guards changing shifts. The soft whisper of wind through stone passages. The barely audible creak of someone moving in the room two doors down.
Kier.
My body responds to just thinking his name—skin warming, pulse quickening, an ache building low in my belly. Memories surface unbidden, his thumb brushing across my knuckles before we’d even seen each other, his mouth on mine as fire raged around us, his hands on my body that night in the forest.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the images away, but they only grow more vivid.
The way he’d looked at me that last night, golden eyes dark with desire.
The feel of his fingers inside me, the perfect pressure of his mouth between my thighs, the way he’d whispered filth and praise until I came apart beneath his hands.
My thighs clench involuntarily, a soft whimper escaping my throat.
This is ridiculous. You’re a grown woman, not some love-struck teenager.
But my body doesn’t care about logic or propriety. Heat pools between my legs, demanding the attention I’ve been denying it.
Just get it over with, I tell myself. Take the edge off so you can sleep.
My hand slides beneath the hem of my sleep shirt, fingers tracing the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. I’m already wet, arousal slicking my fingers as I find the swollen bud of my clit.
Gods, I needed this.
I bite my lip to muffle the sound that wants to escape as I begin to stroke myself, slow circles that send pleasure spiraling through my core. But it’s not enough—my body craves more, craves him.
I slide two fingers inside myself, arching slightly at the sensation. It’s good, but nothing compared to the way Kier had filled me, the way his thick fingers had curved just right.
Kier. His name whispers through my mind as I work myself higher, thumb circling my clit while my fingers thrust in a rhythm that has my breath coming in soft pants.
I let myself remember the weight of his body over mine, the way he’d kissed me like he was drowning and I was air. The rough velvet of his voice when he called me beautiful, the reverent way his hands mapped every inch of my skin.
The fantasy grows more vivid—I can almost feel his breath against my neck, his lips trailing fire down my throat. My free hand moves to my breast, pinching the sensitive peak through my shirt, imagining it’s his mouth instead.
“So perfect,” his voice whispers in my memory. “Let me hear you, baby. Let me feel you come.”
My hips buck against my hand, the familiar tension building low in my belly. I’m close, so close, the pleasure coiling tighter with each stroke.
And then something shifts.
The fantasy becomes suddenly, shockingly real. I can feel him—not just imagine, but actually feel his presence, his arousal, his desperate need. The bond between us flares to life like a live wire, connecting us across the space that separates our rooms.
Through that connection, I feel everything. His hand wrapped around his hard length, stroking in time with my own movements. The way his breath catches when he imagines my mouth on him. The desperate way he whispers my name into the darkness.
“Lithia. Gods, Lithia.”
The psychic connection intensifies, and suddenly I can see him. Not with my eyes, but with perfect clarity nonetheless—sprawled on his bed, head thrown back in pleasure, his hand working his cock with increasing urgency.
And he can see me too. His golden eyes snap open in the vision, meeting mine across the impossible distance, and I realize he’s experiencing the same thing I am.
Mate bond, my wolf says with satisfaction.
The knowledge should terrify me, but I’m too far gone to care. Our eyes lock across the psychic connection as we touch ourselves, sharing every sensation, every spike of pleasure.
“Come for me,” he whispers, and I feel the words like a physical caress. “Let me feel you fall apart.”
The dual sensation—my own building climax and his echoing through the bond—is overwhelming. I feel his pleasure as if it were my own, feel how my image affects him, how desperately he wants to be the one touching me.
“Kier,” I gasp, and watch his hand speed up at the sound of his name.
“That’s it, baby. Come with me. Let me feel you.”
The orgasm hits like lightning, pleasure crashing over me in waves so intense I arch off the bed with a cry I barely manage to muffle. Through the bond, I feel Kier’s release echo mine, his pleasure amplifying my own until I can’t tell where I end and he begins.
For several heartbeats, we’re suspended in shared ecstasy, the bond pulsing between us like a heartbeat. Then slowly, gradually, reality reasserts itself.
I collapse back against my pillows, breathing hard, my body still trembling from the intensity of what just happened. The bond settles to a warm current beneath my skin, no longer the overwhelming flood but a constant, undeniable connection.
See? my wolf says smugly. Mate.
I stare at the ceiling, processing what just occurred. Shared orgasms through a psychic bond. The kind of connection that only exists between true mates.
Fuck.
There’s no denying it now, no pretending this is just attraction or leftover adrenaline from our escape. The bond is real, powerful, and apparently permanent.
A soft knock at my door makes me freeze.
“Lithia?” Kier’s voice, rough with recent pleasure and uncertainty.
I close my eyes, torn between the desperate need to see him and the equally desperate need to maintain some semblance of control over my rapidly unraveling life.
Let him in, my wolf urges. Stop fighting.
My feet move before I make a conscious decision, carrying me to the door. I hesitate with my hand on the latch, knowing that opening it will change everything.
Everything’s already changed, I realize. The bond saw to that.
I open the door.
Kier stands in the hallway, his hair mussed from sleep, wearing only loose pants that hang low on his hips.
“Well,” he says, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “That was either the most intense spiritual experience of my life, or you’re about to tell me I’m hallucinating again.”
Despite everything, I snort. “We can’t just put it down to a wet dream?”
“Hell of a dream.” His golden eyes glint with familiar mischief. His gaze tracks over my face, then drifts to my shaved head—the short stubble all that remains of my once long hair. His expression softens with something that looks dangerously like tenderness. “Fuck, you’re beautiful,”
My heart gives a little flip, and I hate how much I want him right now.
We stare at each other for a long moment, the bond humming between us like a tuning fork. I can feel his desire, his careful restraint, his desperate need to touch me.
“Can I come in?” he asks, then adds with a crooked smile, “Or should I just stand in this hallway all night making inappropriate comments about our psychic sex life?”
I step aside without a word, and he enters my room, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.
He leans against the door, watching me. “So, we’re true mates.”
“Apparently.”
“How do you feel about that?” His voice is carefully neutral, but I can feel his nervousness through the bond.
I consider the question honestly. Terrified. Exhilarated. Confused. Desperate. “I don’t know,” I say finally. “This isn’t… I never planned for this.”
“Plans change,” he says gently, taking a step closer. “The question is, what do we do now?”
I look at him—this beautiful, complicated man who saved my life and somehow managed to slip past every wall I’ve built around my heart. The bond pulses between us, warm and certain and absolutely terrifying.
“I don’t know,” I repeat, but this time it comes out as a whisper.
He closes the distance between us, his hands coming up to frame my face with infinite gentleness. “We don’t have to figure it all out tonight,” he murmurs. “But we can’t pretend it doesn’t exist anymore.”
“No,” I agree, leaning into his touch despite every instinct that screams danger. “We can’t.”
“Tomorrow, we’ll deal with the pack, with your duties, and with whatever complications this creates.” His thumb traces the scar on my cheek. “Tonight, can I just hold you?”
I study his face, seeing no pressure there, no demand for more than I’m ready to give.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “But just for tonight.”
He smiles then, soft and beautiful, and leans down to brush his lips against my forehead in the gentlest of kisses.
The bond sings between us, and for the first time, I let myself imagine what a future with someone—with Kier—might look like.
It’s terrifying.