Sorin
She asked for so little—and what she did ask, I’d have given as a bare minimum.
Aliana was already protecting our pups before conception.
Not all mates were capable of self-sacrifice for the sake of family.
Perhaps I’d romanticised my parents’ bond because of its violent ending.
Perhaps I’d kept only the good memories.
But when I was with Aliana, I felt complete. Malakh was content.
The fear of her rejecting us had lessened. The anxiety remained.
The room had gone soft with evening—the last of the light long faded, one lamp burning low, the window cracked enough to let in the cold air off the ridge and the far sound of the patrols changing over.
Under it all, her scent had settled into my sheets, my pillows, the walls.
Into everything. The room finally smelled the way it should have for seven years.
I had been strategic in sending Ember to spend time with her. She would answer every question with candour, and I needed Aliana’s trust. Her wolf appearing as it did was fate. It had also kept her hidden from me all the years I searched for her.
Her fingers traced the warrior tattoo across my chest, slow, following the lines like she was learning a map.
The heat of her palm sank into my skin. I pulled her closer.
The bond would show her everything, in time, and lay many of her fears to rest. The Bloodborne ancestry was rooted in the ancient practice of magu?.
Modern magic ran weak—but our pack carried instincts keen enough to set us ahead of every other pack.
“Your scent drives us crazy,” I murmured against her hair, inhaling the heady aroma—orange blossom and warm skin and that wet mountain morning, stronger now, richer every day she healed.
“Do you know how many times I was in Silvermere territory and never caught a hint of you?”
She glanced up, her eyes full of sorrow, reminding me of the condition I’d found her in. I rubbed my thumb over her plump cheek.
“You’ll never go hungry again,” I said, gently rocking her against my chest.
She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. The way she clung to me spoke volumes.
It went against every instinct not to worship each inch of my mate, but she’d never lain with anyone, and I would not frighten her. The changes in her scent had been encouraging.
She had a little over thirty hours to accept the inevitable.
? ? ?
The following morning, my eyes had barely opened when her rich scent reached me. Malakh froze—then, as he breathed her in, slid into default mode. The primitive need to prove ourselves, and then claim her as a prize for breeding rights.
I ignored him. Until I breathed her in again.
She was close. So fucking close.
I pressed my lips to her forehead, kissing her hairline before easing back to untangle our limbs. I could not trust myself, and she slept so peacefully. Her eyes stayed closed as I stood over her.
Her final day locked in our bedroom.
I turned for the bathroom, wondering how advanced implant tracker technology had become.
? ? ?
Rev tied his hair back while Talon and Jax chose their weapons.
“Any reason we’re sparring in your yard rather than the training grounds?” he asked slyly.
“I’m simply remaining close to home before the mating ceremony,” I said, stretching my arms out.
“So it has nothing to do with presenting you and Malakh as the Alpha King?”
I glanced up to find Aliana’s nose pressed against the window.
“A show of strength for your mate was standard practice not so long ago,” I murmured as she raised a hand.
I mirrored her action without a second thought.
“We might have a chance today,” Rev shouted to the others. “The King is distracted.”
Malakh growled, and I snapped out of my bonded trance. Going cold turkey was proving harder than I’d anticipated.
She is worth the wait, Malakh snapped at me.
I pulled my T-shirt off one-handed, tossed it onto the nearby bench, and glanced back at my mate one final time. I winked, and was rewarded with a smile before I turned to my men.
There was no room for distraction in a fight. But Rev was wrong—knowing my mate was watching would ensure my success. I would show her that no one would ever harm her again, because I would stand in their path.
Others poured into the garden. Some to watch. Some to challenge.
The three of them spread out the way they’d been trained to. The way I’d trained them.
Talon rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. Jax spun the practice blade once and tossed it aside—so it would be fists, then. Rev simply smiled, circling left, always left, the way he had since he was seventeen and thought I hadn’t noticed.
“Three on one,” Rev called. “Hardly seems fair.”
“Agreed,” I said. “You should have brought more.”
Above us, faintly, through glass and two storeys of air: a snort. My mate’s opinion of my arrogance, delivered to the whole garden. Several of the watchers laughed. Talon used the moment—smart, he was always the smart one—and came in low and fast while my attention was split.
His fist grazed my ribs as I turned out of it. The crowd made a sound. He’d touched me. First contact in three years of sparring, and I felt the grin split my face because she saw the reason for it and I did not care.
Then Jax came from the right and Rev abandoned his circling and the garden narrowed into breath and impact.
I took Jax’s charge on my forearm and used his own weight to fold him over my hip and into the grass. Rev’s kick I caught against my palm—the slap of it rang off the compound walls—and I held his ankle a beat longer than necessary, just to watch his balance beg, before I released him into a sprawl.
Talon again, relentless, a combination at my head and body that would have dropped a lesser wolf. I gave ground. Let him spend himself. Slipped the fourth strike and put him down with an open palm to the chest that he’d feel through dinner.
They regrouped. Came again. Better this time—coordinated, patient, Rev feinting while Jax worked my flank, Talon hunting the opening. My blood sang. Dirt and sweat and the cold morning air burning clean in my lungs, my men laughing between assaults, the crowd calling wagers.
And through all of it, the window. I never looked. I didn’t need to. I could feel her attention on my back like sun.
Jax nearly had me—an arm around my throat, his full weight committed—and the garden held its breath.
A mistake, committing everything.
I dropped my chin, gripped his forearm, bent and threw. He landed beside Rev, who had wisely not gotten up yet. Talon looked at both of them, looked at me, and raised his hands in surrender.
“Yield,” he said. “Obviously.”
The watchers roared. Wagers changed hands. Somewhere in the noise, Rev groaned something about distracted kings and false advertising.
The fight was over. The show was not.
I let Malakh come.
The shift rolled through me like weather—bones singing, the world flooding in through a better nose, colour thinning as scent bloomed into a thousand voices.
The crowd’s noise dropped to a hush. However long they served, whatever they’d seen, no wolf grew accustomed to the sight of him.
Malakh shook out his black coat and stood to his full height, and the garden took one collective step back.
He ignored them all.
He turned from the sprawled warriors, from the crowd, from every wolf present who understood what they were seeing—and lifted his head to the window two storeys up.
She was still there. Nose to the glass. Eyes wide.
Malakh’s tail swept once, slow, through the dirt. The most feared creature on the continent, decorated in the dust of his victory, stood in the ruins of the sparring ring and looked at one small woman the way the faithful look at the moon.
Ours, he rumbled, and it carried.
The window glass fogged with her breath.
We could feel Zira within. See her in Aliana’s eyes.
One more day.