Chapter 20
Kade
Holy shit.
I almost bit her.
I knew my control was fraying but Jesus fucking Christ.
As soon as I’m out of the den, I shift.
I run. Through the forest.
Doesn’t matter where, just need to get myself as far away as possible.
From her.
Self-recrimination cycles in my head, even as the urge to storm back into the den and finish the claiming I started rages in my blood.
I almost bit her.
Locking in the mating bond without her consent would be the greatest betrayal imaginable.
And I almost did it.
She has no idea about the mating bond. What it is, that there’s one between us, the implications.
That it’s an invisible chain, linking my soul to hers—whether she knows it or not. Whether she wants it or not.
What the fuck was I thinking?
How did I lose control so spectacularly?
Eventually I come to a river that winds through the woods a few miles from the den. Shifting back to human, I wade into it, welcoming the shock of cold against my flesh. Maybe it will chase this overpowering need away.
The water numbs my skin but does nothing for the fire in my veins.
If anything, the cold makes me more aware of the heat still coursing through me, the beast still prowling just beneath the surface, insisting I return to her.
My teeth still throb, pulsing in time with my heartbeat, aching to be buried in the soft curve of her neck.
I duck under, letting the stream rush over my head, hoping to wash away—drown out—that primal voice.
But the water can’t wash away the memories of her arching beneath my touch, falling to pieces underneath me, the taste of her.
Can’t even wash away her scent. Because when I come up gasping, river water streaming from my hair, I can still smell her on me.
Parchment and roses and whatever is uniquely her that makes me feel sick with longing.
She looked at me with such fire, such desire and trust. Even after my lies came to light, she still melted into my grasp when I kissed her. When I’d told her to lie still, she had, believing in me to take care of her.
And what did I do with that trust? Nearly claimed her without permission.
The Conclave elders warn every shifter about the mating bond—warn us that finding your true mate is like lightning striking, sudden and devastating and impossible to ignore.
And although it doesn’t happen often, there are cases where one of the pair doesn’t want the bond.
The taboo against a forced claiming is .
. . There’s no greater disgrace in the Lycan community.
For good fucking reason.
I splash water on my face again, trying to think past the haze of want.
She’s human. She doesn’t understand what’s happening to her body when I’m near, doesn’t know why her pulse races or why she gravitates toward me despite barely knowing me.
All she knows is that something draws her to the strange man who lives alone on the edge of the woods. The man who basically kidnapped her.
If I’d bitten her tonight—Christ, if I’d actually gone through with it—she would have woken up tomorrow forever changed. Wolf-bonded. Able to sense my emotions, my location, my very heartbeat. Completely tied to me, with no say in the matter.
And she would have hated me for it.
Rightfully so.
The thought sends a renewed burst of self-loathing through me.
This is exactly why I needed to keep my distance. This is why I should have taken her to the Wardens on Day One. I rationalized it and told myself I could handle it, but now it’s clear—my mind was clouded by her from the first moment we met.
For a hundred years, I’ve lived by a simple tenet: never get attached. Never allow my judgment to be compromised. And now, in the span of a few weeks, this brilliant, infuriating, magnificent Librarian has not simply compromised me; she’s demolished every wall I’ve ever built.
Tonight, I almost branded her with an unbreakable bond against her will, all because I couldn’t control the beast inside me.
I am a danger to her.
The realization is a shard of ice in my gut.
My first instinct is to keep running. To put a continent between my lack of control and her trusting heart. It’s the only honorable thing to do. I should call Seb, tell him to come get her, and disappear before I can do any more damage.
But the thought of another shifter near her, even Seb—especially Seb—sends a cascade of possessive, irrational fury through me.
And a colder, more practical fear follows close behind.
The echo-beast. It’s still out there. It knows where she is, and it will come back for her.
The image of her, alone, facing that monster without me, is a physical agony that eclipses even my own self-hatred. I can’t leave her. I can’t stay away. I am trapped between my duty to protect her from the creature and my desperate need to protect her from myself.
And in the end, there’s no choice at all. Cursing myself, cursing the fates, cursing the bond that has brought me to this unbearable precipice, I haul my still-sore body from the river.
I shift back into wolf form for the run home, my paws silent on the forest floor. The familiar tempo of running usually clears my head, but today it only gives me more time to think. To spiral.
But my self-reproach won’t keep her safe. Control will. New protocols.
And so, I plan, falling back on my Warden training to impose structure, locking the wolf behind a cage of iron discipline.
Rule one: Proximity is the enemy. Keep her contained in the den, where the wards are the strongest. Keep myself out unless necessary.
No more long lazy days in the den together.
No more nights where I sleep on the couch only steps away, listening to her breathe, making my instincts go crazy. Minimal contact.
Rule two: She is no longer “Alanna”, or even “the Librarian.” She is the mission. All interactions will be tactical.
Rule three: Accelerate the timeline. She has enough control over her magic now, and there’s nothing else I can teach her.
The only reason she’s still here is the threat of the echo-beast. So, I’ll make a powerful new ward.
I’ll trap it. I’ll kill it. The sooner it’s gone, the sooner she’s safe—from it, and from me.
And the sooner I can go back to solitude and clear-headed decisions.
I grit my still-throbbing teeth, and ruthlessly box away my urges and my feelings until nothing remains but a cold hard numbness in my chest. I am detached. I am professional. I am focused on the outcomes.
When I reach the den, I shift back and pull on clothes from the pile I keep by the back entrance, steeling myself before I walk inside.
She’s curled up in my bed, asleep. She looks tiny amidst the huge bedposts, my king-size mattress, and the heap of furs.
Streaks run down her face where her tears left tracks, and I have to tamp down on the pain in my heart at the sight, gripping the doorframe so hard I think I might break it to keep from crossing to her.
I did this.
Then I see it. A mark on her neck, small, but inescapable. Not a bite, but a bruise—thank fuck—but irrefutable evidence of how close I came to the unforgivable.
I. Did. This.
I force myself to turn away, silently stalking to the workshop area. Focus on the mission.
The new ward needs materials—iron shavings, silver dust, dried rowan, a vial of mercury. Gathering them, I apply myself to the task of enchanting and spell-crafting, letting everything else fall away.
I’m grinding my teeth against the continuing ache in my jaw and crushing the rowan berries into a fine powder when the air shifts. Her scent, delicious and sleep-mussed, grows stronger. Footsteps. Soft, hesitant.
Getting closer.
My carefully constructed resolve wavers as her presence fills the space, making my new rules feel like brittle armor against an unstoppable force. I keep my eyes fixed on the mortar and pestle in my hands, my knuckles white. She is the mission. She is the mission.
“Kade?” Her voice is small, and vulnerable in a way that makes my chest tight.
I don’t turn. “Go back to sleep.”
“Why . . .” Her voice trails off, and I’m surprised she doesn’t finish her question. Since when has she shied away from demanding answers from me?
You know since when, idiot, chides my inner voice.
“Listen, we shouldn’t have done what we did. I shouldn’t have.” I’m terse, but I don’t know how else to be. “It was unprofessional.”
“Unprofessional,” she repeats dully. “I thought . . . I thought that you . . .”
I don’t need to look at her to know the way her lips are wobbling, to see the hurt written all over her face. It takes every ounce of my century-old discipline not to fall to my knees and beg her for forgiveness.
“What happened was a mistake. It won’t happen again.
” I tilt my head, but I still don’t look at her face.
I can’t. If I look at her, I’ll look at her neck.
And if I look at her neck, I’m afraid of what I might do.
The urge to bite her is so strong—a relentless chorus that screams wrong, wrong, wrong with every second that goes by without claiming her.
I clench my jaw. Maybe if I break a fucking tooth it will relieve the pressure.
Silence stretches between us, laden with her hurt and confusion. When she speaks again, her voice is even smaller. Even more fragile. God, I fucking hate this.
“Oh.”
Her single whispered word is a blade that slips right between my ribs.
It would be a mercy to go to her, to hold her, to explain everything.
But mercy is a weakness, and I have to be strong enough for both of us.
I force myself to keep my back to her, to pour the last of my resolve into the final, necessary cruelty.
“You’re here for training and protection.
That’s it,” I say, my tone flat and empty.
A wave of nausea runs through me, but I give no outward sign.
“Think of your sister. Sooner we finish this, the sooner you’ll go home to her.
Leave this all behind you. The echo-beast is getting stronger, there are innocents at risk. I can’t afford any distractions.”
I brace myself for her anger, for the incisive, intelligent arguments she’s so good at. I expect her to explain to me all the reasons I’m incorrect, to fight back.
But she doesn’t. She just flinches, a small, almost imperceptible movement.
The hurt is wiped away, replaced by the scent of such complete devastation that it makes my heart stop.
From the corner of my eye, I see her lips part, but no sound comes out.
All the fight, all the fire, just extinguishes, leaving her looking diminished and terribly fragile.
Without another word, she turns and walks away from me, her shoulders slumped in a way I’ve never seen before.
The wolf in me howls in protest, clawing at my chest, demanding I go to her. Demanding I fix what I’ve broken. But I stuff it down, lock it away with every other inconvenient truth about what she means to me.
Instead, I turn back to my project, staring at the workbench without seeing.
She came to me seeking reassurance, perhaps even an explanation for the intensity that flared between us. Instead, I gave her rejection. Coldness. I made her feel small and unwanted when she’d been brave enough to reach out.
I should never have touched her. I’ve only made everything so much worse than it needed to be. At least before, I was the only one suffering.
I am a protector. A guardian. A weapon to be wielded against the darkness.
I am not a man who gets to keep the woman he loves.
The thought stops me in my tracks. Love? When did it become love? When did the fierce protectiveness and the bone-deep desire transform into something even more dangerous?
I press my palms against my eyes until I see stars. It doesn’t matter when it happened. It doesn’t matter that every cell in my body recognizes her as mine, as the missing piece I didn’t know I was searching for.
All that matters is keeping her safe.
I have to finish this ward. Work will keep my hands busy and my mind focused on what matters.
As I go through the motions, I make myself a promise: I will find a way to end this threat. And then I will let her go.
No matter what it costs me.