Sorin
I crushed the potato between my fingers and dipped it into the chicken sauce.
Once I’d added a piece of chicken, I raised my hand.
Only this time, Aliana held my hand as she accepted the food.
My fingers were inside her mouth. She was sucking all the food out, but somehow licking my fingers simultaneously.
No wolf or woman had ever blown me away like this. I was beginning to understand the term food porn.
Why are you gaping at her like the village idiot? Feed her, Malakh snarled.
I realised she’d released my hand and swallowed, and was waiting to be fed. I cleared my throat and reached for a piece of steak. She swallowed it whole without choking. It just slipped down her throat. That long neck of hers. She was skilled—
Hurry up.
You need to take it easy. She has to sign the contract yet. I replied.
He sighed when she held my hand again.
Details. You agreed to give her what she requires.
Her fingers had barely grazed the glass before my hand moved—fast, faster than thought—and knocked hers aside.
I didn’t decide to do it. My body decided for me, the same instinct that had me feeding her by hand, that wanted every drop that passed her lips to come from me and no one else. I hadn’t meant it as anything. I hadn’t meant it at all.
But she flinched.
A full-body flinch, quick and total, the kind that comes from muscle memory rather than thought.
Her shoulders drew in. Her chin dropped.
For one unbearable second she wasn’t looking at me—she was looking through me, at someone else who used to move that fast, whose hands used to mean something was coming.
Malakh’s growl tore through my chest, low and wretched, aimed at nothing but myself.
I raised the glass to her lips before she could recover, before she could see how much the sight of her flinching had gutted me. My hand was not gentle by nature. I had spent decades training it to break things efficiently. It had never once had to learn how to be trusted.
“Sorry,” I whispered, and I could not make myself look at her—not because I didn’t want to see her, but because I couldn’t bear to see what I’d put there.
When I finally looked, her eyes were already shining, glassy with something she was fighting to hold back. Then one tear slipped free. Then another, tracking the same silent path down her cheek.
She’d defended her food in the cells like something feral, unbreakable—a girl who’d put two rogues in the infirmary rather than surrender a meal. And now she was crumbling, quiet and small, from nothing more than my carelessness.
Because carelessness was the one thing she’d never had room for.
Not with a father who’d forgotten she existed.
Not with the woman and child who took her mother’s place before the ground had even settled over the grave.
Aliana had spent her whole life bracing for cruelty—and she knew exactly how to survive it.
What she didn’t know how to survive was being loved badly by someone who meant well.
I set the glass down and cupped her face in both hands, dragging my fingers back through her hair until they cradled her skull, and pressed my forehead to hers. Just breathing her in and trying to connect as if we were already bonded.
“I’m not a kind man. I was never taught how to be soft.” My voice came out rougher than I meant it to. “But I am trying to learn—for you. Forgive my clumsiness, Aliana. I would rather cut off my own hand than harm you.”
I kissed her temple, slow, and felt her breath hitch against my jaw.
Hmph, Malakh grunted—but the anger in him had already started to ebb, replaced by something quieter. Something that ached.
“Forgive me.”
She nodded, sniffling once, and I reached for a napkin and pressed it gently into her hand, because even now I didn’t trust myself not to hurt her with too much force.
Something ugly began to claw its way up my throat as I thought of her father. Of the woman and the girl who’d taken her mother’s place in that house. They would arrive tomorrow expecting to be treated as honoured guests, as tradition demanded of my mate’s family.
They would learn quickly that I did not honour those who broke what was mine.
Warmth seeped into my thigh and side, dragging me back to the present. She’d pressed her head against my chest, and I could breathe again. A ragged breath tore out of me.
“You owe me,” she whispered.
I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her closer.
“Whatever you want. It’s yours,” I murmured, kissing the top of her head.
We leaned back on the couch. She pulled her legs up and tucked them to one side. The silence grew, but it was comfortable, and I still got to hold her.
“The last person to hug me was my mother,” she murmured.
Eight years without compassion.
“No pack member made the effort. No one remembered when someone was ill, how she used to cook for them, or bring them botanical medicine. If someone needed a babysitter, or a check-in on their pets or livestock—she was the one who went.”
I rubbed her arm. Being an Alpha was difficult, but I trusted my pack members to raise hidden issues before they festered. I welcomed people into the Bloodborne pack—but I exiled them just as easily if they brought harm to our community.
“She sounds like my mother. Minus the pets.”
“I’m sorry about your parents,” she murmured, placing her hand over my heart.
I forced myself not to react, though my muscles went rigid beneath her palm.
“I do not take betrayal lightly,” I said, my voice cold and low.
“Neither do I.”
My body sagged against her.
“You’ll keep me in check, won’t you?” I teased.
“Someone has to.”
Malakh chortled. I love her.
My smile vanished.
When the fuck did that happen?