Chapter 11
Helena
The storm tonight is biblical, with thunder like artillery and wind shrieking down the narrow alleyways of Seamuse Village.
From what little is visible through the windows, I catch the rain pouring in a sheet of silver.
The old windows in our one-bed rental flat rattle in their frames and the television struggles to hold on to a signal.
Zane and I sit on opposite ends of the massive, seriously uncomfortable sectional sofa.
A bright, checkered blanket is spread out like a neutral zone between us.
The television is caught in an endless loop between a nature documentary about predatory birds and a reality show where florists are eliminated one by one.
I’m not really watching. I’m monitoring Zane’s silhouette, the way his big hands knead the hem of his Ravenwood Shield hoodie and how he checks the window every time the wind bends the glass inward.
He’s tense. Not in a “there’s a murderer in the storm” way, but in the way that means he expects the universe to tip over and dump its problems directly into his lap.
His lap is, incidentally, the safest place in the universe, if you don’t mind the cost of entry being total emotional surrender.
My pulse pounds in my ears. The charged energy in this room has changed everything. And being this close to Zane and fully enveloped in his scent while my pulse thunders like this is not something I know how to handle.
I clutch the remote a little tighter and clear my throat. “You’re not going to be able to fix the storm by scowling at it.”
Zane doesn’t crack a smile. “Wouldn’t hurt to try.” His gaze flicks to me, then away. “How are you feeling?”
“Restless.” It’s an understatement. My skin feels electric. The storm outside runs through my very own veins, not around us. Maybe that’s why every time Zane inhales, my heart thumps so loud, I’m surprised he can’t hear it.
We stare at the television, each pretending to follow the show—now a series of bird-of-prey close-ups, beaks tearing into something small and furry.
I’m not in the mood for predation metaphors, so I click through channels until I land on a local weather map depicting an animation of swirling clouds.
Angry, red warnings crawl across the bottom of the screen.
Zane leans forward and puts his forearms on his knees.
The silence is so loud, I feel like screaming.
I want to talk about Cole and Lucas—about how their scents tangled with mine on the beach yesterday and made everything more complicated than I ever wanted it to be.
About how, apparently, the universe didn’t just tip its problems onto Zane’s lap.
It dumped a whole pack’s worth into mine, and now I have to make sense of a connection I never expected or prepared for, and definitely never wanted to feel all at once.
But Zane has made it clear, in his Zane way, that he’d rather wrestle a tornado than have a feelings talk right now.
I clutch the blanket, turning a corner over and over in my hands. “Are you going to just ignore it?” My voice comes out soft, but it cuts through the air, anyway. “The scent-match?”
He doesn’t answer. He just stands, suddenly propelled by the same static that’s making my skin crawl. He goes to the kitchen and returns with a box of oat biscuits, which he sets on the coffee table with military precision. “You should eat something.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Which is?”
I suck in a breath. The words are there, but they feel like barbed wire in my mouth. “You know what. The pack thing. Cole. Lucas. Me. You.”
He finally looks at me. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Bullshit,” I say, surprising both of us.
Thunder rattles the whole flat. The lights flicker—once, twice.
Zane’s jaw goes tight. “We’re not in the city anymore, Helena.
We don’t have to pretend anything. You’re free to do what you want.
What you feel. If that’s chasing alphas for the summer, who am I to stop you?
” There’s an edge to it—a kind of finality, like a door slamming shut.
But I’m not ready to let it shut. I slide closer along the sofa, folding my legs under me, forcing him to see me in the full glare of the flickering overhead light. “Why do you care?”
He blinks. I fight to urge to giggle. Have I short-circuited him?
But then he says, very quietly, “I don’t.”
Liar.
I know what jealousy smells like. It’s bitter and metallic, a spike of something primitive and hungry. And Zane’s scent—usually cool, smooth flint—has gone sharp at the edges.
I lean in, narrowing the gap between us. “Do you think I don’t notice when you go all ‘alpha’ every time you’re around them?”
He shakes his head in a fast, frustrated movement. “They’re not the problem.”
“Then what is?” I don’t mean to raise my voice, but the storm outside makes it necessary. “Zane, what the hell is the problem with just talking to me? We’re in this weird situation together. We’ve always been together. And we’ve been scent-matched from day one.”
He rubs his eyes with the heel of his hands. For the first time since I’ve known him, Zane looks tired, like the armor is slipping. “You’re not mine to talk about. Hell, you’re not mine, period.”
My laugh is bitter. “That’s untrue.”
“I’m your bodyguard, Helena,” he grits out. “That’s all that can ever be.”
I gesture toward one wall of the rental but intend far farther than that. “Prince Kellen just took two bodyguards into his pack. If the prince can do that, surely, I can, too.”
He doesn’t answer. The lights die in a single, anticlimactic sigh, leaving us in darkness, as if Zane had summoned a power outage to hide his true feelings.
The wind shakes the flat. Rain pounds the roof so hard, I think it might cave in.
The only light is the blue flicker of the TV screen before it gives out too.
Zane’s footfalls echo. He’s moving by instinct, not sight, probably to his go-bag by the door, always ready for an emergency.
I wait for the telltale snap of a lighter and soon there’s a stubby candle burning on the coffee table.
Zane sets it down and comes back to sit, closer this time, the heat of him folding into the air.
I like the way the candlelight makes his face look: softer, a little more haunted. His eyes reflect the flame. I can’t tell if he knows he’s beautiful, or if he’s just never cared. Zane is the opposite of vain. He’s more likely to apologize for the space he takes up than to try to fill it.
I wait. The silence is deeper now, storm and all. The darkness in the flat has made it safer to say the things we shouldn’t.
“Did you know,” I say, “that when you first got assigned to me, my mother called it a blessing and a tragedy at the same time?” The words escape before I can lock them down.
He stares at the candle. “Your mother never liked me.”
“She thought you’d make me soft,” I say, which is hilarious in hindsight, since Zane’s entire approach to bodyguarding is treating me like a soldier, not a porcelain doll. “She thought you’d get attached.”
Zane’s mouth quirks. “She wasn’t wrong.”
That surprises me enough that I forget to breathe. “You got attached?”
He shrugs. “I’m not good at—” He gestures vaguely, as if to include all of human emotion in that sweep. “Talking about things.”
“That’s a lie,” I say, softer. “You’re great at it. Just not when it comes to yourself.”
He’s silent, letting the wind fill the gap. “I don’t want you to choose something you’ll regret because you think you have to.”
“You mean Cole and Lucas.”
He nods, the candlelight catching on the furrow of his brow.
I inch closer so our knees are almost touching. “I’m not going to imprint on someone just because it’s what’s expected of me. You should know that by now.”
Zane studies me, a storm in his eyes to match the one outside. “I know.”
“Then why are you acting like you’ve lost something?”
He closes his eyes, long and slow. When he opens them again, it’s like the walls have finally cracked, and I can see through to something raw and real. “Because I scented you first. Before you ever went to finishing school. Before anyone knew what you’d be.”
The world goes quiet except for the rain.
“You never told me.” My thumb grazes his jaw.
“Don’t do that.”
I tilt my head. “Why not?”
He shudders. “If you do, I won’t be able to stop.”
My throat goes tight. The candle flickers between us, as if being nearly blown out by the storm outside. I close the last inch of space. “Then don’t stop.”
For a long, fragile moment, Zane just looks at me. Then he leans in and kisses me so softly, it almost doesn’t register. His lips taste like a promise broken and re-forged. The second kiss is firmer, and then there’s no more space between us. The blanket falls to the floor.
He pulls me into his lap, careful but desperate.
It’s like if he’d been waiting for years to do exactly this.
My hands find their way under his hoodie, over his ribs, and across the hot skin of his back.
I want to memorize every inch of him. His tongue is patient, coaxing, our kiss a slow burn.
I nip his lower lip and he groans. The sound goes straight to my knees.
Outside, the storm tears at the windows. I can barely hear it over the pounding in my chest. The resignation of all restraint Zane and I have exhibited since the very day we learned we were scent-matches.
So many years of holding back.
Of fighting against biology and tradition.
He moves his hands up my shirt, pausing just below my bra.
Is he asking for permission? I nod. His hands are big and rough, and the way he cups my breasts makes me dizzy.
I moan—unashamed and hungry, completely lost in the moment.
His mouth trails from my lips to my neck, nipping at the place where my scent is strongest.
He breaks away only long enough to breathe. “Tell me to stop if you want me to.”
“Don’t you dare,” I whisper.