Chapter 5 #2
He doesn't pity me. Doesn't try to fix anything. Just listens like every word matters.
"You survived." His voice is matter-of-fact. "You're strong. That's why you're my mate."
The validation settles into my bones.
Around midnight, he makes sandwiches. We eat sitting on his porch, watching stars through pine branches. Surreal—domestic and comfortable—like we've done this a hundred times before.
"What happens next?" I ask.
"The bonding ritual. Tonight, if you still want this."
"I already said I choose you."
"I needed you to know everything first. The corruption. The risk. What you're signing up for." He turns to face me. "This isn't a fairy tale, Maren. I can't promise we both survive."
"Nobody can promise that." I meet his eyes. "At least this way, if we go down, we go down fighting for something that matters."
Approval radiates through the bond already forming between us. Warm and solid, like sunlight through water.
"The ritual requires blood," he says. "A cut on each palm, hands bound together. Witnessed by family. It's old magic, clan tradition."
"Will it hurt?"
"The cut? A little. The bonding?" He considers. "Calder says it's intense. Like every emotion amplified. You'll feel everything I feel, and I'll feel you. No barriers. No walls."
Total emotional nakedness.
"Okay."
His eyebrows rise. "Just okay?"
"You think I'm scared of intensity?" I shake my head. "Bring it on."
The grin that splits his face transforms him. Younger, lighter, free of the weight he's been carrying.
He shows me around his cabin, explaining how he built it with his brothers' help. Points out places where he's planning expansions when—if—he survives this. Talks about his research with genuine passion.
I tell him about my photography, the wilderness series I've been building along the Pacific Coast. The places that always drew me without understanding why. He listens like it matters.
Dawn starts painting the horizon pink and gold.
"We should head back," he says. "Family will wonder where we are."
We walk back across the compound, his hand finding mine. The connection grounds me even as exhaustion tugs at my edges.
When we approach Calder's cottage, several of his brothers are outside watching us. Eli looks approving. Beau seems amused. Sawyer just looks relieved. Calder himself stands on the porch, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
Jonah stops and turns to face me. "You're sure about this?"
"Completely."
He nods once. Then we climb the porch steps.
"Talked?" Calder asks.
"We talked," Jonah confirms. "She knows everything. She's in."
Calder studies me. Testing, maybe, looking for doubt or fear. But my decision is made.
Finally, he nods. "Tonight. Dusk. I'll make the arrangements."
Jonah's hand finds mine, our fingers lacing together. The bond hums between us—nascent, incomplete, but already strong.
"You should both rest," Calder says. "The corruption will fight the bonding. You'll need your strength."
"I'll be fine."
"You'll be careful." Calder's alpha voice brooks no argument. "Non-negotiable."
Jonah's jaw tightens but he doesn't argue. Just nods.
Calder turns and heads back inside.
Jonah pulls me close, wraps his arms around me. His chin rests on top of my head, his heartbeat steady against my ear. The bond pulses between us, stronger now.
I press closer, breathing him in—pine and earth and something wild that's already becoming familiar.
I'm not afraid anymore.
The hours pass in a blur of skin and heat and desperate need. Jonah takes me back to his cabin, and we barely make it through the door before his hands are in my hair, tilting my head back so he can devour my mouth.
I shove him toward the couch, and he goes willingly, pulling me down on top of him. My shirt disappears. His follows. I straddle his lap, feeling the hard length of him pressing against me through our jeans, and grind down. He makes a sound low in his throat that's more animal than human.
His hands slide up my thighs, fingers digging into my hips as he guides my movements. The friction is maddening—too much and not enough. I reach between us, fumbling with his belt, his zipper.
"Impatient." There's dark satisfaction in his voice.
"Shut up and help me."
He does, lifting me just enough to shove my jeans and underwear down my thighs. They catch at my ankles and I don't care, too focused on getting him free. When I finally wrap my hand around him, hot and thick and hard, he hisses through his teeth.
"Condom—"
"I'm clean and on birth control." I position myself above him. "Unless you—"
"No. Nothing between us."
I sink down slowly, taking him inch by inch, and his fingers bruise my hips. The stretch burns in the best way, fullness that makes my breath stutter. When he's fully seated inside me, we both go still.
The bond explodes between us. Gold light, heat, sensation doubled and tripled as I feel what he feels. The tight clench of my body around him. The desperate edge of his control. The primal satisfaction of finally having me.
"Move." His voice is barely recognizable. "Maren, move or I'm going to lose it."
I brace my hands on his shoulders and lift, then drop back down.
The angle drives him deep, hitting something inside that makes my vision blur.
I set a punishing rhythm, chasing the pleasure building in my core, and he lets me take what I need.
Hands on my hips helping, guiding, but letting me control the pace.
Until he doesn't.
His hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back so he can bite down on the curve of my shoulder. Not breaking skin but close. At the same time his other hand slides between us, finding where we're joined, pressing and circling until I'm shaking.
"Come." One word. A command his alpha voice makes impossible to refuse.
I shatter, clenching around him rhythmically, and he follows immediately. I feel his release through the bond, feel the way my body milks him, feel everything doubled.
We stay locked together, my forehead pressed to his, both of us trembling.
"Bed," he finally manages. "I'm not done with you."
He carries me there, still inside me, and we don't separate until we absolutely have to. Then he's on me again, learning my body with single-minded focus. Where I'm sensitive. What pressure I need. How I respond when he uses his mouth between my legs.
I return the favor, taking him in my mouth until he's fisting the sheets and breathing my name. Then I crawl up his body and sink down on him again, riding him until we're both incoherent.
The third time is slower. Languid. He moves inside me with deep, measured strokes, watching my face. The bond settles warm between us, no longer frantic but solid. Real.
After, we lie tangled in sheets that smell like sex and sweat. The sun slants through the window. My body aches in places I'd forgotten about.
"We should probably eat something," I say.
"Probably." He doesn't move. "In a minute."
We doze. Wake. Touch each other lazily. Voices outside pull us back to reality.
Through the window I watch Jonah's brothers setting up torches in a clearing behind the cottage.
Calder directs positioning with sharp commands.
Eli carries bundles of dried herbs. Sawyer spreads a ceremonial cloth on the ground.
Curled against Jonah in the warm haze after, I feel his breathing change before he speaks.
“When Calder pulled me aside this morning,” he says quietly. “he indicated the corruption is spreading faster. It feels like we’re running out of time.”
His words settle over us. I tighten my arm around him, the urgency threading into the quiet of our bed, impossible to ignore now that he’s voiced it. His hands frame my face, eyes searching mine.
"Still sure?"
My hand presses against his chest, feeling his heartbeat thunder beneath my palm.
"We do this. Tonight."
Through the bond I feel his satisfaction blaze into certainty.
A few hours until dusk. Hours until everything changes.
The ley lines hum beneath my feet. Hungry. Waiting.