Chapter 18
Alexandria
My eyes snap open and I glare at the dark ceiling. I’ve been dozing for a while, but it’s no good. I don’t even want to look at my watch and see how late it is.
I’m warm under the covers, but the tip of my nose is freezing.
Tabitha is curled against my stomach, flexing her claws every time I move.
I try my back. Then my side.
I just can’t get comfortable enough to fall asleep properly.
Last night’s dinner keeps replaying in my head.
The way Gunnar kept pulling away from me.
The awkwardness of every single moment.
The way he said my name at the door like it meant something different now.
I press my face into the pillow.
Well, what did I expect?
I told him no.
For good reasons—because Orson hates me, because I don’t understand what’s going on here, because I’m not about to walk into the middle of something that could get people hurt.
So why does it feel like I’ve made things worse?
I turn onto my other side, dragging the blanket tighter around me. Tabitha makes a small, irritated sound and resettles, pushing her tiny head into my armpit.
The lodge creaks quietly. Wind presses against the walls. Somewhere, a pipe knocks and goes still again.
I close my eyes.
Relax.
Go to sleep.
I’m just starting to drift when a sound pulls me back up again.
A voice.
Low. Rough. Male.
Then another.
I go still.
For a second I think I’ve imagined it, but then I hear it again—closer this time, sharper. Not shouting—worse, somehow. The kind of voices men use when they’re trying not to lose their tempers.
I push myself up on one elbow.
Tabitha lifts her head, ears twitching.
The sound is coming from the hall.
No—farther down. The kitchen, I think.
I hold still and listen.
“—not asking you,” someone says.
Gunnar.
“You’re acting like a fool.”
Orson.
“No,” Gunnar says. Flat. Hard. “I’m done pretending otherwise.”
I sit up fully now.
Tabitha makes a questioning chirrup and stands, tail brushing my thigh. I put a hand on her automatically, but all my attention is on the door.
I shouldn’t be listening.
Not my fault they’re talking so loud though.
There’s a scrape. A chair leg, maybe.
Then Orson again, louder now, like he’s moved closer to the door.
“You keep her safe here till this blows over, fine. But this—”
“This what?”
I can hear the edge in Gunnar’s voice now. Not raised. Just stripped down to something that sounds worse.
I flip the covers back. A floorboard creaks under my bare foot before I realize I’ve moved.
I cross the room and press my ear near the door, hating myself a little.
“She can’t stay any longer,” Orson says. “Not now.”
There’s a pause.
Long enough that every muscle in my body tenses up.
Then Gunnar says, very clearly, “she’s my mate.”
I stop breathing.
Mate?
For one blank second, I think I’ve misheard. That my keyed-up brain has stitched those words together into something they were never meant to be.
But then Orson lets out a rough, disbelieving laugh and says, “You’ve lost your mind.”
“Not at all.”
“She’s human,” Orson snaps. “She doesn’t know anything about us. About what this means.”
“Then that’s my problem.”
“It becomes all of ours.”
“Good.” Gunnar’s voice is colder now. “Because you either accept that she’s my mate, or you leave the clan.”
Silence.
My heart is pounding hard enough that I feel it in my throat.
Footsteps hit the hallway. I freeze.
Then the front door slams.
I hurry to the window.
Orson’s hulking shape cuts across the drive. Then there’s a bunch of contortions, shredded clothes, and a bear in his place, bounding toward the forest.
I go back to the bed and sink down, my head spinning.
Mate.
Gunnar said mate.
He’s not just into me. He wants me to be his?
Like, forever-his?
I crack the door open, wincing at the sound, and slip into the dark hallway in my T-shirt and shorts, bare feet silent on the floorboards. The lodge is dim, the only light spilling from the kitchen at the far end, stretching across the floor in a thin strip.
I take two steps.
A shape detaches itself from the darkness near the main room.
Gunnar.
He’s coming down the hall toward me, fast enough that he must have left the room the second he scented me. He stops dead when he sees me standing there.
For a second, we just stare at each other.
He’s wearing a dark henley, sleeves shoved up, jeans slung low on his hips. His hair is messy, like he’s been running his hands through it. His face is hard in a way I haven’t seen before.
Then it shifts. Softens.
“Do you need something?” he says quietly.
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out.
He glances behind him once, toward the lit room, then back at me. “Go back inside, Alexandria.”
That almost works.
Almost.
Then my voice comes back in a rush. “Your mate?”
His face doesn’t change.
Which somehow makes it hit harder.
I swallow. “I heard you.”
He exhales. “I’m sorry.”
“Did you mean it?” I ask.
He looks at me for a long moment, like the question itself offends him.
“Yes.”
The word drops between us.
I stare at him. “Gunnar—”
“You asked me not to push you,” he says. His voice is low enough now that it almost blends with the dark. “I’m trying to respect that.”
My heart thumps brutally.
I fold my arms over my chest, partly because I’m cold and partly because I need something to do with myself. “You can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Talk like this is…” I make a helpless motion between us. “Settled.”
His eyes glow. “It is for me.”
That sends a fresh shock through me.
I let out a breathless, disbelieving laugh. “Well, that’s easy for you, isn’t it?”
“No.” He takes one step closer. I feel it all the way through me. “It isn’t.”
I can hear the blood in my ears. I am suddenly, absurdly aware of everything about him. The width of his shoulders in the narrow hall. The heat of him. The fact that he came after me before I’d made it halfway down the corridor.
I shake my head. “You can’t just tell your clan I’m your mate like it’s some kind of done deal.”
“You think I’m wrong?”
The question comes so fast it catches me off guard.
I look at him. Really look at him.
His face is set hard, but there’s too much under it. Too much pressure. He looks like a man holding a door shut against something enormous.
“That’s not the point,” I say.
“It’s exactly the point.”
I lick my lips. “You barely know me.”
A strange look crosses his face. “A bear knows its mate.”
I should say something clever. Sharp. Something that puts distance back between us.
Instead I say, “You told me you were going to respect what I said.”
“I am.”
“This doesn’t feel like it.”
His mouth tightens. “You said no because of Orson.”
“Yes.”
“If he wasn’t here, would the answer still be no?”
The question hits like a shove to the chest.
I stare at him.
The hall goes quiet around us. Even the wind outside seems to fall away.
“That’s not fair,” I say.
“Answer me.”
My breath catches.
He’s close enough now that if I leaned forward even a little, I’d feel him. The memory of his mouth on mine flashes through me so sharply my knees go weak.
I hate that he can probably smell it.
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
Something shifts in his face.
He steps closer—and this time I don’t move back. I should. I know I should. But I don’t.
His voice drops. “That’s the first honest thing you’ve said to me about this.”
“That is not true.”
“It is.”
I tip my chin up. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re standing here in the middle of the night arguing when you could have gone back to your room.”
I open my mouth.
Close it again.
He notices. Of course he notices.
The corner of his mouth moves—not quite a smile. It does something stupid to my insides.
“I’m trying hard, Alexandria.”
The henley fits him too well. His forearms are bare. There’s a fresh scrape near one wrist I hadn’t noticed before. My gaze catches there for a second too long.
When I look back up, his eyes are on me in a way that makes my skin feel too tight.
“Trying hard at what?” I ask, though I already know.
He exhales through his nose.
“Don’t.”
“Not to touch me?”
That does it.
He reaches out—slowly—and cups the side of my neck.
Every thought in my head vanishes.
His hand is big, warm, impossibly gentle.
He doesn’t pull me closer. He just holds me there, his thumb resting just below my ear, looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world.
My hands curl uselessly at my sides.
I can’t breathe properly.
“Exactly that,” he says.
My lips part.
His gaze drops to my mouth before he drags it back up again. His jaw tightens. His hand shifts—barely.
Every nerve in my body lights up.
“Gunnar,” I whisper.
A groan sounds from one of the rooms. A heavy body turning over.
The moment shatters.
He closes his eyes for a second, like he’s cursing himself, then drops his hand and steps back so abruptly the loss of it aches.
I hate that I want it back.
When he opens his eyes again, the restraint is back in them.
“You should go back to bed,” he says.
I stare at him. “Why?”
“Because I know it’s a lot. And you need time.”
“For what?” I ask innocently.
“Sleep, Alexandria,” he says.
There’s no world in which I’m sleeping after this, but apparently neither of us feels the need to point that out.
I take a step back along the hallway.
At my doorway, I stop.
He’s still standing where I left him, broad shoulders filling the hall, eyes on me now without apology.
“Did you mean that?” I ask quietly. “What you said to Orson?”
His expression doesn’t even flicker.
“Yes.”
The word hits just as hard as before.
I push the door open and step inside.
Tabitha is on the bed, tail puffed, clearly offended by the disruption. I shut the door and turn the lock with clumsy fingers.
For a few seconds I just stand there in the dark, hand still on the handle.
Then I lift my fingers to my neck, right where he touched me.
My skin is hot.
My heart is trying to break out of my chest.
Mate.
The word should terrify me. Maybe it does. A little.
But underneath that is something worse.
Something warmer.
Something that makes me sit down hard on the edge of the bed and stare into the dark. Everything feels different.
Like something has shifted and won’t shift back.
I lie down slowly, every inch of me awake.
Tabitha stomps over me in protest and curls against my stomach.
I stare at the ceiling.
I can still feel his hand at the side of my neck.
I turn onto my side and pull the blanket up, though it does nothing for the heat in my face.
He chose me.
He didn’t take it back.
I close my eyes.
It doesn’t help.
Nothing is settled.
Nothing is safe.
And for the first time since this all began, that thought does not make me want to run.