Chapter 27
LENA
Almost two weeks in a hospital room had been eleven days too many.
Raphael stood by the window, his back to me, watching the snow fall over the parking lot below.
He was dressed in clothes Parsons had brought, dark jeans and a sweater that hung slightly looser than it should have.
The gunshot wound had cost him weight, muscle mass that even wolf healing could not restore instantly.
But he was standing on his own two feet, moving without assistance, alive against all odds.
That was what mattered.
“The wheelchair is hospital policy, Mr. Antonov.” The nurse, a sturdy woman with kind eyes and an iron will, crossed her arms and blocked the doorway. “Everyone gets wheeled to the exit. No exceptions.”
Raphael turned. In the days since he had woken, the color had returned to his face, the strength to his movements. His eyes, gray and warm when they found mine, had lost that clouded, medicated distance. He looked like himself again. He was tired and thinner than before, but he was himself.
“I can walk.”
“You can sit.” The nurse gestured to the wheelchair she had parked beside the bed. “Or you can spend another night while we run more tests.”
I pressed my lips together to hide my smile.
His irritation flared through the bond, then settled into resignation.
He had been a terrible patient. Impatient, stubborn, constantly trying to prove he did not need the monitors, the IV, the endless parade of doctors marveling at his recovery rate.
I had spent almost two weeks managing both the medical staff and my husband’s wounded pride.
“Raphael.” I kept my voice gentle but firm. “Sit in the chair.”
He looked at me. Something softened in his expression. It was not defeat that I saw there. It was acceptance. He trusted me, even when his instincts screamed against showing weakness.
“Fine.” He crossed to the wheelchair and lowered himself into it with more grace than the gesture deserved. “But I’m walking into the house.”
“Deal.”
Parsons appeared in the doorway, solid and watchful as always. He had been in and out over the past two weeks, bringing food that was not hospital food, handling security, keeping us connected to the world beyond these walls. Now he surveyed the scene with the faintest hint of amusement.
“Ready to go home?”
Home. The word settled into my chest like a held breath finally released.
I had not seen the hotel, the manor, Paradise Peaks in what felt like forever.
Since before Michael called with his ultimatum.
Since before Clara was taken. Since before the cabin where my half-brother died and my husband almost followed him.
“More than ready.” I grabbed the bag Parsons had packed for me, fresh clothes to replace the ones I had been wearing when we arrived. My bloody shirt and jeans had gone in the hospital incinerator days ago. I did not miss them.
The nurse led us through hallways that smelled of antiseptic and industrial cleaner, past rooms where other families waited for better news or worse.
Raphael sat rigid in the wheelchair, his jaw set, his hands gripping the armrests.
His frustration hummed against my awareness, his embarrassment, his desperate need to be anywhere but here.
And underneath it all, I felt his gratitude humming against my awareness, his relief at finally leaving this place, his love wrapping around me like something tangible.
We reached the exit, and cold mountain air rushed in as the automatic doors slid open.
I sucked in a breath, filling my lungs with the clean scent of snow and pine.
The cold bit at my cheeks, sharp and clean, nothing like the sterile warmth I had been breathing for almost two weeks.
After so many days of recycled hospital air, the cold felt like absolution.
Raphael was on his feet before the doors fully opened, stepping out of the wheelchair and onto the salted pavement with the careful movements of a man still testing his own limits.
The nurse made a small noise of protest behind us, but she did not try to stop him.
I suspected she had learned by now that stopping Raphael Antonov was not something most people could accomplish.
I moved to his side, slipping my hand into his.
His fingers closed around mine, warm and solid.
Even weakened, even recovering, his grip was sure.
The bond between us vibrated with quiet contentment, a far cry from the frantic pulsing of those terrible hours when I had been clinging to it with desperate hands.
“Let’s go home,” I said.
Parsons had the SUV waiting at the curb, engine running, heat blasting. He opened the back door for us, and Raphael climbed in first, moving slowly but steadily. I followed, settling beside him, our shoulders touching. Parsons slid behind the wheel and pulled away from the hospital without a word.
I watched the building recede in the side mirror.
All those days in that place. Beeping monitors and hushed conversations with doctors who could not explain why their patient was healing three times faster than any human should.
Holding Raphael’s hand and feeling him get stronger through our connection while I pretended to be just a worried wife.
We were leaving. He was alive. It was over.
The drive to Paradise Peaks wound through mountain roads blanketed in fresh snow.
Pine trees lined the highway, their branches heavy and white, and the sky above was a flat gray that promised more snow before nightfall.
The SUV’s heater filled the cabin with warmth, and the steady rhythm of the windshield wipers clearing occasional flurries created a hypnotic backdrop to my thoughts.
The view was beautiful, deceptively peaceful.
It felt like a world away from Michael’s hideout where he had confessed everything, where the gun had gone off, where I had pressed my hands against Raphael’s chest and screamed for help.
The landscape looked innocent now, dressed in white, but I knew what these mountains could hide.
I knew the violence that lurked behind peaceful facades.
I closed my eyes, but the memories came anyway.
The last time I had traveled these roads, I had been going to meet my half-brother. Going to trade myself for Clara. Going knowing it was a trap, praying that Raphael would find me before Michael could do whatever he had planned.
He had found me. He had killed Michael. He had almost died doing it.
Raphael sensed the shift in my thoughts, his hand tightening on mine. I opened my eyes to find him watching me.
The wolf looked out at me through his eyes. Even now, weakened and recovering, I could see the predator beneath the surface. Watching. Waiting. Satisfied that his mate was at his side where she belonged.
“It’s over,” he said, his voice low enough that Parsons, focused on the road, would not hear. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“I know.” I did know. Michael was dead. Viktor had handled the body, the cover story, the human authorities who would never look too closely at a dead stalker. It was over.
But the grief hit anyway, unexpected and sharp.
Not for Michael as he had been. For who he could have been.
My half-brother. Richard’s other child, the one he had acknowledged just enough to give a job but never enough to give a name.
Michael had wanted so desperately to be seen, to be chosen, to matter to someone.
And that desperation had twisted into obsession, violence, death.
I would never know the brother he might have been if our father had been less cruel.
“I don’t regret it,” I said. The words came out steadier than I expected. “What you did. What I told you to do. I would do it again.”
Raphael’s thumb traced circles on the back of my hand. I felt his understanding, his lack of judgment. He had killed before. He knew the weight of taking a life, even a life that needed taking.
“Good,” he said simply. “Because I would too.”
We drove in silence after that, the SUV eating up miles of mountain highway, carrying us closer to home.
I watched the landscape pass, the snow-covered peaks and frozen streams, the occasional cabin tucked into the hillside.
Paradise Peaks had been a refuge, a fresh start, a place to build the life I had chosen.
Michael had violated that sanctuary, turned it into another battleground.
Now I was going to take it back.
The hotel appeared through the trees, and my throat tightened.
Christmas lights strung along the roofline, twinkling even in the gray afternoon light.
Red and green and gold, cheerful against the white snow and gray sky.
Wreaths with velvet bows hung on every door.
A decorated tree filled the lobby windows, its lights reflecting off the glass like captured stars.
The parking lot held a dozen cars, guests who had booked holiday stays and actually kept them despite everything that had happened.
Through the trees I could see movement in the windows.
Staff. Life. The hotel I had saved from bankruptcy, the business I had built from my family’s legacy.
It was still standing. Still thriving. Still mine.
For a moment, I could not speak. The sight of it hit me harder than I expected.
Not long ago, I had not known if I would ever see this place again.
I had been bound to a chair, waiting to die, hoping desperately that someone would find me in time.
And now here I was, pulling up to the front entrance like any other guest, like nothing had happened, like the world had not nearly ended.
But it had not ended. That was the point. Everything had tried to break us apart, and here we were.