Chapter 15 #2
She will again. At the Mating Moon, I intend to reclaim what was taken from me. Your father has graciously agreed to witness the transfer—he's quite interested in her potential, as I'm sure his messenger explained.
You can fight, of course. You can rage and snarl and make threats. But we both know how this ends. The High Alpha gets what he wants. He always does.
And what he wants... is her.
Sincerely, Varro
P.S.—I do hope no one was seriously injured in the fire. That would be such a shame.
The paper crumpled in my fist.
Kill him, the wolf snarled. Find him and KILL him. He touched our mate. He HURT our mate. He wants to take her from us—
"Harkan." Sable's voice sounded behind me. "What does it say?"
I couldn't speak. Couldn't form words around the rage clawing at my throat. If I opened my mouth, I would howl. Would shift. Would run into the night and not stop until I'd torn Varro limb from limb.
She eased the paper from my hand. The color drained from her face as she read it, then flooded back in a rush of fury. Her hands trembled—not with fear, but with rage so pure it was almost beautiful.
"He thinks he owns me," she said quietly. "He thinks I'm still that scared girl he kept in chains."
"Sable—"
"He's wrong." She looked up at me, and her eyes were blazing. "I'm not his. I was never his. And if he thinks he can walk into your territory and take me, he's going to learn exactly how wrong he is."
Something in my chest gave way.
This woman. This fierce, stubborn, infuriating woman who'd been through hell and come out swinging. Who'd saved a child from a burning building and then told me it was worth the wounds. Who'd kissed me like I was the only solid thing in a world that was falling apart.
She was mine. Not because I'd marked her. Not because of the bond.
Because she chose to be. Because she was standing here, covered in ash and blood, declaring war on the man who'd tried to break her.
And I was so fucking in love with her it hurt to breathe.
The realization should have terrified me.
It had been days. Days since I'd found her bleeding in that alley.
Days since she'd snarled at me like a wounded animal and dared me to finish what Varro's men had started.
Days since she'd kissed me to save both our lives and shattered something I hadn't known was still intact.
Days.
Not weeks. Not months. Not the slow, careful courtship that sensible people used to build something lasting.
Just days.
And yet here I was, ready to burn the world down for a woman who'd only just stopped flinching when I reached for her. Ready to start a war with my own father because the thought of anyone else touching her made me want to tear out throats with my bare hands.
This is madness, I thought.
This is your MATE, the wolf corrected, smug and certain. This is how it's supposed to feel.
Maybe he was right. Maybe this was exactly what it felt like when centuries of loneliness cracked open and something fierce and desperate rushed in to fill the void.
Or maybe I'd finally lost my mind.
Either way, it didn't matter. I was hers now, whether she wanted me or not.
"Thea," I said, my voice rough. "Is she cleared to move?"
The healer looked up from her work, golden eyes assessing. "The wound is cleaned and bandaged. She'll have a scar, but she'll live."
"Good." I held out my hand to Sable. "Come with me."
She took it without hesitation.
The walk back to my quarters was silent.
My blood was still running hot—rage and fear and something else, something that had been building since the moment she'd kissed me in the council room.
Since she'd pinned me with those fierce eyes and demanded to know who Helene was.
Since she'd pulled me down to her and kissed me like she was trying to devour me whole.
Mate, the wolf rumbled. Our mate. Ours.
The door closed behind us, and suddenly the silence was deafening.
Sable stood in the center of the room, her bandaged shoulder a stark reminder of how close I'd come to losing her. Soot still streaked her face. Her clothes were torn and singed. She looked like she'd walked through hell.
She looked like a fucking warrior queen. My queen.
"Harkan—"
"Bath first." The words came out rougher than I intended. "You're covered in ash and blood, and that wound needs to stay dry."
She blinked, clearly expecting something else, and from where we left it before the world went to hell, I couldn’t blame her. "I can manage—"
"I know you can." I was already moving toward the bathing chamber, turning the taps until steam began to rise from the water. "But you're not going to."
I heard her follow, her footsteps hesitant. When I turned, she was standing in the doorway, watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"You don't have to hel—"
"I know." I closed the distance between us, slowly, giving her time to retreat if she needed to. "Let me take care of you. Please."
Something flashed in her eyes. Vulnerability, maybe. Or the ghost of all the times no one had bothered to take care of her at all.
She nodded once, barely a movement.
I started with her ruined shirt, working the buttons free with hands that weren't quite steady. She stood still, watching my face as I eased the fabric over her uninjured shoulder first, then carefully—so carefully—slid it down her bandaged arm.
Her skin was streaked with soot and sweat.
A bruise was already forming along her ribs where she must have hit something during the rescue.
And the bandage on her shoulder was stark white against the tan of her skin and a mess of everything else, a reminder that she'd thrown herself into fire to save a child she didn't even know.
"You're staring," she murmured, crossing her good arm over the bandeau that hid her breasts from my gaze.
"I'm memorizing." I traced the edge of the bruise with my fingertips, feather-light. "Every mark. Every scar. Every piece of evidence that you survived."
Her breath caught.
And I couldn't stop looking.
She was lean where I'd expected soft—years of survival carving away anything that wasn't essential. But there was strength in every line of her. The curve of her waist. The subtle definition of muscle in her arms. The way her stomach dipped and flared into hips that made my hands ache to grip them.
Scars mapped her skin like a story written in silver.
A thin line along her ribs. A starburst near her hip that looked like a burn.
Smaller marks scattered across her arms—defensive wounds, maybe, or the price of working with volatile magic.
Each one made me want to hunt down whoever had put it there.
Each one made me want to press my lips to the damaged skin and promise no one would ever hurt her again.
My fingers found the laces of her trousers, and I forced myself to move slowly. Deliberately. Like unwrapping something precious instead of tearing into a gift I didn't deserve.
The fabric slid down her thighs—strong thighs, built for running, for fighting, for wrapping around a man's waist—and pooled at her feet. Simple underclothes beneath, nothing fancy, and somehow that made it better. More real. This wasn't a seduction. This was just her.
Just Sable. Battered and bruised and so fucking beautiful I forgot how to breathe.
She stepped out of the trousers, peeled off her underclothes, and I fought for oxygen while I let my gaze travel back up.
The curve of her calves. The soft skin behind her knees.
The dark curls between her thighs, the swell of her breasts that I was absolutely not going to think about right now if I wanted to maintain any semblance of control.
Gods, I was in trouble.
Mate, the wolf breathed, reverent as a prayer. Ours.
I stripped off my own ruined shirt, watching her eyes track the movement. Watching them widen slightly as they found the scars on my chest, my ribs, my back. We were a matched set, the two of us. Survivors wearing our damage on our skin.
"Bath," I managed, my voice like gravel. "Now. Before I forget why I'm trying to be a gentleman."
Her lips curved. "Who asked you to be a gentleman?"
"No one." I guided her toward the water, my hand burning where it pressed against the small of her back. "But you deserve one. At least for the next ten minutes."
"And after that?"
I helped her settle into the heat, keeping her injured shoulder above the water, and leaned close enough that my breath ghosted across her ear.
"After that," I murmured, "I'm going to make you forget your own name."