Chapter 13
The compound was chaos when they got back.
Brothers everywhere, voices overlapping, the aftermath of battle filling every corner of the clubhouse. Someone had set up a triage station in the common room. Someone else was inventorying weapons. Alpha's voice cut through the noise, barking orders, coordinating the cleanup.
Wendy stood in the middle of it all, hands shaking, heart still pounding from hours of sustained fear.
She'd held it together at the bakery. Stayed calm while glass shattered and men with bats stormed the front. Got Jessica and the kids into the back office, locked the door, waited for the violence to pass.
But now the adrenaline had nowhere to go, and her body was paying the price.
"Hey."
Blizzard appeared in front of her, blocking out the chaos with his presence alone. His eyes scanned her face, her hands, her posture—cataloging, assessing, looking for damage.
"I'm fine," she said. Her voice came out wrong. Thin. Shaky.
"You're trembling."
"Adrenaline. It'll pass."
He didn't argue. Instead, he took both her hands in his—her cold, shaking fingers disappearing into his warm, steady palms—and held them.
Just held them.
The noise of the compound faded to background static. The chaos became irrelevant. There was only Blizzard's hands wrapped around hers, his warmth seeping into her frozen skin, his eyes holding hers with an intensity that made everything else disappear.
"Better?" he asked.
"Getting there."
He kept holding her hands until they stopped shaking. Until the trembling in her chest settled into something that felt less like fear and more like need.
"Victor." His name came out rough, desperate. "I need—"
"I know." His grip tightened on her fingers. "Upstairs. Now."
They didn't make it to the bed.
The door slammed behind them and Wendy was on him, hands fisting in his cut, mouth crashing against his with a desperation that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with survival.
She needed proof. Proof that she was alive, that he was alive, that the world hadn't ended in a bakery on Halsted Street.
Blizzard gave it to her.
He spun them, pressing her back against the door, his body pinning hers in place. His hands were everywhere—her hips, her waist, sliding under her shirt to find skin. Not gentle. Not careful. Taking what he needed the same way she was taking what she needed.
"Thought about you," he growled against her throat. "The whole ride to the bakery. Thought about what I'd do if I was too late."
"You weren't."
"I know." His teeth grazed her pulse point. "But I thought about it anyway."
She grabbed his face and dragged his mouth back to hers, kissing him like the world was ending. Maybe it was. Maybe Arthur Dante would burn it all down tomorrow. But tonight—right now—she was alive and so was he and nothing else mattered.
"More," she demanded. "Victor. More."
He made a sound like something breaking and lifted her off her feet.
The bed was too far away.
They made it to the wall instead—her back against cold brick, her legs wrapped around his hips, his hands gripping her thighs hard enough to bruise.
She didn't care. Wanted the bruises. Wanted proof tomorrow that this had been real.
"Look at me," he commanded, his voice rough as gravel. "Wendy. Look at me."
She opened her eyes and met his gaze, and what she saw there stole what was left of her breath.
Hunger. Possession. A ferocity that matched the violence he'd dealt out in Bridgeport, turned inward, focused entirely on her.
"Mine," he said, and it wasn't a whisper this time. It was a declaration. A war cry. A promise written in fire. "Mine."
"Prove it."
His eyes flared. His grip tightened. And then he was moving, and she was gasping, and the world narrowed to sensation—his body against hers, inside hers, surrounding her until she couldn't tell where she ended and he began.
This wasn't like their first time. That had been tender, exploratory, two people learning each other's edges. This was collision. Combustion. Two people who'd stared down death and chosen to burn instead.
"Victor—"
"Say it again."
"Victor." She dragged her nails down his back, feeling him shudder. "Victor, Victor, Victor—"
He swallowed the word with his mouth, kissing her hard enough to bruise, and she kissed him back just as fierce. Matched his intensity with her own. Proved she was his equal here too—not something to be protected, but someone to be reckoned with.
His hips drove forward. She arched to meet him. The wall scraped against her back and she didn't care, didn't notice, didn't feel anything except the inferno building between them.
"Don't stop," she gasped. "Don't you dare stop—"
"Never." His forehead pressed against hers, his breath ragged. "I'm never letting you go. Do you understand? Never."
She understood. In that moment, with his body claiming hers and his eyes burning into her soul, she understood everything.
This wasn't just sex. This was staking a claim. Branding them both with fire that would never fully cool.
The pressure built—desperate, overwhelming, too much and not enough all at once. She felt herself coming apart at the seams, felt him coming apart with her, both of them shattering against each other like waves against rock.
She screamed his name—his real name, the one only she got to use—and felt him shudder against her as the world went white.
They made it to the bed eventually.
Wendy lay sprawled across Blizzard's chest, her legs tangled with his, her body heavy and satisfied in a way that felt almost foreign. The adrenaline had finally burned away, leaving exhaustion in its wake.
"That was..." She trailed off, unable to find a word that fit.
"Yeah." His hand traced lazy patterns on her back. "It was."
Silence settled over them—not awkward, just comfortable. The compound had quieted outside their door, brothers retreating to their own spaces, the crisis receding into the rearview mirror.
"I locked three people in a closet today," Wendy said. "While men with bats destroyed the front of a bakery."
"You saved their lives."
"I hid in a back room while you killed a man in a van."
Blizzard's hand stilled on her back. "Does that bother you?"
She thought about it. Really thought, not just the automatic response she might have given a week ago.
"No," she said finally. "It should. A month ago, it would have. But now..." She lifted her head to look at him. "He was trying to hurt people I care about. You stopped him. That's not murder. That's protection."
Something shifted in his expression. That thawing she kept seeing, the ice cracking away to reveal warmth underneath.
"You're changing," he said.
"So are you."
"Yeah." His hand resumed its pattern on her back. "I guess I am."
She settled back against his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow and steady beneath her ear. The room was dark except for the streetlight filtering through the window, casting everything in soft shadows.
"What happens now?" she asked. "With Dante?"
"He's down two lieutenants. His operation's bleeding. He'll either escalate or run." Blizzard's voice was flat again, but warm underneath in a way she was learning to recognize. "Either way, we end this soon."
"And then?"
"Then you rebuild your bookstore. Get your life back. Figure out what you want."
"What if I've already figured that out?"
His hand stilled again. "Wendy..."
"I want this." She pressed her palm flat against his chest, feeling his heart beat beneath her fingers. "I want you. The compound, the brothers, the whole insane life that comes with being yours. I want it."
He was quiet for a long moment. Long enough that she started to worry she'd said too much, pushed too hard, scared him back behind the ice.
Then his arm tightened around her, pulling her closer.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay?"
"Yeah. Okay." His lips brushed her forehead. "You're pack now. You're mine. That means you've got the whole insane life whether you want it or not."
She smiled against his skin. "Good."
The exhaustion finally won, pulling her down toward sleep. She felt herself drifting, consciousness fading at the edges, her body heavy and warm against his.
The last thing she registered before sleep took her was his voice, low and rough in the darkness:
"I love you, you know. In case that wasn't clear."
She wanted to answer. Wanted to say it back. But sleep was faster, dragging her under before the words could form.
She woke to gray morning light and the sound of pages turning.
Blizzard was propped against the headboard, a paperback open in one hand, his other hand resting on her hip like it belonged there. Like it had always belonged there.
He glanced down when she stirred, and something that might have been a smile ghosted across his face.
"Morning."
"Morning." She stretched, feeling the pleasant ache of muscles well used. "You're reading."
"You were sleeping. Didn't want to wake you."
"So you just... stayed?"
"Where else would I go?"
She didn't have an answer for that. Didn't need one.
She settled back against his side, her head on his shoulder, watching him read. The pages turned in the quiet room. His hand stayed warm on her hip. The compound breathed around them, another day beginning.
Neither of them said anything.
They didn't need to.