Chapter 22 #2
For a moment, the air crackles with competing dominance—Levi’s barely contained aggression, Lithia’s cold authority, and my own wolf’s insistence that I shouldn’t need her protection. Then Levi steps back, inclining his head in a gesture that’s respectful but grudging.
“Of course, Beta. Excuse me.”
He stalks away, his two companions falling into step behind him. But I catch the look he throws back over his shoulder—a promise that this conversation isn’t finished.
“Charming fellow,” I mutter.
“He has his moments,” Lithia says dryly. She looks like she wants to say more, but Dane’s presence stops her. “Brother.”
“Sister.” Dane glances between us, then grins. “I’m gonna go.”
The impetuous pup doesn’t even bother to make up an excuse. I like him.
After he leaves, silence stretches between Lithia and me. I can feel her studying me, cataloging details the way she would assess a potential threat.
“How are you really?” she asks finally.
“Adjusting.” I retrieve my shirt from where I’d discarded it. “Your pack is intense.”
“We’re close-knit. It can be overwhelming for outsiders.”
Outsiders. Even she sees me that way.
“Yeah,” I say, pulling the shirt over my head. “I’m getting that impression.”
She steps closer, close enough that I can smell her scent—still addictive, still enough to make my pulse quicken despite the frustration building in my chest.
“Kier—”
“Don’t.” I shake my head, stepping back. “Don’t explain pack loyalty to me. I understand what I am here.”
“What you are,” she says quietly, “is the wolf who saved my life.”
“Is that all I’ll ever be?”
The question hangs between us, loaded with implications she’s not ready to examine. My truth is, I stayed for her. Not for pack loyalty or honor or any noble reason. I stayed because the thought of leaving her behind was unbearable.
But admitting that feels like handing her a weapon she could use to destroy me.
She looks so lost and confused that I take pity on her.
“I should get back to my room,” I say instead. “Thanks for the intervention with Levi.”
Disappointment flickers across her features before she masks it behind her usual cool control. “Anytime.”
I’m halfway to the den entrance when she calls my name.
“Kier.”
I turn back, hoping for… what? Some sign that I matter to her beyond gratitude for services rendered?
“Stay safe,” she says simply.
Not “stay.” Just “stay safe.”
“Yeah,” I reply. “You too.”
The rest of the day passes in a blur of restless energy.
I try reading in the pack’s library, but the words swim on the page.
I attempt to nap, but sleep eludes me. Every time I close my eyes, I’m back in that training yard, feeling like an outsider trying to prove himself worthy of scraps of belonging.
By evening, I’m wound tight as a spring, my wolf pacing beneath my skin. The communal dinner is torture—surrounded by pack members who laugh and tease each other while I sit at the edges, included but not truly part of it.
Lithia sits at the head table with Ryker and Kitara, her posture perfect, her attention focused on pack business. She doesn’t look at me once during the entire meal.
Message received.
I escape as soon as it’s polite to do so, retreating to my guest quarters like the temporary resident I am. The room feels smaller than usual, the walls pressing in on all sides. I pace from wall to door and back again, my wolf’s agitation bleeding into every muscle and nerve.
This is ridiculous. You’re a grown man, not some lovesick pup.
But knowing that doesn’t help. The truth is, I’m falling for Lithia in ways that terrify me. Not just physical attraction—though gods know that’s intense enough—but something deeper. She challenges me, surprises me, makes me want to be better than I am.
And right now, she’s doing exactly what Dane warned me she would—retreating behind her walls, pretending what we shared never happened.
I think about her sitting at that head table tonight, keeping her attention firmly on pack business, not once looking my way.
Most men might take the hint, might accept the dismissal and walk away wounded.
But I’ve survived three years of torture for a reason.
Persistence isn’t just my nature—it’s how I stayed alive.
She can try to ignore me all she wants, I think with a grim smile. I’ve outlasted professional torturers. I can outlast her stubborn denial.
The next time I catch her glancing my way—and she will, I’ve seen how she can’t help herself—I’ll be ready. A wink, a smile, a subtle reminder that I see her game and I’m not going anywhere.
Let her build her walls. I’ve got nothing but time and determination to climb them.
A sharp knock at my door interrupts my planning.
“It’s open.”
But instead of Dane with another friendly overture, or one of the other pack members with some invitation I’ll politely decline, it’s Lithia who steps through the doorway.
She’s changed out of her formal Beta attire into simple clothing—dark pants and a fitted shirt that emphasizes her lean strength. Her silver hair catches the lamplight, and her pale eyes are unreadable in the dim illumination.
“We need to talk,” she says, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
My pulse spikes, though I try to keep my voice steady. “About?”
“This.” She gestures between us.
I lean against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest. “I wasn’t aware there was a ‘this’ to discuss.”
Her eyes narrow. “Don’t play games with me, Kier. I want to know what you expect from me.”
The blunt question catches me off guard. I’d expected deflection, maybe another lecture. Not this direct confrontation.
“I don’t expect anything,” I say honestly. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
No, it isn’t. She’s asking what I want from her.
“What do you want me to say, Lithia? That I think about you constantly? That I wake up hard every morning remembering the taste of you? That being near you without being able to touch you is torture?”
Her breath catches, pupils dilating slightly. “Yes. That’s exactly what I want you to say.”
“Why?”
She’s quiet, and I can’t resist twisting the knife a little. “Besides, based on tonight’s dinner performance, I figured you’d mastered the art of pretending I don’t exist. Barely looked in my direction once.”
Her jaw tightens. “That’s because I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t what?”
“Couldn’t look at you.” She takes a step closer, frustration bleeding into her voice.
“Because every time I do, I remember everything. How you fed me when I was too weak to get out of bed. How you held me when my ribs were broken and I couldn’t take another step.
How you nursed me through fever dreams and never once complained. ”
She shakes her head. “I remember how you put yourself between me and that fire, willing to burn alive rather than let me get hurt. How you had freedom in your grasp—actual freedom after three years of hell—and you threw it away to come back for me.”
Fuck.
“I didn’t look at you tonight because every time I do, I see the man who puts my needs above his own. I see someone who makes me want to be brave enough to risk everything.” Her breath hitches. “And that terrifies me more than any torture they could devise.”
She takes another step, until she’s standing directly in front of me. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from her skin, smell the scent that’s been haunting my dreams.
“But tonight I also couldn’t look at you,” she continues, her voice dropping, “because all I could think about is your mouth between my legs. All I remembered is the way you touched me. The way you made me fall apart. I didn’t look at you because I was too busy trying not to come just from smelling your scent across the room. ”
She reaches up to trace my jaw. “Because I feel the same way. About all of it.”
Before I can process what she’s said, she’s pressing up onto her toes and crushing her mouth to mine.
The kiss is desperate, hungry, full of suppressed need finally cracking apart. I groan into her mouth, my hands gripping her waist to pull her closer.
She tastes like fire and home, like everything I’ve been denying myself since we arrived at Shadowmist. Her tongue slides against mine with the same fierce intensity she brings to everything, and I’m lost, drowning in sensation.
I back her against the door, pinning her there with my body while my hands map the curves I’ve been aching to touch. She gasps when I bite down on her lower lip, her nails digging into my shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
“Fuck,” I breathe against her mouth, “I’ve missed you.”
“Show me,” she demands, her voice rough with need. “Show me how much.”
I don’t need to be told twice. My mouth trails down her throat, finding the spot that makes her arch against me with a soft cry. Her hands tangle in my hair, holding me against her as I work my way lower, tasting the salt of her skin.
She fumbles with the hem of my shirt, pulling it up and over my head with impatient efficiency. Her palms flatten against my chest, fingernails scraping lightly over old scars in a way that sends fire straight to my cock.
“Bed,” I growl against her collarbone. “Now.”
But she shakes her head, pressing me back against the opposite wall with surprising strength. “Here. Right here.”
Before I can ask what she means, she’s dropping to her knees in front of me, her hands already working at the fastenings of my pants.
“Lithia—”
“Shut up,” she says, looking up at me with eyes gone dark with lust. “I need this.”
Who am I to deny a lady her desires?
My brain shorts out as she frees my cock from my pants, wrapping her fingers around my length with a grip that’s firm and sure. The first stroke nearly brings me to my knees, the pleasure so intense it borders on pain.
“Fuck,” I gasp, my head falling back against the wall.
She smiles—actually smiles—and leans forward to run her tongue along the underside of my shaft from base to tip. The sensation is indescribable, wet heat and soft pressure that has my vision blurring at the edges.
When she takes me into her mouth, I nearly come on the spot.
My hands find her face immediately, palms cupping her cheeks as she works. One thumb traces the sharp line of her cheekbone while the other smooths over the bristled softness of her shaved scalp. The sensation is new, intimate—nothing between my touch and her skin, no hair to hide behind.
She’s not tentative or careful—she takes me deep, her tongue working against me with devastating skill while her hand strokes what she can’t fit. It’s too much and not nearly enough, pleasure building at the base of my spine with alarming speed.
“Eyes on me,” I growl, my voice rough with need. “I need to see you. Need you to see me.”
Her pale blue gaze flicks up to meet mine, and the sight of her—lips stretched around my cock, eyes burning with determination and desire—nearly destroys what’s left of my control.
“That’s it,” I breathe, my thumbs stroking over her cheeks. “Fuck, you’re perfect. So fucking perfect.”
My grip tightens slightly, not controlling but grounding, needing the connection as much as the pleasure.
“Lithia, I’m—fuck, if you don’t stop I’m going to—”
She pulls back just long enough to look at me, her lips swollen and slick. “Good,” she says simply, then takes me deeper than before.
The orgasm hits like a freight train, pleasure exploding through every nerve ending as I come hard in her mouth. She doesn’t pull away, doesn’t flinch, just takes everything I give her with the same fierce determination she applies to everything else.
When the last tremors fade, she sits back on her heels, licking her lips with a satisfaction that nearly has me hard again already.
“Now,” she says, rising gracefully to her feet, “we’re even.”
Before I can form a coherent response, she’s straightening her clothes and moving toward the door.
“Wait,” I manage, still struggling to think past the haze of post-orgasmic bliss. “Where are you going?”
“Back to my quarters.” She pauses with her hand on the door handle. “I have early meetings tomorrow.”
“That’s it? You’re just leaving?”
She turns back to face me, a devilish expression on her face. “Yep.”
She slips out the door with a laugh.
This fucking woman. She’ll be the death of me.