Chapter 19
Ethan carried me past the living room toward a private elevator, the doors sliding open to reveal a mirrored interior that led directly into his penthouse suite.
The air changed—cooler, thinner, smelling of expensive stone and the haunting trace of pomegranate and dark chocolate.
It was a sharp contrast to the metallic tang of blood and the salt on my tongue.
The floor beneath his heavy footsteps made no sound, the air growing colder as he carried me deeper into the heart of the tower, until the pressure of his grip vanished and I was placed on my feet.
They were heavy and strange, wobbly beneath me.
I moved toward massive floor-to-ceiling windows, my fingers trailing against the cold glass.
The Desert Moon territory was spread out below, a sprawling empire of lights and power.
Somewhere out there in the dark, the festival’s Hunt was in full swing. A wolf howled in the distance. There was still a chance that mates would be united. Ethan was supposed to be down there leading them. Instead, he was by my side.
I wasn’t at the Half Moon packhouse. I wasn’t in my room. I was in a fortress in the sky.
“Rest.”
Ethan’s voice was magnetic, pulling at the frayed edges of my consciousness. He stood a few feet away, his silhouette a sharp edge of shredded material and shadow.
“I don’t want to,” I whispered, turning to face him.
The remnants of my red silk dress still left me exposed, Ethan’s jacket hung open.
My thoughts were a broken film strip set on highlighting the night’s events, looping through the horror in the garden and the electric, terrifying pull of the man standing before me.
I took a step toward him, my movements fueled by a misplaced need to feel anything other than the emptiness in my chest. I let the jacket fall off my shoulders, searching his eyes—a silent plea for him to drown out the memory of Shane’s hands with his own.
His gaze dropped, darkening until the pupils swallowed the color whole. For a heartbeat, the air in the room vanished, stretched thin by the sheer weight of his stare.
Ethan’s jaw set so tight I heard the bone click. A low, distorted rattle vibrated in his chest, a sound that was all beast. He was an Alpha thirsting for his mate, yet refusing to take a sip.
“No,” he growled, the word thick with a violent restraint that made his fingers twitch against my thighs.
He closed the distance in a blur, but he didn’t reach for my waist. Instead, he dropped to one knee in a move that was both submission and claiming.
When he straightened, his dark, tattooed hands held the jacket.
He draped it over my shoulders again. Hunger burned in his eyes—a promise to eat me whole.
“Not like this. I won’t touch you while you’re still wearing the memory of his hands. I won’t take what was stolen from you tonight. I will wait until you give it.”
He didn’t give me a chance to argue. He swept me up, one arm hooking behind my knees and the other securing my spine, my head lolling against his chest. I could hear the frantic thrum of his heart—a warm drum beating for me.
Tingles broke out against my cheek and spread to my toes, a soft warmth that tried to pull me out of my numbness.
He carried me toward a set of heavy double doors that had been left ajar, revealing a glow of amber light and rising steam.
The air of the penthouse was suddenly replaced by the enveloping heat of the bathroom, the scent of pomegranate thickening in the humid air as he stepped past the threshold and lowered me down.
The warm water covered me completely. I looked at where the ripples settled against my skin.
I was a stray with a hole where my wolf should have been.
Yet, here I was, melting into the heat of a King who made my soul ache.
The thing I never wanted was my saving grace.
I’d spent years dreading finding him, but as Ethan’s thumb grazed my jaw, the terrifying relief of it washed over me.
I wasn’t just safe; I was owned. And for the first time in my life, the emptiness felt less like a wound and more like a space waiting to be filled by him.
The reality of his hold left no room for anything but the impending heat. I stopped resisting, letting him stay close as the heavy steam wrapped around us.
The bruises and filth Shane had left behind were being traced by Ethan’s touch.
I looked like a broken doll in this oversized porcelain tub, my pale skin reddened by the temperature—a sharp contrast to the hands that held me steady.
I watched his reflection in the polished chrome of the fixtures before he finally reached up.
With a low, metallic click, air hissed as Ethan removed the spiked mask.
I stopped breathing.
He was more beautiful than any man had a right to be—and twice as terrifying. His jaw was a hard, clean line, and his eyes were a piercing, stormy green—the color of a forest caught in a gale.
“I should let you sleep,” he whispered, his voice raw. “I should leave now, but… if I didn’t touch you, I would have lost it. We—I want to tear the world apart for what he did to you… but the voices are quiet when I’m near you.”
I shivered despite the heat, the memory of the garden flashing in the steam. “Shane…” I whispered. “What did they… where is he?”
Ethan’s hands stilled. “He is being handled,” he bit out.
I felt his forehead rest against the back of my neck, his breath hot against my damp skin. “Please… let me stay. Let me take care of you.” It was a desperate plea.
I didn’t have the words to find my voice, so I simply reached back, my wet fingers grazing the ink on his forearm. A silent invitation. He didn’t hesitate; he moved to the side of the tub.
“You’re mine,” he whispered, and the certainty in his voice made my chest tighten. Not a question. Not a claim he was asking permission for. A statement of fact, already decided by the universe before I was born.
I had no answer for that. I only knew that in this moment, with a stranger who looked at me like he’d always been waiting, I wanted to be exactly what he was certain I was.
His hands were unsteady as he moved the rough silk of the scrub over my thighs. Shane’s scent drowned beneath a thick lather of pomegranate and steam. His touch was devout, his fingers tracing the edges of the bruises with a tremor that spoke of a storm barely held at bay.
The water was a stinging mercy that seemed to scald Shane’s touch from my skin.
But as the heat sank deeper, the numbness of the shock finally cracked.
A throb began at the base of my skull where it had met the cement, pulsing with every beat of my heart.
My throat felt thick. The simple act of swallowing sent a sharp pain through the muscles Shane had crushed.
We stayed like that for a long time, the silence of the penthouse pressing in around us. The only movement was the slow swirl of his hands and the steam rising to the ceiling. My bones turned to jelly, the heat finally thawing the numb terror in my chest.
I watched the bubbles turn gray with the grit of the garden floor and the salt of Ethan’s claim until there was nothing left but me.
My eyes grew heavy, the steam and the safety of his presence turning my bones into lead. My head dipped, my chin hitting the water before I felt his large hand cup my jaw, tilting my face up.
“Stay with me just a moment longer,” he murmured, his thumb tracing the line of my lower lip.
I tried to blink, but the world was fading into a warm, sweet-scented blur.
My head lolled to the side, coming to rest against the cool porcelain edge of the tub.
He brushed the back of his hand gently against my cheek.
I came to when he lifted me out, the air making my skin pebble.
A thick, heated towel enveloped me in a cocoon.
He didn’t put me down to dry me. He kept me tucked against his chest, the towel a heavy barrier between us as he moved through the shadows of the penthouse toward the massive bed.
His arms were a protective embrace. The bed groaned under his weight, his body settling behind me.
I didn’t have the strength to pull away, and my body—betraying my fear—melted into the furnace-heat of his chest.
“Sleep, Wildflower.”
The vibration of his chest against my back was a low, comforting hum that finally broke my resolve. I didn’t reach for my wolf. I didn’t reach for my past. I simply let his strong, shaking hand—resting protectively over mine—guide me into the first dreamless sleep I’d had in years.