29. Lena
LENA
THREE MONTHS LATER
Spring had arrived in Paradise Peaks, the world waking from its winter sleep.
Snow melted in rivulets down the mountains, the first crocuses pushing through the frozen earth, and the hotel was thriving with early-season hikers and couples seeking mountain retreats.
The air smelled different now, fresh and alive, carrying the promise of new beginnings on every breeze.
I barely made it to the bathroom in time.
The morning sickness came in waves now, predictable as the tide.
I gripped the edge of the toilet and emptied my stomach, sweat beading on my forehead, my body rebelling against the breakfast I had foolishly attempted.
The nausea rolled through me in relentless surges, leaving me weak-kneed and trembling.
Three and a half months. Fourteen weeks, according to the doctor. Just past the first trimester, the danger zone behind us.
When the sickness finally passed, I rinsed my mouth and studied myself in the mirror. Still flat, mostly. My breasts had swelled, tender and heavy, but my belly showed nothing yet. Just the faintest curve that could have been a large meal.
But I knew what was growing there. Had known for two weeks now, since the test and the doctor’s confirmation and the secret joy I had been carrying ever since.
Two weeks of savoring this knowledge, of pressing my palm against my stomach and wondering.
Two weeks of watching Raphael without telling him, hoarding this precious truth like a dragon with gold.
His pup. His child. The collar at my throat and the baby in my womb. Both his marks.
I touched my stomach, pressing my palm against the flat surface.
Soon there would be a swell. A kick. A life that was half him and half me, growing in the space between my hips.
I tried to imagine it, that tiny flutter of movement, those first unmistakable signs of the person we had created together.
The thought made me dizzy with anticipation that had nothing to do with nausea.
A knock on the bathroom door made me jump. “Lena? You okay in there?”
Sophie. Of course Sophie, who checked up on me like a mother hen.
I opened the door, composing my features into casual innocence. “Fine. Just a little stomach bug.”
Sophie’s eyes narrowed, her red hair catching the light as she tilted her head. She read people the way some people read books. Nothing got past her.
“A stomach bug,” she repeated flatly. “That you’ve had for three weeks. That only hits in the morning. That makes you run to the bathroom every time you smell coffee.”
“Coincidence.”
“You’re pregnant.”
I could not stop the smile that spread across my face. “I’m pregnant.”
Sophie’s shriek echoed through the office, and then she was hugging me, laughing and squeezing me tight. Her joy poured through me, infectious and overwhelming, and I found myself laughing too, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes.
“Oh my God, Lena. Oh my God.” She pulled back, her hands on my shoulders, studying my face with that knowing look she always had. “You’re glowing. Does Raphael know? When are you due?”
I laughed, extricating myself from her grip. “He doesn’t know yet. September. Too early to tell the sex.”
“You haven’t told him?” Sophie stared at me, her eyes wide. “You’ve known for how long?”
“Two weeks.”
“Two weeks!” She shook her head, but she was smiling. “You and your secrets. I should have known the moment you started avoiding my herbal teas.”
“I wanted to be sure. And I want it to be perfect.” I smoothed my hands over my blouse, feeling the silk slide beneath my palms. “I’m telling him tonight.”
“Tonight.” Sophie nodded, still beaming. “Oh, he’s going to lose his mind. That man looks at you like you hung the moon. Wait until he finds out you’re carrying his child.”
“You can’t tell anyone.”
“My lips are sealed.” She hugged me again, gentler this time. “God, Lena. A baby. You’re going to be a mother.”
I was going to be a mother. And Raphael was going to be a father.
A monster who would burn down anyone who threatened his children.
Perfect.
The bond went cold in the late afternoon.
I was reviewing occupancy reports in my office, the spring sunlight warm on my desk, when the temperature of our connection dropped like a stone into frozen water.
My pen stilled mid-signature. Raphael. His focus had sharpened to a razor’s edge, predatory and cold, and I felt it ripple through the bond like ice cracking across a lake.
My phone buzzed before I could reach for it. His name on the screen.
“Lena.” His voice was wrong. Too controlled. Too quiet. The voice he used when violence was imminent and he was holding it back by his fingernails.
“What happened?”
“I need to handle something.” A pause. The wolf prowled beneath his skin, cold calculation of a predator who had scented prey. “A problem that involves you. The hotel.”
My hand found my belly without conscious thought. Protective. Instinctive.
“Someone threatened us?”
“They won’t by tonight.”
The certainty in his voice should have frightened me. Once, it might have. Before I understood what it meant to be mated to a monster. Before I learned that his violence was the shield between my family and a world that would devour us if it could.
“Handle it,” I said.
Silence stretched between us. Not the awkward silence of things unsaid, but the weighted silence of perfect understanding.
His reaction to my words rippled between us.
Fierce satisfaction. Dark pleasure. The knowledge that his mate did not flinch from what he was, did not demand explanations or justifications, did not need him to be anything other than the monster she had chosen.
“I’ll be home late.” His voice had roughened, that edge of the wolf bleeding through.
“I’ll be waiting.”
The line went dead.
I set my phone down and stared at the occupancy reports without seeing them. My hands were steady. My heart was calm. Whatever threatened me, whatever threatened the hotel, Raphael would handle it. Not gently. Not cleanly. But completely.
That was what he did. That was what he was.
And I would not have him any other way.
The afternoon crawled past. I finished my work, signed the documents that needed signing, answered the emails that could not wait. Normal tasks. Mundane tasks. All while feeling the bond pulse with distant violence, with cold focus, with the satisfaction of a predator closing in on prey.
By the time Parsons drove me home to the manor, the bond had gone quiet. Not cold. Not empty. Sated.
I curled into the window seat that overlooked the drive and waited.
The sky darkened from gold to purple to black, the first stars appearing one by one.
I did not turn on the lights. I did not read or watch television or distract myself with anything at all.
I simply sat in the darkness and felt him drawing closer through the bond, felt the wolf still prowling beneath his skin, felt the echoes of what he had done humming through our connection like a struck chord.
I should have been horrified. I should have been pacing, sick with worry, demanding answers when he walked through that door.
Instead, I was calm. Patient. Proud.
My monster was coming home. And I would be ready to receive him.
The door opened at nine o’clock.
He stood in the doorway, backlit by the hall lights. Blood on his knuckles. Spatter across his white shirt, dark against the pristine fabric. His eyes held traces of yellow at the edges, the wolf not fully receded.
He stopped when he saw me. Waiting.
I rose from the window seat and crossed to him without hesitation.
“Is it done?”
“It’s done.” His voice was rough, scraped raw with violence and satisfaction. “They won’t threaten you again. They won’t threaten anyone.”
They. Not he. More than one, then. I filed this away without comment, without asking for names or numbers or methods. It did not matter. What mattered was that my family was safe, and the man who kept us safe was standing before me.
I took his hand, lifted it to examine the blood crusted across his knuckles. Not his. The cuts beneath were shallow, already healing, pink new skin forming where the flesh had split. Good.
“Come with me.”
I led him through the silent manor, past Alice’s dark kitchen, up the stairs to our bathroom. I did not turn on the overhead lights, only the soft lamp in the corner that bathed the room in warm amber. Ran warm water in the sink, feeling it heat beneath my fingers. Took his hands in mine.
And I washed the blood away.
The water turned pink, then clear, then pink again as I worked.
I rubbed soap between his fingers, over his palms, across the thick tendons of his wrists.
His hands were large in mine, capable of such terrible violence, now still and gentle as I cleaned them.
The intimacy of the act settled over us like a blanket, soft and sacred.
This ritual of caring for him after the killing was done.
“You’re not going to ask what I did.” Not a question. An observation, tinged with wonder.
“No.”
“Why not?”
I met his eyes in the mirror. “Because I trust you. Because I know that whatever you did, you did it to protect me. To protect our family.” I lifted his hand and pressed a kiss to his healing knuckles. “I don’t need the details, Raphael. I just need you to come home.”
His chest tightened. My words landed somewhere deep, the impact rippling back to me. The relief of being accepted without explanation. The profound gratitude of a man who had spent his whole life expecting to be rejected for what he was.
“They were going to hurt you,” he said quietly. “The hotel. Everything you’ve built. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“I know.” I turned in his arms, facing him fully. “And I’m glad you stopped them. Whatever that took.”