Chapter Nine
Wren
The cabin door shuts, and the silence detonates.
My hands won’t stop shaking. My lips are still swollen, still burning from the kiss that cracked something open in front of fifty wolves. I can still feel every pair of eyes, every flared nostril, every wolf in that hall scenting us and deciding whether the bond between us is real.
And Boone is making tea.
The kettle, the cupboard, the fucking mug. His back is turned, shoulders rigid, and jaw locked. The same pattern I’ve learned in three days of living inside his walls. Controlled movements. Controlled silence. Controlled everything.
“You felt it,” I say, and his hand stalls on the kettle.
“Wren...”
“Don’t.” My voice comes out razor-sharp. “Don’t say my name like you’re bracing for a car wreck.”
He turns and the firelight catches the hard angle of his jaw. His eyes are locked down, hazel buried under layers of control. “You did well tonight.”
Something inside me detonates.
“I did well?” I cross the kitchen in two strides. “I kissed you in front of the entire pack. I felt something...” I slam my palm against my sternum. “Something happened during that kiss. Something I’ve never felt before. And you’re standing there telling me I did well?”
His throat bobs. “The pack believed it. That’s what matters.”
“That is not what I’m talking about.”
“I know.”
“Then talk to me.” I’m close enough now to see the muscle jumping in his jaw. Close enough to smell pine and smoke and the lingering heat of whatever this is still humming between us. “Tell me why I can feel you right here.” I tap my chest. “Like a second heartbeat. Tell me what that is.”
His fists curl at his sides. “It’s the bond. An awakened mate bond.”
The words hit like a fist to the ribs. I grab the table edge. “You’re telling me we’re...”
“My wolf recognized you.” His voice is stripped raw. “During the kiss. The moment your scent broke through the last of the blockers, everything clicked.”
The room tilts. “How long have you known?” He doesn’t say a word. “Boone.”
“Since the first night.”
The floor drops out from under me. “The first night.” The words come out flat. Dead. “Three days. You’ve known for three days.”
“Wren...”
I cut him off, my anger in control. “You made rules.” My voice cracks open. “No touching. No kissing. You let me believe this was fake while your wolf was claiming me.”
“I was trying to give you a choice...”
“You were trying to control the outcome!” The explosion rips through me. “You decided what I could handle. Just like Dax. Just like my father. Just like every male who’s ever decided they know what’s best for me.”
The comparison guts him. I see it hit—his face going pale, the flinch rippling through his body.
“I am nothing like Dax.” His voice drops to something dangerous.
“Then stop acting like him.” I’m shaking so hard my teeth chatter. “Dax decided I was his without asking. You decided I was yours without telling me. The method is different. The result is the same. I’m the last to know about my own goddamn life.”
He recoils. Good. He should feel that.
“I’m leaving.” The words come out ice-cold. “Tonight. I’ll sleep in the pack hall, or the forest, or anywhere that isn’t this cabin with a male who lies by omission and calls it protection.”
“Ashstone is still out there. You can’t...”
“Then I’ll ask Talon. Or Raine. Or anyone who hasn’t been hiding a mate bond from me for three fucking days.”
“Wren. Please.” The word cracks out of him, raw and unpolished. Boone doesn’t say please. Boone doesn’t beg. But he’s saying it now, and the sound of it nearly undoes me.
Nearly.
“I spent my whole life being told what I could handle,” I say, quieter. “My father decided I could handle a mating contract. Alpha Mercer decided I could handle Dax. Dax decided I could handle his ownership. And now you’ve decided I can’t handle the truth.”
His face twists. “That’s not...”
“Prove it,” I demand. “Tell me everything. Right now. Or I walk out that door.”
He stares at me and I stare back. The fire crackles while a wolf howls outside, long and mournful. Boone’s shoulders sag. The control he wears like armor crumbles, and underneath is just Boone. Exhausted. Terrified. Wanting.
“You’re my mate,” he says. “You’ve been my mate since before you walked into Katu territory. The bond awakened the moment you touched me. I’ve felt it every second since.”
My chest constricts.
“I didn’t tell you because you came here running from a male who wanted to own you. You came for freedom. For choice.” His voice breaks. “And I couldn’t bear being another claim you didn’t ask for. Another chain.”
The anger fractures, not disappears, but loses some of its heat. Because he’s right that it’s complicated. And he’s wrong that he got to decide how much I could handle.
“You should have let me choose,” I whisper. “That’s what Ashstone took from me. The choice. And you took it, too.”
“I know.” He’s close now. Close enough to feel the heat off his skin. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I made rules instead of trusting you with the truth.”
His hand lifts. Slowly. Giving me time to pull away. I don’t. Instead, I take his hand and place his palm against my face. His palm cups my jaw. His thumb traces my cheekbone, and the touch shorts out every thought in my head.
“Tell me to stop,” he says. “And I stop.”
“You don’t get to make dramatic gestures either,” I mutter, but my voice is shaking.
“What do you want, Wren?”
The bond pulses between us, hot and insistent.
“I want the truth. Always. Even when it’s scary.”
“Agreed.”
“I want to be the one who decides what I can handle.”
“Agreed.”
“And I want you to kiss me. Not for the pack. Not for Ashstone. For us.”
The last wall falls and he kisses me.
Not like the pack hall. Not controlled. Not careful.
This is Boone stripped bare, his mouth claiming mine with a hunger that steals my breath.
His hand slides from my jaw into my hair, fingers tangling, tilting my head back.
I gasp against his lips, and he takes the opening, deepening the kiss until I taste him—pine, smoke, heat, and something darker. Something that tastes like mine.
The bond ignites.
Not a spark. A goddamned inferno. Heat rushes through me, blinding, annihilating. I feel him, not just his mouth and hands, but the core of him. The loneliness. The tenderness he hides beneath all the damn rules. The want he’s been choking down since the gate.
My wolf surges to meet his, and the collision shatters something open inside me.
I grab his shirt and pull. He makes a sound, low, guttural, and desperate, and his hand finds my waist, fingers digging into the curve of my hip. Hard enough to claim.
I shove at his chest and his back hits the wall. He groans, and the vibration rolls through my chest.
“You piss me off,” I snarl against his mouth.
His hands catch my wrists, eyes blazing gold. “And you drive me insane.”
“You lied.”
“You make me lose control.”
We’re chest to chest, breath to breath. The argument is the foreplay. The bond is wildfire.
I crash my mouth to his. He kisses me back with teeth and tongue and a desperation that borders on violence. His hands tangle in my hair. My nails rake over his shoulders, his back, anywhere I can reach. I want marks. I want proof.
He lifts me onto the kitchen table and the dishes rattle. My thighs fall open for him, and he presses between them, hard and hot even through denim. I drag his shirt over his head and drink in every inch of bare skin. The scars. The muscle. The man who’s mine.
“Tell me you want this,” he growls.
“I want you. All of it. Now.”
He peels away my clothes, his mouth tracing the path down my neck, between my breasts, over my stomach.
I’m shaking, frustration, anticipation, and need so sharp it hurts.
I pull at his belt, and he helps, shoving jeans down just enough.
When he grinds against me, I gasp, the friction nearly undoing me.
He pauses and meets my gaze. “You sure?”
“If you don’t fuck me right now, I’ll bite you myself.”
His laugh is broken and hungry. He thrusts into me in one hard, perfect stroke. My head falls back, a moan tearing out of me. Relief. Release. Possession. He sets a rhythm, deep and rough and relentless, every thrust a challenge and a promise.
We argue and we fuck at the same time, words and bodies tangled, sweat and curses, nails and teeth. I claw at his back, bite his shoulder, whisper things that make his eyes go wild.
“You’re mine,” he says, voice cracked open.
“I’m yours.”
He slows. His hand wraps around my throat, not squeezing, just holding. His thumb presses against my pulse. “Beg for it.”
“Please.” The word rips out of me. “Bite me. Make it real.”
His arms go rigid. He searches my face, eyes burning gold. “You’re sure? This can’t be undone, Wren.”
I slide my hands up his chest and tilt my head back, baring my throat. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
A growl rumbles out of him. He lowers his head, mouth tracing the line of my neck, tongue flicking over the place where skin meets pulse. I shudder, caught between anticipation and want so deep it’s almost pain.
“Please,” I whisper. “Now.”
He bites.
Not gentle. Not hesitant. His teeth sink into my flesh, and the world narrows to a single, brutal point, pain and ecstasy, terror and triumph, all colliding.
The bond ignites, a wildfire racing under my skin.
White-hot and blinding. Every nerve ending is screaming.
I arch against him, moaning his name, baring my throat further.
My wolf howls, a broken, hungry sound that splits me open.
My hands clutch at his back, nails raking down his skin, needing to mark him, needing to belong.
His whole body shudders, teeth locked around me. The pleasure crests, waves on waves, unstoppable and overwhelming until I’m nothing but heat and pain and want and him. Boone. Boone. Boone. My mate. My home. My fucking universe.
He releases me, licks the wound, and lifts his head.
“Mine,” he says, voice ragged.
I grin, dizzy and aching and absolutely his. “Yours.”
The bond settles inside my chest. fierce and steady and right. I stay. Not because I have to. Not because a bond or a bite or a destiny demands it. Because I want to.
Because this—him, us, the fire and the fight and the choice—has never felt more like home.