Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
freddie
A scream tears me from sleep like a knife to the chest.
Alastríona's thrashing beside me, caught in the grip of whatever nightmare has claimed her. Her face is twisted with terror, tears streaming down her cheeks as she fights against enemies only she can see.
"No," she whimpers. "Please, no. Don't take him. Don't take them."
I reach for her carefully. I don't want to startle her awake too violently. "Alastríona. Hey, it's okay. You're safe."
Her eyes snap open, wild and unfocused. For a moment she doesn't recognize me, sees only another threat in a world gone mad. Then reality crashes back and she collapses against my chest, sobbing.
"I'm sorry," she gasps. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."
"Shh. It's okay. Just a dream."
But even as I say it, I know it's not just a dream. It's everything she's been holding back since arriving in Dublin; all the fear and uncertainty finally breaking through the walls she's built around herself.
"Tell me," I say, stroking her hair. "What did you see?"
"You." Her voice is barely a whisper. "I saw you die. Saw them all die. Henry, Denis, everyone. Because of me. Because I brought this war to your doorstep."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it? Marcus said people died because Dad kept me separate from the family. What if he's right? What if everyone would be safer if I just disappeared?"
She's shaking now, the kind of bone-deep tremors that come from terror and exhaustion. I pull her closer, try to anchor her with my warmth.
"Look at me," I say, tilting her chin up. "This war started long before you came home. Trace has been killing our people for months, picking us off one by one. You didn't cause this."
"But I made it worse. I gave him a target, a way to hurt Henry where it really matters."
"You gave us something to fight for. Something worth protecting."
She pulls away and sits up in bed with her knees drawn to her chest. The moonlight through the window makes her look fragile, breakable. But I know better. This woman survived eighteen months alone in Belfast, built a life from nothing but stubbornness and spite.
"I don't know if I can do this," she says quietly.
"Do what?"
"This life. This family. The violence, the constant danger, the knowledge that everyone I care about could be dead tomorrow."
"It's a lot to take in."
"It's too much." She runs her hands through her hair, frustrated. "In Belfast, the worst thing I had to worry about was drunk customers and grabby hands. Here, people are planning to murder my grandfather, torture me, and destroy everything this family's built."
"And we're planning to stop them."
"What if you can't? What if Trace wins?"
"He won't."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because I won't let him. Because none of us will let him."
She laughs but there's no humor in it. "Just like that? Your confidence is supposed to make all my fears disappear?"
"My confidence is supposed to remind you that you're not alone anymore. That you've got an entire family willing to die to keep you safe."
"I don't want anyone to die for me."
"Too late for that. We're already committed. And not just for you. Trace has taken so fucking many people."
She's quiet for a long moment, staring out at the dark woods surrounding Henry's safe house. When she speaks, her voice is small, uncertain.
"Part of me wants to run," she admits. "Pack a bag and disappear before anyone else gets hurt because of me."
"And the other part?"
"The other part is terrified I'll never find anything this good again. That I'll spend the rest of my life regretting walking away from the only family I've ever had."
I understand the feeling. I’ve been running from connections my whole life, afraid of getting too attached to people who might disappear. It took Jer dying to make me realize that caring about people, even knowing you might lose them, is better than the alternative.
"What would it take?" I ask. "For you to stay?"
"A guarantee that no one else dies because of me."
"I can't give you that."
"I know."
"I can give you something else, though."
"What?"
"A promise that if you run, I'll chase you. To the ends of the earth if necessary."
She looks at me sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Means you're mine now. Whether you like it or not, whether you stay or go, you're mine. And I don't give up what's mine."
"You can't just claim ownership of another person."
"Watch me."
There's something dark in my voice, something possessive that should probably scare her. Instead, I see heat flicker in her eyes. Recognition of something primal, dangerous, real.
"Freddie—"
"I love you," I say, cutting her off. "More than I've ever loved anything or anyone. If you think I'm just going to let you walk away because you're scared, you don't know me at all."
"This isn't healthy."
"Probably not. But it's honest."
She stares at me for a long moment, seeing something in my face that makes her breath catch. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying you're not going anywhere. I'm saying this family's fought too hard to bring you home to let you disappear into the night. I'm saying I'll tie you to this bed before I let you run back to Belfast."
"You wouldn't."
"Try me."
The challenge hangs between us, loaded with tension and want and something that feels like inevitability. She's looking at me like she's seeing me for the first time, recognizing the predator underneath the careful control.
"You're serious," she breathes.
"Dead serious."
"And if I told you I was leaving anyway? What then?"
"Then I'd convince you to stay."
"How?"
Instead of answering, I move. Fast and urgent. My hands lock around her wrists, pinning them above her head, pushing her back into the pillows. Her gasp is sharp, breath catching, eyes wide and wild.
She doesn’t struggle.
She arches.
"Like this," I say, voice low, gravel-thick with hunger.
Her pulse pounds under my fingers. Her body’s taut, trembling. But her gaze—steady, fierce—is locked on mine. There’s fire in it. Need. Defiance.
"This is insane," she breathes.
"Yeah. But you like insane."
"Do I?"
"Your body does."
I press harder, feeling the way she reacts; how her thighs tense, how her lips part. When I graze my mouth down her throat, her breath stutters.
"Tell me you want to leave," I murmur against her skin. "Go back to Belfast. Back to dodging drunk hands. Back to being safe. Tell me you want to walk away from all this, walk away from me."
"I—"
"Say it."
But she can’t.
Not because she doesn’t want to.
Because she does.
Because she wants this.
"I'm scared," she says, voice breaking.
"Good. Then let me show you."
I kiss her hard—brutal, claiming—swallowing her fear, her hesitation, her last shred of resistance. She kisses me back with everything she’s got. Starved. Desperate.
When I release her wrists, her hands go to my hair, yanking me closer like she never wants me to stop.
"Freddie," she gasps.
"What do you want?"
"You," she breathes. "I want you."
"All of me?"
"Especially the parts that scare me."
Something breaks in me then. That tight coil of control? Gone. I tear the shirt from her body, mine, still clinging to her like it belongs there, and I lose whatever hold I had left.
"Mine," I snarl. "You’re mine. You hear me?"
"Yes."
"Say it."
"I’m yours," she breathes.
"Louder."
"I’m yours, Freddie. All yours."
That undoes me.
But I don’t give her what she wants. Not yet.
I take her apart slowly, deliberately, fingers and mouth driving her to the edge over and over. Every time she starts to shake, every time her body tenses and that final gasp starts to rise, I stop.
"No," I say, firm. "Not yet."
"Please—"
"Please, what?"
"Don’t stop. Freddie, please—I need—"
"I know what you need. You trust me to give it to you?"
"Yes. Please."
When I finally let her come, she shatters. Soundless at first, then crying out like it’s the only thing keeping her from breaking apart.
But I’m not done.
"Look at me," I order, settling between her thighs. "I want to see your face when I take you."
Her gaze meets mine, dazed, trusting, completely open.
"You're mine," I growl as I push inside her, claiming her in every way that matters. "Say it again."
"Yours," she sobs. "Only yours."
I set a pace that’s hard, relentless, punctuated by her gasps, her moans, her breathless begging.
"More," she cries out. "Harder—please—"
"Greedy girl," I murmur against her throat.
"For you," she breathes. "Only for you."
Her words wreck me.
"Never leaving," I growl. "You hear me? Never running."
"I promise. I promise—"
"Good. Now take it. Take all of it."
When she comes again, I follow, dragged under by her, by us, by everything we’ve built and broken and rebuilt again.
And when it’s over, when we collapse into silence, no words, no movement, just breath and skin and aftershocks, there’s only one thing I know for sure:
She’s mine.
And I’m hers.
No matter what comes next.
Alastríona curls against my side, her head on my chest, fingers tracing patterns on my skin. She's quiet too, lost in her own thoughts.
"That wasn't what I—" she starts, then stops.
"Yeah."
"I don't know what to feel, what to think."
"Don't. Don't analyze it, don't question it. Just let it be what it is."
"And what is it?"
"Us. What we are; how raw, passionate we are."
She's quiet for a long moment, processing. "I'm still scared," she admits finally.
"I know."
"But I'm not running."
"Good. Because I meant what I said. I'd chase you to the ends of the earth."
"And when you caught me?"
"I'd convince you to stay. Again and again, as many times as it took."
She laughs softly. "That sounds exhausting."
"Worth it, though."
"Is it?"
"You tell me."
She tilts her head up, studying my face in the dim light. "Ask me again tomorrow. When the world isn't ending and we're not hiding from killers."
"Fair enough."