Chapter 40
Dual POV
Nadia POV
The morning sunlight off the frozen expanse of the lake was a blinding, crystalline white, pouring through the cabin’s high bay windows in long ribbons of gold.
Eight o'clock on Wednesday morning.
The cast-iron stove purred with fresh birch logs, its iron flue ticking with steady, dry heat.
Killian sat beside me on the leather sofa, a thick wool blanket draped over our laps.
He was washed, his dark hair damp and combed back from his forehead, exposing the silver line through his left eyebrow.
He wore a clean charcoal thermal shirt and dark sweatpants he had pulled from the duffel in his truck.
The purple contusion across his cheekbone had darkened, the cut on his lip sealed with an adhesive butterfly strip, but the hollow, wild agony that had haunted his eyes on the porch was gone.
His jaw was relaxed, his resting pulse slow, deep, and heavy where his thigh pressed flush against mine.
I rested both hands around my stoneware mug of peppermint tea, looking out at the black spruce branches heavy with snow.
"If you stay, Killian," I said, my voice quiet, even, and hard as granite, "the old rules stay dead."
Killian didn't look away from my face. He sat motionless, his broad shoulders squared, listening with an absolute, humble stillness.
"No more suffering in silence," I said, turning my head to lock my eyes onto his dark pupils.
"No more hiding thirty-five-thousand-dollar promissory notes because you think you have to bleed alone to pay for your brother's spine.
No more deciding what I can handle, and no more running into dark underpasses to fight blackmailers while keeping me in the dark. "
My hand moved, setting the tea mug on the pine coffee table.
I rested my left palm flat over the soft knit of my cardigan, right above the hidden life growing inside my body.
"We are partners," I whispered, the words steady, leaving no room for retreat.
"We make decisions together. We face the press together.
We protect this baby together. If you ever shut me out again, Killian—if you ever treat me like an outsider in your life—I will take this child and walk, and you will never find us. "
Killian didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second.
His large, scarred hand slid beneath the wool blanket.
His broad palm settled flat and warm over mine, his fingers curling over my knuckles, pressing my hand firmly against the gentle curve of my belly. The heat radiating off his skin was a physical brand, sinking through the wool into the sacred warmth of our child.
"You have the whistle, Nadia," he rasped, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that settled straight into my marrow. "Every dollar. Every contract. Every decision. I am yours. I surrender every piece of my life to you."
A deep, quiet breath expanded my ribs, uncoiling the last knot of defensive tension behind my breastbone.
My pulse slowed, finding a calm, synchronized rhythm with his, the long winter of our fear finally melting into the dawn.
* * *
Killian POV
I didn't take my hand off her belly as I stood up.
I slid my other arm beneath her knees, scooping her off the sofa into my chest in one fluid, effortless lift.
Nadia let out a soft, breathy sigh, her arms looping around my neck, her face pressing into the crook of my collarbone as I carried her out of the living room. She was light against my ribs, but the weight of what she carried was an anchor that held my entire soul to the earth.
I walked into the master bedroom.
The morning sun slanted across the dark navy sheets, warming the pine headboard.
I laid her down in the center of the bed, reaching down to slide the heavy oatmeal cardigan off her shoulders, tossing the knit aside. She wore only a soft gray cotton tank top and leggings, her chestnut curls spreading across my pillow in a dark, unruly halo.
Her skin was glowing, the waxy pallor of the past week replaced by a soft, rosy flush that warmed the hollows of her collarbones.
I stripped off my thermal shirt, dropping it to the floorboards, and climbed onto the mattress.
Two hundred and twenty-eight pounds of dense athletic muscle settled between her thighs, but I bore every ounce of my weight on my forearms, hovering over her like a vault of iron and bone.
Nadia looked up at me, her honey-brown eyes wide, clear, and drowned in a liquid, golden heat that stole the air clean from my throat.
"Killian," she whispered, her hands coming up to frame my jaw, her thumbs tracing the rough stubble along my cheek.
"Right here, sweetheart," I rumbled, my voice thick with a ruined, worshipful gravel.
I didn't rush. I lowered my head, pressing my mouth to hers in a slow, deep claiming that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with reverence.
She parted her lips on a ragged sigh, her small hands tangling into the dark hair at my nape, pulling me closer until her chest was pressed flush against mine.
My hand moved down her side.
I gathered the hem of her gray tank top, lifting the cotton upward until the pale, smooth expanse of her stomach was bared to the winter sunlight.
I broke the kiss, shifting my weight down the mattress.
I rested my palms flat on the soft curve of her hips, looking down at the slight, beautiful swell beneath her navel.
A sharp, violent ache seized my windpipe.
I lowered my head, pressing an open-mouthed, lingering kiss directly to the center of her belly.
Nadia gasped, her fingers knotting into the sheets on either side of her hips, her back arching softly off the mattress with an involuntary, sweet sob.
"Good girl," I murmured against her skin, my lips trailing slow, burning kisses across her lower abdomen, worshiping every millimeter of the ground where my child was growing. "Look at what we made, Nadia. Look at you holding my whole life inside you."
"Killian... please," she wept softly, her hands reaching down to tangle into my hair, guiding my face back up to hers.
I climbed back over her, holding her gaze as our bodies met.
The entry was agonizingly slow, deep, and thick with an unhurried, devastating friction that made her toes curl hard into the sheets. Her thighs locked around my hips, her heels digging into the backs of my calves, pulling me into the absolute depths of her warmth.
"Look at me, Nadia," I rasped, my hips moving in a slow, heavy, hypnotic cadence that bound our nervous systems together in rhythmic, golden fire. "Who do you belong to?"
"You," she cried out, her head falling back into the pillows, her chest heaving in rapid, shallow gasps as the climax began to crest behind her eyes. "Always you, Killian."
"Damn right," I growled softly, my hands locking with hers, pinning our interlocked fingers to the mattress beside her head.
I moved with steady, protective power, driving every ghost from the room, watching her come apart beneath me in long, trembling waves of pure, sweet release.
Her contractions clamped down around me, hot and tight, shattering the last scrap of my restraint.
A low, guttural roar tore from the base of my chest. I drove deep into her heat one final time, sealing my hips flush against hers, burying my face in the crook of her neck as my own release flooded through my frame in violent, shuddering surges.
I held her suspended against my heart, both of us drenched in sweat and morning light, our breaths falling into a single, unbreakable cadence.
The past was dead.
The sanctuary was sealed.
And we were ready to face the world.
* * *
Dual POV
Nadia POV
The flashbulbs of forty sports photojournalists strobed in blinding, rhythmic bursts against the mahogany walls of the Detroit Athletic Club’s grand press amphitheater.
Three weeks later.
The room was packed to the standing-room risers with regional television crews, national hockey correspondents, and scouts representing twelve NHL franchises.
Behind the microphone lectern, the blue and red banners of the Detroit Red Wings hung from the walnut wainscoting.
I stood in the wings offstage, wearing a tailored navy silk wrap dress that skimmed softly over the gentle, visible curve of my twelve-week silhouette.
My dark chestnut curls were pinned back in an elegant twist, my bronze hairpins catching the lights, my chin held high at that familiar, fearless angle.
Beside me stood Dr. Evelyn Morris, holding the certified bound copy of my senior capstone honors defense.
"Ready, Nadia?" Dr. Morris asked quietly, her eyes bright with immense pride.
"Ready," I whispered, my pulse steady, grounded, and calm behind my ribs.
Killian POV
I walked out from the tunnel into the blinding glare of the media lights.
I wore a bespoke charcoal three-piece suit, crisp white shirt, and a dark slate silk tie. My shoulders were broad as an oak beam, the enforcer’s scars across my eyebrow and collarbone stark and unhidden under the television floodlights.
I didn't walk to the microphones alone.
My left hand was locked with Nadia’s right.
Our fingers were interlocked with crushing, unshakeable permanence, our palms welded together in the light for every camera in the country to see.
A collective murmur rippled through the press corps, shutter clicks exploding like a rolling drumroll as we stepped up to the table.
Derrick Palmer sat at the far end of the podium, smiling tightly for the cameras, flanked by the general manager of the Detroit Red Wings.
I didn't sit down.
I stood tall at the center microphone, keeping Nadia anchored flush against my side, my left arm sliding around her waist, my hand resting flat, open, and undeniably possessive over the curve of her hip.
The room went dead silent.
"Three weeks ago," I said, my voice a deep, resonant gravel that cut through the silence of the amphitheater, "an extortionist attempted to weaponize my brother’s medical history and a fabricated compliance dossier to destroy the integrity of this university and the woman standing beside me."
Reporters leaned forward, pens hovering over legal pads.
"Martin Cole is currently in county custody facing three felony indictments for wiretapping and extortion," I stated, my eyes panning across the room with cold, absolute authority.
"The investigation is closed. Nadia Gregory’s kinematic research has been verified and awarded highest departmental honors, and her independent performance lab will be operating out of the Detroit Sports Science Institute starting in August."
A beat reporter stood up, shouting over the flashbulbs: "Castaneda! What about the draft? What about the contract?"
I looked down at Nadia.
Her honey-brown eyes lifted to mine, radiant, calm, and fearless, a soft, secret smile curving her lips as she felt the steady thud of my heart against her shoulder.
"This morning," I said, turning back to the microphones, my voice ringing with an unyielding, triumphant finality, "I signed a two-year Entry-Level Contract with the Detroit Red Wings under CBA Article Nine. Maximum base salary, full performance bonuses."
I raised our joined hands into the center of the lights, our fingers locked tight, the silver band on my left ring finger gleaming against my tanned skin.
"I'm staying in Michigan," I said, looking straight into the national broadcast lens. "Because my family is here. My future is here. And from this day forward, wherever Nadia Gregory goes, that's where eighty-eight plays."
The amphitheater erupted into a deafening roar of applause, shouting reporters, and flashing strobes.
I didn't hear a single word of it.
I turned to the woman beside me, pulled her flush against my chest in front of the entire world, and brought my mouth down onto hers.
The war was over.
The fortress was built.
And we were forged in iron forever.