15. Anouk #2
“Or witnesses.” I pour tea with hands that don’t quite shake. “People to vouch for her character when she makes her accusations.”
“Torin thinks she’s planning more than accusations.” Caius accepts the cup I offer, his fingers brushing mine. “She’s cornered. The claiming destabilized her position, and the mountain ambush failed. Tomorrow might be her last chance to salvage her operation.”
“What do the rest of the alphas suggest?”
“Being ready for anything.” His smile is grim. “Torin is stationing bears near the council chamber. Aslan has tigers covering the town exits. Elio’s panthers are watching Cordelia’s movements around the clock.”
The apothecary settles into silence around us. Moonlight filters through the windows, catching on glass bottles and copper fixtures.
“When this is over—” he starts.
“Don’t.” I squeeze his fingers. “Don’t talk about ‘when this is over.’ Talk about now. Talk about us.”
“Us.” He says it like he’s tasting something he wants to keep. He pulls me closer, settling me between his thighs, his arms wrapping around my waist. “I’ve been wanting to talk about us for longer than I should admit.”
“Then stop waiting and talk.”
So he does.
He tells me about watching me from across council rooms—the way I commanded attention without demanding it, the way my voice cut through arguments with precision, the way my magic sparked when I was angry and he found it devastatingly attractive instead of alarming.
He tells me about the years between us—the ones I was too frightened to see.
“The night Corwin died,” I whisper, “I almost came to you.”
“You did?”
“I was standing at my door. Coat on, boots laced. Ready to walk to pack territory and just… break down. Let you see me shattered.” I swallow hard. “I didn’t. I convinced myself you wouldn’t want to deal with my grief. That asking for comfort was weakness. I was a coward.”
“You were grieving.” His voice is fierce, gentle. “And afraid. That’s not cowardice—that’s being human.”
“You keep saying that. Being human.”
“Because you forget it sometimes. You hold yourself to impossible standards and then beat yourself up for failing to achieve them.” He cups my face in his hands, forcing me to meet his eyes.
“You lost your familiar—your anchor, your companion, your magical stabilizer. You were allowed to fall apart. You’re still allowed. ”
My eyes burn. I refuse to cry—I’ve cried enough lately, more in the past weeks than in the previous year—but the pressure builds behind my breastbone anyway.
“Everyone I’ve let in has just… stayed,” I say quietly. “Leire. Sakura. Zeph.” I trace the lines of his face—the sharp cheekbones, the stubborn jaw, the mouth that drives me equally mad with desire and frustration. “You.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know.” And I do. The claiming proved it, but this conversation proves it more—the willingness to be honest, to admit weakness, to share the private fears we’ve both been carrying in silence.
“I was a coward about it too,” he says. “Different kind from yours, but the same result.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “You’re mine. I’m yours. Whatever comes tomorrow, that doesn’t change.”
I kiss him.
Not the fierce, desperate kisses of recent days—though those have their place. This is soft. Tender. A promise made with lips instead of words.
He responds in kind, his hands gentle on my face, his mouth moving against mine with deliberate care. The claiming marks burn in unison, responding to the emotion between us, binding us more thoroughly than any magic ever could.
When we break apart, both breathing unsteadily, the moonlight has shifted across the floor. Hours have passed without either of us noticing.
He doesn’t move to release me. “I don’t want to leave.”
“Then don’t.”
The invitation hangs in the air. He searches my face for uncertainty, for hesitation.
He finds none.
“Your bedroom is upstairs.” It’s not a question.
“It is.”
“And you want me there.”
“I do.” I rise, taking his hand. “Tomorrow could change everything. Tonight—” I pull him toward the stairs. “Tonight is ours.”
He follows without argument.
I wake to gray dawn light and a wolf alpha curled around me like I’m the most precious thing he’s ever held.
His breathing is deep and even, his arm heavy across my waist, his face relaxed in sleep. I’ve never seen him this unguarded—always the alpha, always controlled, always watching. Now he’s just Caius. Just the man who loves me.
Loves me. The thought should terrify me. Instead, it settles into my chest like coming home.
“Stop thinking so loudly.” His voice is rough with sleep. “It’s too early for strategic planning.”
“I wasn’t planning.”
“You were absolutely planning. Your whole body just tensed.” He pulls me closer, pressing a kiss to my shoulder, to the claiming mark that’s become as familiar as my own heartbeat. “What is it?”
“Today.”
“Today.” He sighs against my skin. “Right. Cordelia. Council meeting. Probable Preserver conspiracy. I almost forgot.”
“How could you possibly forget?”
“I was distracted.” His hand traces down my side, possessive and warm. “By a witch who kept me up half the night with very important activities.”
“You started it.”
“You finished it. Multiple times.” He’s grinning against my shoulder now. I can feel it. “I have no complaints.”
He rolls me onto my back, settling over me with casual authority. “If I’m late to my own alpha’s council follow-up, they will never let me hear the end of it.”
“There’s a follow-up?”
“Final coordination. Making sure everyone knows their positions, their signals, their contingencies.” He kisses my forehead, my cheek, the corner of my mouth. “Just in case Cordelia tries anything… dramatic.”
“She will.” The certainty settles into my bones. “Forty years of patience, and now she’s cornered. She’s going to fight.”
“Then we fight back.” He meets my eyes with the focused intensity that first drew me to him. “And we win. Because I refuse to lose you now that I have you.”
“Romantic.”
“Practical.” One more kiss, deeper this time, before he pulls away with obvious reluctance. “I’ll see you at the council chamber. Don’t let Cordelia rattle you.”
“I’ve never been rattled by Cordelia in my life.”
“I know. It’s one of the things I love about you.”
He’s already at my bedroom door before I can find words for what that confession does to me—moving with the silent grace of a predator who’s learned to pass through the world without leaving traces.
I lie in the tangled sheets for a moment longer, memorizing the indent of his head on my pillow, the scent of him clinging to my skin, the way dawn light catches on the claiming mark where it curves across my shoulder.
Then I rise. Today, we end this.
The morning routine feels different. Not just the claiming—though that’s changed everything about how my magic responds, how my body feels, how I move through the world. It’s the certainty.
I shower away the evidence of last night’s intimacy, dress with deliberate care in my most formal clothes, my most expensive jewelry.
My apprentice arrives with coffee—the wrong kind, as always. Today it tastes like ‘optimistic anxiety’ with undertones of existential dread.
“The council chamber is already filling.” The young witch’s eyes are wide. “Elder Cordelia arrived an hour early. She brought tea.”
“Interesting.”
“The Protection Network is there too. All of them. They’re standing against the back wall looking very…” She searches for a word. “Intimidating.”
Good. Caius is keeping his promise. Whatever Cordelia tries today, she’ll have to do it in front of every alpha in Mistvale.
The dragon told us the truth. Grandmother Peach has been guarding the ritual site for centuries. The Preservers have been operating in the shadows, murdering anyone who got too close to the secret they’re so desperate to protect.
Cordelia Ashworth has decades of careful work riding on today’s council meeting. Years of lies, of manipulation, of building a persona that no one thought to question.
She’s about to discover that some of us have been asking questions anyway.
I dismiss my apprentice with instructions to keep the apothecary closed today. Then I set my shoulders, check my reflection one final time, and walk toward the door.
Cordelia wants a fight?
She’s about to get one.