Chapter 33 Cassidy
CASSIDY
Ifollow Alden out into the corridor and fall into step beside him, following wherever he is going. He doesn’t stop me.
"Your bandages need checking," I say.
"They're fine."
"You popped three stitches this morning after a night of combat. They are not fine." I catch his arm at the elbow and pull him to a stop. "Give me two minutes to check them before you go anywhere else."
His eyes remain fixed on me for what seems like forever, then changes direction toward his quarters.
I make him take his shirt off and check his shoulder bandage. It’s shifted and the fabric of his shirt chafed against the stitches. He stands with silent patience as I check the other bandages and fix some of the fasteners to keep them in place.
"The flank needs pressure if you're running," I say, working the tape. "You know that."
"Yes, I do."
"Then don't run unless you have to."
"Noted."
I smooth the last edge down and step back.
He reaches for his shirt, and I drag my eyes over him and just look at him— the scar through the brow, the new bandaging layered over old injury, the firm, sculpted shape of his muscular chest. The mate bond sits warm and persistent between us, and it is doing nothing helpful for my ability to think clearly about tactics.
"I'll walk you to your room," he says. “It’ll be a busy day tomorrow.”
"You don't have to—"
"I'll walk you to your room," he says again, and puts his shirt on.
My quarters are on the second floor of the east wing, and we reach them without running into anyone, because the pack members have their assignments to carry out. The whole mansion is quiet.
Alden stops at the door. "I'll stay in the hall tonight."
"You'll do what?"
"Until the perimeter teams are in position and the scouts confirm the convoy is holding," he says. "I'm not leaving this corridor."
I look at him standing in the hallway with his shoulder freshly bandaged and two hours of sleep behind him at best. "You're going to stand in the hallway all night?"
"Yes."
"Instead of sleeping?"
"I'll rest."
"Against a wall?" I ask.
"I've slept in worse places." He shrugs his injured shoulder and winces.
I push the door open and take his arm. "Get in here."
He doesn't move. "Cassidy—"
"You can protect me just as well from inside the room," I say. "Better, actually, since you'll be conscious when morning comes." I pull, and after a moment of resistance he follows me in and I close the door behind us.
He stays near the door while I let my hair down and swap my jacket and shirt for a tank top for bed, keeping my back to him. Alden’s eyes follow my every move, and it feels like he has something to say.
“What’s on your mind? I can hear you thinking,” I say,
"If something goes wrong tomorrow…" he says.
"It won't."
"If it does." He waits until I turn to look at him. "Ciaran takes command. That's automatic. But Ciaran inheriting Alpha authority doesn't guarantee your position. The pack vote didn't happen. Your protection is tied to my title."
"I'm aware of that."
"If I go down," he says, "you contact Graves. Immediately, before things escalate. He gets you off the property and away from the mountain. You don't stay to see how it resolves."
"I'm not running," I say.
"You're not a wolf," he says. "If the pack turns and I'm not here to hold the line, you can't fight that."
"I've managed so far."
"With me behind you." His voice stays level, but his eyes flare and I sense desperation. "This is not a conversation I want to have, Cassidy. But I'm having it because if I don't and something happens, you'll be in the middle of a pack power transition with no protection and no way out."
"And if I leave," I say, "what happens to the pack? To the testimony against the syndicate? To everything I've built here?" I take a step toward him. "You're asking me to run from the thing I came here to stop."
"You’ll need to run to survive."
“You don’t know-”
“Cassidy!” His voice is sharp and controlled. “Stop arguing for once and listen. There are no guarantees this time, so if things go badly, save yourself, got that?”
I look at him across the small space of the room, and the anger is real, flaring in his eyes with his wolf close to the surface.
But underneath the anger is the thing neither of us are saying, which is that the thought of him going down and me not being here when it happens is an unbearable thought I can’t entertain.
"You're not going to fall," I say.
“That’s the hope.”
"I hate this conversation."
"So do I."
We stand there for a moment, the tension wound tight between us, and the mate bond is not helping, amplifying everything, the anger and the fear and the thing that lives underneath both of those, the thing that's been building since the first time he held my gaze a half-second longer than necessary in an east wing corridor what feels like a lifetime ago.
I don't know which of us moves first.
The kiss is nothing like the slow and intentional ones we've had before. It's immediate and urgent, his mouth coming down on mine, heavy with everything the last twenty-four hours have cost him.
I open for him without hesitation, kissing him back just as hard. His hands find my face, then my hair, then slide to my sides like he's taking an inventory, making sure I'm solid and real and here.
Arousal flares in my center, and my panties soak through immediately. I moan into Alden’s mouth, the sound swallowed by his kiss.
Our tongues meet and the argument dissolves. My hands grip the front of his shirt, pulling him toward me as if the space between us is the problem, as if eliminating it will fix the fear underneath the wanting. A shiver runs down my spine.
He makes a low sound against my mouth and his hands move down my sides, tracing the curve of my breasts, my waist, and hips, and when his palms close over my backside and he lifts me clean off the floor, I gasp against his lips and wrap my arms around his neck.
“You’re not allowed to leave me,” I whisper against his lips.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he growls.
My legs lock around his hips and I slide my body against his, feeling every point of contact when my breasts yield to his unforgiving, sculpted chest.
The bulge in his pants rests at the center between my legs and I grind my hips against him, delicious friction shaking my legs and drawing a moan from Alden.
“Please,” I moan. “Please. I need you.” Each word is barely a whispered gasp.
He carries me to the bed without breaking the kiss, drops me onto the mattress, and strips his shirt over his head in one motion. His belt buckle rattles and his pants drop to the floor with a soft thud.
I drink him in with my eyes, the broad set of his shoulders and the new bandaging and the old scar and all the evidence of a life lived through dangerous things. My eyes trail down his chiseled chest to his powerful legs, and the firm length of his erection promising to deliver on what I want.
I toss my clothes off the side of the bed, and Alden’s eyes burn into me like he’s seeing me naked for the first time. Heat rises on my skin, and I clench my thighs together against the ignited flames burning in my moist sex.
He crawls on the bed, his hands closing around my thighs, pulling them apart with a firm grip that only increases the ache between my legs. I lift my hips off the bed, begging him with my body.
He slides his hands up my thighs and grips my hips, his fingers sinking into my skin with bruising force, causing me to arch into his grasp.
When he pushes into me, the sound I make is wrenched out of me before I have time to contain it.
He doesn't give me time to adjust to the rhythm and thrusts into me hard and immediate, each thrust carrying the same urgency as the kiss.
His hips snap forward with a force that drives the air from my lungs in short, involuntary exhales that become moans that become something less coherent than that.
The bedframe creaks and groans.
His mouth drops to my breasts and his tongue traces each nipple in turn, lavishing them with soft licks and sharp nips. The contrast short-circuits my nervous system in a way that has me arching off the mattress and gripping the back of his head.
His lips find my neck. Find the mark.
The bond flares the moment his mouth closes over it, a surge of heat that amplifies every sensation it touches, his hands tightening on my hips, his breath rough and ragged against my skin.
I lock my ankles behind him and lift to meet his thrusts, chasing the pressure building deep in my core, and the thin film of sweat between our bodies makes every slide of skin against skin overwhelming.
"Alden." His name comes out broken.
He groans against my throat and drives his cock deeper, and that's all it takes.
The orgasm breaks through me like a current, sharp and total, pleasure crashing from my core outward in waves that leave me shaking and breathless.
I cry his name into the dark of the room, my whole body wrung tight and then released, and I feel him follow—his hands gripping my hips hard, his exhale rough and low against my neck as he buries himself deep and stills, shuddering through his own release.
The room goes quiet.
We stay tangled together while the breathing slows, his weight half on me and half on the mattress, my fingers still threaded into his hair. The mate bond hums low and satisfied between us, the way it does after, warm and grounding and present.
I stare up, unseeing, and feel my body, soft and boneless, the kind of contentment that follows complete surrender, every muscle unclenching at once.
"I still hate the contingency plan," I say, when I can form words again.
He laughs—actually laughs, a real one, quiet and rough—and presses his mouth to my temple. "I got that.”
I'm almost asleep when he shifts behind me.
His chest settles against my back, warm and solid, and I feel his fingers in my hair before I'm fully awake. He's working with quiet, careful focus, and after a moment I realize he's braiding—a loose, single plait running down the left side of my face.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"It’s a Luna Braid," he says. His fingers work slowly, unhurried, the rhythm of it almost hypnotic.
"It's an old pack tradition. Before a battle, the Alpha braids his mate's hair on the left side.
" He pauses. "It means she's under his protection even when he can't physically stand between her and the threat. "
I hold still and let him finish. He ties the end with a thin cord, something from his jacket pocket, and smooths the braid flat against my shoulder.
“That’s kind of beautiful,” I say.
"And it’s a signal to the pack. Any wolf who sees that braid knows what it means."
I reach up and touch the plait with my fingers. It's tight and neat, the kind of work that takes practice.
"How many times have you done this?" I ask.
"Never," he says.
I don't have an answer for that, so I don't give one.
We sleep.
It's still dark when the radio on the desk crackles. I'm awake before Alden is, but he's moving before I finish processing the sound, crossing to the desk in two strides, pressing the channel.
"Report," he says.
The scout's voice is taut. "The convoy is moving. Six vehicles, organized formation, approaching the lower boundary road. ETA to property line, fifteen minutes."
"All teams to position," Alden says. "Hold until my signal."
He grabs his clothes and clips his radio to the belt.
I'm already dressed—field pants, boots, the vest with the remaining equipment still in its pockets. He looks at me in the pre-dawn dark and doesn't tell me to stay inside.
We walk out into the clearing together.
The pack is already assembling, wolves moving into formation in the gray light, the eastern sky barely lighter than the west, the braid hanging over my shoulder catching the first thin edge of dawn.
Ciaran meets us at the tree line with a look that takes in both of us and settles into something that is almost approval.
The distant sound of engines drifts through the pines.
The pack holds its ground and waits.