Chapter 31
Nova
Istand at the far edge of the compound, watching Dane and Rafe emerge from the trees. Dane’s shoulders are rigid, his stride tight with restrained tension. Rafe walks beside him with that unnerving stillness, face unreadable.
This is my moment.
I turn away without hesitation, my boots striking the packed dirt with deliberate force as I head straight for Lyanna’s cabin. The sound announces my presence to anyone watching. I don’t look back.
The air shifts as I cross the invisible boundary of Lyanna’s wards. A subtle pressure against my skin, then release. The magic recognizes me now. Knows my frequency.
Inside, Lyanna looks up from her work table, fingers paused over a bundle of dried herbs. Her eyes narrow slightly, reading the resolve in my posture.
“You’ve decided,” she says.
I nod once. “I’m going to force whatever Faelan left inside me into the open.”
Lyanna sets down her tools with careful precision. The silver blade catches the light from the small window. Her movements are measured as she turns to face me fully.
“Do you know what you’re risking?” she asks.
“Yes.” My voice comes out flat.
She studies my face for a long moment, then moves to a small cabinet built into the wall. Her fingers trace the carved patterns before selecting a jar.
“This isn’t just extraction,” she says, voice calm but firm. “What he left behind will fight back. It will try to use you. Reshape your frequency.” She places the jar on the table between us. “If you can’t maintain your own magic, your own self, it could sync you to Faelan permanently.”
I don’t flinch. “I don’t need him out. I need him exposed.”
The distinction matters. I’m not looking for a cure. I’m looking for proof.
Lyanna nods once, accepting my decision without further argument. She reaches for a small leather pouch on her shelf, adds three items I can’t identify, then pulls the drawstring tight.
“If it gets too deep, burn this,” she says, placing the small satchel in my palm. “It won’t save you. But it might stop him.”
Her fingers brush mine as she transfers the pouch. No magic in the touch, just the brief connection of skin against skin. The weight of the satchel is almost nothing, but I feel its significance.
I slip it into my jacket pocket and step back toward the door.
Outside, twilight has deepened across the compound. The spaces between cabins fill with blue shadows. Across the yard, Dane stands perfectly still, watching. I can feel the intensity of his gaze even at this distance.
I don’t stop. Don’t speak.
Just begin.
I kneel at the center of the clearing, salt heavy in my palm. The first line of the circle is nearly complete, a perfect curve against the dark earth. My heartbeat is steady. My hands don’t shake. I’ve done this a dozen times before.
But never with him watching.
The air shifts before I hear him. A low-pressure change that makes my skin tighten. Dane’s scent reaches me first: cedar, steel, and anger. His footsteps are deliberate.
I don’t stop. The salt falls through my fingers in a controlled stream, completing the first boundary. I reach for the chalk.
“What the hell are you doing?” His voice is tight, controlled, right behind me now. Close enough that if anyone is watching from the treeline, they’ll see his stance but not hear his words.
I don’t turn. “What needs to be done.”
“Stop.” The single word carries all his authority. When I continue marking the inner circle, he says it again, lower. “Stop.”
I finish the line I’m working on, then stand to face him. His jaw is clenched, eyes burning gold at the edges. Not shifted. Just furious.
“You don’t get to order me around, Dane. Not with this.”
His nostrils flare. “You’re forcing whatever’s inside you into the open. Without telling me.”
“I don’t need your permission.”
He steps closer, invading my space. “This isn’t about permission. It’s about you being reckless with your life.”
“My life.” I spit the words back at him. “Mine to risk.”
“Not yours to burn.” His voice drops lower, anger making it rough. “Not when it affects everyone here.”
Heat flares inside me. “Is that what this is? Protecting the pack? Or is it that you can’t handle Faelan using our connection?”
His eyes flash fully gold. “What connection, Nova? The one you keep running from?”
The question slices through me. Around us, I can feel eyes. Ears. Pack presence at the edge of the clearing. Watching but not interfering.
I turn my back on him deliberately, walking toward my cabin at the edge of the property. Not running away. Pulling the fight somewhere private.
His footsteps follow immediately. No hesitation. No words.
Behind us, the unfinished circle sits like an open wound in the earth.
I slam the door open and don’t check if he followed me. I know he did. My cabin feels smaller, tighter, like the walls have moved in while I was gone. The air stirs as Dane follows, closing us in with a final click of the door.
“You don’t walk away from me,” he says, voice carrying the quiet authority that’s kept this pack together through hell. “Not when you’re about to do something that could get you killed.”
I spin around, hands already curled at my sides. “I’m not one of your wolves, Dane. I don’t heel.”
“No, you just make decisions that affect everyone without a word,” he says, stepping closer with predatory grace, filling the space between us like a storm front.
His presence radiates the kind of power that’s been earned through blood and fire.
“Like it or not, whatever Faelan put inside you is already bleeding into my pack.”
“Your pack.” I laugh, sharp and cold. “Always your pack. Not the magic that’s literally eating me from the inside. Not the fact that I’m trying to do something about it before it’s too late.”
He steps closer, filling the narrow space between us. “You think I don’t see that? You think I don’t smell the change on you?”
“What I think is that you care more about controlling the situation than fixing it.”
His jaw tightens. “There’s a difference between control and protection.”
“Not from where I’m standing.”
“Then maybe you’re standing in the wrong place.”
I move closer, anger burning through my veins. “You’re only mad because it’s me. If it were anyone else, you’d let them take the risk. You’d weigh the cost against the benefit and make the call.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. You don’t like that I make my own calls. That I don’t wait for your permission.”
He blocks my path when I try to move past him. “I don’t like that you hide things. Fight alone. Pretend what’s between us isn’t real.”
His presence fills the narrow space, broad shoulders blocking my escape route. Steel-gray eyes burn with frustration and something hungrier. The black shirt stretches tight across his chest with each controlled breath, and I catch the scents of cedar and rage rolling off his skin.
That hits too close. I shove him, hard enough that he has to step back. “Don’t talk to me about real when you can barely look at me most days.”
His hand catches my wrist as I push him again. Not painful. Just enough to stop me. His grip is firm, his skin hot against mine.
“I look at you,” he says, voice rough. “I never stop looking at you.”
We freeze there, suspended in the moment. My pulse hammers under his fingers. His eyes are dark, pupils wide, the anger in them mixed with something deeper. Something I can’t keep pretending I don’t recognize.
“Let go,” I whisper, but my body doesn’t move away.
“Tell me you don’t feel it,” he says. “Tell me you don’t know what this is.”
The bond between us pulses, invisible but undeniable. I hate it. Hate how it makes me vulnerable. Hate how much I want it.
“I feel a lot of things,” I say, my voice shaking. “None of them simple.”
“Say it.” His other hand comes up, not quite touching my face. “Just once, Nova. Say what we are.”
The word sits on my tongue, heavy and dangerous. Mate. The thing I’ve been running from. The thing he’s been waiting for me to acknowledge.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
His fingers tighten fractionally on my wrist. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Does it matter?”
We stand too close, sharing the same heated air. My free hand reaches up, almost of its own volition, fingers brushing the front of his shirt. His muscles tense under my touch.
His usually tousled hair is completely disheveled from running his hands through it, and those steel-gray eyes have gone nearly black.
I can see every scar that maps his forearms, every line of tension in his jaw.
When my fingers brush the front of his shirt, I feel the rapid hammer of his heartbeat through the fabric.
The heat radiating from his body makes my skin feel electric.
Something changes in his eyes, the last thread of restraint snapping. I feel the shift in him, primal and raw, seconds before he moves.
His mouth crashes into mine, hungry and unyielding. I bite his lower lip, drawing a growl from deep in his chest. His hands grip my waist, fingers digging into flesh as he walks me backward until my spine hits the wall.
“Tell me to stop,” he says against my mouth, voice ragged.
I answer by ripping open his shirt, buttons scattering across the floor.
The fabric parts to reveal scarred muscle and warm skin stretched over a chest built for violence.
My nails rake down from his collarbone to his sternum, leaving red trails that make him hiss.
His muscles jump under my touch, abs contracting as I map the brutal geography of old wounds and hard-earned strength.
“Don’t you dare stop,” I hiss.
He yanks my shirt over my head, impatient and rough. His eyes darken at the sight of my bare skin, pupils blown wide with desire. I reach for his belt, fingers fumbling with the buckle as his mouth descends to my neck, teeth scraping sensitive flesh.
“I am going to make you scream,” he says, his voice a dangerous rumble against my throat.
I push his jeans down his hips, shoving my hand inside to grip his hard length. He’s thick and hot in my palm. “Then do it,” I challenge.
He growls and spins me around, pressing me face-first against the wall. His hands are everywhere at once—unclasping my bra, shoving my pants down my thighs, cupping my ass. I kick the fabric away, now completely naked under his hungry gaze.
When he turns me back to face him, his eyes burn gold at the edges. I’m completely bare before him now. Skin flushed with heat and arousal.
My hair tumbles over my shoulders in waves, and when he looks at me like I’m something he wants to devour, fae luminescence flickers to life beneath my skin.
He drops to his knees in front of me, hands gripping my thighs.
“Spread your legs,” he commands.
I widen my stance, bracing my palms against the wall behind me. He looks up at me, one hand sliding up my inner thigh.
“Tell me what you want,” he says, his breath hot against my skin.
“Your mouth,” I gasp. “I want your mouth on me.”
His fingers find me first, tracing through slick folds. “You’re soaking,” he murmurs, sliding one finger inside me. The intrusion makes me cry out, my hips bucking involuntarily.
He adds a second finger, stretching me as his thumb circles my clit with deliberate pressure. My head falls back against the wall, eyes squeezed shut as pleasure builds.
“Look at me,” he growls.
I force my eyes open, meeting his gaze as he withdraws his fingers and replaces them with his mouth. The first hot slide of his tongue makes my knees buckle. His hands grip my thighs harder, holding me upright as he tastes me.
“Fuck,” I breathe, one hand tangling in his hair.
He growls against me, the vibration sending shocks through my body. His tongue finds my clit, circling the sensitive bud before sucking gently. My fingers tighten in his hair, holding him against me.
“Don’t stop,” I beg. “Right there.”
He obeys, his rhythm steady and relentless. My hips move against his face, chasing the building pressure. When he slides two fingers back inside me, curling them to hit that perfect spot, I nearly scream.
“What do you need?” he asks against my pussy, his voice rough.
“Harder,” I demand. “Suck my clit harder.”
He complies immediately, increasing the pressure of his mouth while his fingers thrust deeper. My inner walls clench around him, tightening as I get closer to the edge.
“I can feel you,” he murmurs. “You’re close.”
The dual sensation of his mouth and fingers is too much. Heat builds at the base of my spine, radiating outward as my body tenses. My fingers tighten in his hair, pulling hard as the first wave hits.
“Dane!” His name tears from my throat as I shatter, my orgasm crashing through me in violent pulses. My legs shake, my entire body clenching around his fingers as he works me through it, not stopping until I push his head away, too sensitive to take more.
I slump against the wall, chest heaving, skin flushed and damp with sweat. Dane rises slowly, his mouth glistening with evidence of my pleasure. The sight of him—disheveled, eyes burning, completely focused on me—sends another pulse of heat through my core.