29. Lena #2
“That does not excuse what he did.” Raphael’s voice hardened, the wolf bleeding through.
“Stephanie. Winston. The sabotage. Kidnapping you. Tying you to that chair and putting his hands on your face.” His fingers tightened on my wrists for a moment before he forced himself to relax.
“He made his choices. He became a monster. Richard’s failures do not change that. ”
“I know.” I did know. Michael’s pain did not justify his crimes. Understanding where the monster came from did not make his teeth less sharp. But it made it harder to hate him cleanly, to file him away as simply evil. He was my brother. My blood. And he was a murderer.
“I just need to process. All of it.”
He finished wrapping my wrists in clean white bandages and sat back on his heels, looking up at me with an expression I could not quite read.
Love, yes. That was always there, burning steady through the bond.
But also fear. And that heavy, suffocating guilt that pressed against me like a physical weight.
“What were you doing when he took me?”
The question hung in the air between us. Through the bond, his defenses rose, a careful partition between his emotions and mine. It was clumsy, obvious. He had never tried to hide from me before.
“I told you. The Pakhan summoned me.”
“For what?”
A muscle jumped in his cheek, and he looked away before answering. “Punishment. For defying him at the gala.”
The gala. When Raphael had chosen me over pack protocol, had challenged Max’s authority in front of witnesses. I had felt it afterward, the ripple effects of his defiance echoing through our connection. But I had not understood what it would cost him.
“What kind of punishment?”
He did not answer immediately. His hands rested on my knees, and I could feel the tension coiled in his shoulders, the battle between truth and protection.
“The Pakhan has ways of reminding wolves of their place.” His voice was flat, stripped of emotion. “Pain. Submission. Breaking us down so we remember who holds the power.”
“He hurt you.”
“I should not have gone.” The self-loathing in those words cut like a blade. “I should have stayed with you. Trusted my instincts instead of submitting like an obedient dog.”
“But you did go.”
“I went.” He exhaled, and his shame pressed against me through our link, heavy and suffocating. “I answered his summons like I always have. And while I was on my knees letting him remind me of my place, Michael was taking you.”
His pain bled through the bond, an echo of what he must have endured during the punishment itself. Sharp, calculated, designed to break. My stomach turned at the thought of it, at the Pakhan’s hands inflicting damage on the body that now knelt before me so gently.
But there was more. I could feel it pressing against the guard he had raised between us, and the guard itself was a confession. Whatever he was hiding, it was bigger than guilt over leaving me. Older and heavier and more terrifying.
“What are you not telling me, Raphael?”
His eyes met mine. In them, I saw the fear I had felt bleeding through our connection, naked and raw and devastating. He was afraid of losing me. Afraid that whatever he was hiding would break us.
“You need to rest.” His hands squeezed my knees gently. “We can talk more tomorrow, when you have slept, when your body has recovered.”
“No.” The word came out harder than I intended. “I just survived my brother confessing that he killed someone for me, that he has been watching me for years, that my entire life was built on my father’s lies. I am done with secrets. I cannot handle more of them. Not from you.”
The bond trembled between us, his fear bleeding through despite his defenses. I reached out and took his face in my bandaged hands, forcing him to look at me.
“Before Michael took me, I felt something along our connection. You were in pain. Real pain, not just emotional. The Pakhan was hurting you, and you were submitting.” My voice shook with the memory of it, the phantom agony that had rippled through our connection before everything went dark.
“That was not just discipline, Raphael. What happened? What are you hiding from me?”
His composure gave way. I watched it happen, watched the careful control splinter like ice beneath too much weight. His emotions flooded into me. Terror and love and a need so acute it stole my breath.
“There is something I should have told you.” His voice was barely a whisper. “From the beginning. From before we were married.”
I waited. My heart hammered against my ribs.
“Tomorrow.” He covered my hands with his own, pressing them against his face like he needed my touch to survive.
“Please, Lena. Let me have tonight. Let you rest, let me hold you, let us both recover from what happened. And tomorrow, when the sun is up and we have both slept, I will tell you everything.”
“Everything?”
“The Pakhan’s ultimatum. Why I married you. All of it.” His eyes were wet. I had never seen him cry before, and the sight made my breath catch. “I will not keep secrets from you anymore. But please. Give me until morning.”
Ultimatum. The word lodged in my brain like a splinter. I did not know what it meant, but I heard the weight of it in his voice, felt the dread of it through our bond.
He was afraid to tell me. Terrified that the truth would change everything between us.
Maybe it would.
But I was too exhausted to fight anymore tonight.
Too hollowed out by Michael’s confession, too battered by the physical and emotional trauma of the past hours.
I needed sleep. I needed his arms around me.
I needed one night of safety before whatever bomb he was about to drop exploded our fragile peace.
“Tomorrow,” I agreed. “You tell me everything. No more walls.”
“No more walls,” he echoed.
He gathered me against him, lifting me from the couch and carrying me through the door to the bedroom.
The mattress was thin and the sheets smelled like dust and disuse, but when he lay down beside me and pulled me into his arms, none of that mattered.
His body curved around mine, protective and warm, and the bond settled into a steady hum of his presence.
Through that connection, I felt his relief at my agreement warring with his terror of the morning. His love wrapped around me like a physical thing, fierce and consuming and absolute. Whatever he was hiding, he loved me. That much I knew with certainty.
I just did not know if love would be enough to survive what came next.