Chapter 37
Adea
The elevator doors closed, cutting off the chaotic din of the lobby and leaving Odis and an angry Gabe behind.
We ascended in a suffocating silence. Ethan scooped me up, his arms locking around me with a possessive grip that made it impossible to pull away.
He didn’t speak, carrying me through the quiet foyer as if I were made of glass—so entirely at odds with the merciless way he’d handled me this morning.
The lingering taste of his fury burned my tongue as he navigated the penthouse, carrying me straight into the dining room.
He placed me on the edge of the wood table, his frame stepping deep between my thighs.
“You went out there,” he whispered, his voice barely restrained. “Untrained. Concussed. Your body broken, without protection—”
“I wasn’t alone. Gabe was with me,” I cut in.
“He could have offered you no protection. He’s an un-bonded rogue with a shredded spine—it’s a miracle he could even walk!”
I flinched. Gabe would have a place here.
“I saved a child, multiple children!” I snapped, my voice rising as the adrenaline began to slip, letting the bruising ache in my hips and between my legs flare back to life. “I am your fated mate. I may be wolfless, but I am your partner. What Luna would stay hidden when so many needed me?”
“You are my life!” Ethan roared, slamming his fist on the table.
The surface cracked under the impact; my breath hitched.
“Do you have any idea what it felt like being out there and not being able to link you? To know where you were? To not be able to feel you? I had no idea what was going on! You have no second soul to shift into.”
“I fought a rogue off with my bare hands and lived. Does that not attest to what I can do?” I countered, but it was the wrong thing to say. His shoulders locked, his entire chest expanding.
“If they’d gotten their hands on you… I would be standing over your corpse right now!”
I heard him, could hear the terror behind his words, but to have no faith in me—to expect me to stay hidden while Sabine’s scent still lingered in the crevices of our home? I wouldn’t.
“You want me to play the submissive, weak mate while your ex-lovers scheme with rogues and compromise our security? I spent a decade being owned by Half Moon, Ethan. I won’t be your prisoner!”
The gold of Erebus flickered in his eyes, a weight moved across my chest, leaving me lightheaded.
“She’s gone, Adea,” he rasped, closing the distance between us, his hardness pressing flush against my belly, his abdomen and thick length against my ribs as his broad chest crowded my face.
“It wasn’t supposed to go this way, and I know what happened with him wasn’t your fault, but I…
I’m not a good man. I hate that he’s had anything to do with you.
I hate his scent on you, his claim that still pulses under the glow of your skin. ”
“Then fix it,” I whispered, my lips parting against his chest. “It’s your claiming mark on my neck. You’re letting your jealousy blind you. So don’t stop until you’ve reclaimed me. Until I smell of only you, until there’s nothing but you inside me.”
The surrender undid him. The argument ebbed away under the desperate heat of his mouth slamming against mine.
With an effortless grace, he pushed me down on the table, his hand cupping my head.
The table was cool against my back, a stark contrast to the heat of his body.
One sharp pull was all it took for the turtleneck to split, exposing the raw, unhealed marks beneath and the bruises he’d left on me in his rage.
Leaning down, he grunted the words, “Shane was behind the attack.” His thumb traced each purple bruise with a terrifying reverence, his touch a shiver against my skin, even as he wrapped my leg tight around his waist.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he surged forward. In one merciless stroke, he filled me completely.
My wounds screamed, but I didn’t stop him. I couldn’t. I clawed at him, his skin coming away beneath my nails.
“His sick obsession with you has brought countless deaths,” he growled, the words vibrating through my chest.
“Ethan,” I moaned, my toes curling as he buried his cock, inch by inch, stretching me until the world beyond the table vanished and my vision blurred into nothing but him.
“We know what he’s after,” he continued, his voice low, his hips driving into me in a punishing rhythm. My core tightened around him; his control was maddening, a stark contrast to the way he was losing himself inside me.
Horror washed over me, but it was quickly swallowed by the pleasure he commanded. “The attack wasn’t meant to capture the Citadel. Shane wanted to know my walls aren’t impenetrable—and he was right.”
He shoved deeper, bottoming out. I clenched around his knot. It was overwhelming—him, the news, the truth. Every time his body slapped against mine, something thrummed in my chest in harmony.
“We’ll be ready next time,” I gasped, my fingers fisting his hair, pulling his head down.
His climax hit, his thighs jerking as his knot swelled and locked us together. A strange, beautiful instinct rose from the void behind my ribs. I had no wolf to drive it, but my body knew before my mind did. I leaned into his neck, my teeth sinking deep into his shoulder—hard enough to break skin.
Ethan groaned, emptying himself inside me.
He pulled back, confusion marring his features, but I wasn’t done.
I gripped the back of his neck, yanked him toward me, as I bit his neck.
I dragged my tongue over the wound. Beneath my lips, a black, half-moon mark flared—burning into his flesh.
I’d branded him as mine. It shouldn’t have been possible, but as the ink-black crescent set into his skin, the room went still.
“Adea,” he rasped, his touch hovering over the mark. It pulsed, a throb that seemed to sync with his heartbeat. “This isn’t possible…”
I felt a surge of cold triumph that made no sense. He shook his head, his focus shattering back into desperate, carnal need. “It doesn’t matter,” he growled, pulling me back into his chest. “You’re marked. You’re mine.”
Later, when the spray of the waterfall shower finally washed the sweat and soot from our skin, he held me pinned against the wet black tile. The steam wrapped around us in a haze as he rested his forehead against mine, his large thumb tracing the brand I’d carved into his neck.
“I love you, my little mate,” he murmured into the humid air, his green eyes dark with promises. “Tonight is the full moon. Your wolf is right beneath the surface, Adea. I can feel her pacing behind your ribs. We’re going to let her free.”