Chapter 14
KIAN
The safe house settles into quiet after we eat. Catriona sits at the table with her laptop open, but she's staring at the screen without typing.
I watch from the kitchen counter as she closes the laptop with deliberate precision. The calm in her expression doesn't match the tension radiating from her shoulders, the way her fingers drum once against the closed lid before she stills them.
"Mikhail Zharkov..."
"Who's that?"
"He didn't say exactly, but his accent is cultured and polished so I suspect he's a higher up in the syndicate. In any event, Zharkov wants to meet with me at my office tomorrow at ten."
"You can't meet with him." The words come out harsher than I mean them. "Anyone from the syndicate requesting a meeting with the police chief isn't making a social call."
"I know it's not a social call." Steel threads through her voice. "But ignoring it would look worse. I'm the police chief. I have to maintain appearances."
I push away from the counter and prowl closer. "Catriona, you took part in an illegal operation the other night. You documented a shootout. Your career as a legitimate cop ended the moment you chose the brotherhood over procedure."
"I know what I chose." Steel threads through her voice. "I chose to save three selkies instead of following rules that would have gotten them killed. I'd make the same choice again."
My jaw locks tight. Instead I force myself to stay where I am. "The syndicate doesn't request meetings with local cops unless something's wrong. You walk into that office tomorrow, and whoever this Zharkov is, he'll be looking for weakness. Any sign you're lying, and you're dead."
"Then I don't lie." She closes the laptop with deliberate precision. "I tell him I'm investigating smuggling operations, which is true. I tell him I'm concerned about criminal activity, which is also true. I do my job."
"You're asking me to let you walk into a trap." My voice drops to something dangerous. "You're asking me to stand aside while my mate puts herself in the syndicate's crosshairs."
The word slips out before I can stop it. Mate. Not "the woman I'm protecting" but the truth that's been clawing at me since that first encounter on the docks.
She stands, chair scraping against the floor. "Your mate. You keep using that word but then don't go farther. So why is it you keep denying what you clearly want? Why not talk to me about what I might want? What I'm feeling... what you're feeling."
There's no avoiding this now. "It's instinct... a recognition. From the moment I saw you, I knew. You were my mate, the one fated to be with me. Instant. Absolute. I didn't choose it, didn't go looking for it. It just is."
"Was I supposed to feel it?" Her pulse jumps at her throat, visible despite her controlled voice.
"Rarely. Humans have lost that ability. You might have felt something, but not know what it was." I close the distance between us, breathing in her scent. "The bond demands I claim you, transform you, bind you to me permanently. My tiger wants to complete it every time I touch you."
"But you don't. Why?"
"Because I don't think you fully grasp what it would mean."
"Then explain it to me."
"If I claim you, you will no longer be human. My DNA will overwrite yours, and you will become a tiger-shifter, permanently. You'd gain strength, speed, healing. You'd also gain all the predatory instincts that I possess."
"You're afraid of passing those along to me?" She steps into my space, her warmth radiating against my skin.
"Yes." Lying now would be pointless when she's already seen me kill.
"I've tortured people for information. I've executed threats without hesitation.
I've stood aside while innocents suffered because maintaining cover mattered more than one life.
That's what you'd become. Someone who makes those choices without flinching. "
"You think I don't already make them?" Her palm presses against my chest, right over my heart. "I was there that night knowing it was illegal. I documented evidence while people died. The line you're afraid of crossing? I'm already standing on the other side."
My hand slides into her hair, fingers threading through the strands. "You're standing on the edge. There's a difference between one night and a lifetime of it."
"Good." Her eyes hold mine without flinching. "Because I'm tired of following rules that protect monsters. I need to be strong enough to fight beside you." Her hands slide up my chest, fingers curling into my shirt. "I want you. All of you."
My mouth crashes against hers. We've done this before at my cottage, but this is different. This time she's asking for the bite that will rewrite everything she is.
She bites my lower lip hard enough to draw blood, then licks it away while her nails rake down my back. The pain sharpens into pleasure.
I tear her shirt over her head. She attacks my belt, gets it open, shoves my jeans and boxers down in one motion. Her hand wraps around my cock and I groan, hips jerking into her grip.
I lift her. She's already wrapping her legs around my waist, grinding against me, creating friction that makes us both gasp. Her mouth finds my throat, teeth scraping over my pulse point, nipping hard enough to leave marks.
The bedroom door slams behind us. I press her against it hard enough that wood creaks, my cock trapped between our bodies. She reaches between us, guides me to her entrance. Already wet. Already ready.
"Do it." Her voice is rough, demanding. "Stop hesitating and fuck me."
I thrust into her. She gasps, nails raking down my back, drawing blood. Her hips roll, taking me deeper, meeting my rhythm.
This is what she wants. What we both need. Not gentle lovemaking but raw fucking that acknowledges what we are—predator and prey, shifter and human, criminal and cop all tangled together until the lines blur.
She meets every thrust, rolling her hips, taking me deeper. Her teeth find my shoulder and bite down hard. Blood fills her mouth and she doesn't pull away, just bites harder, marking me the way I'm about to mark her.
"Bed." She gasps it against my throat. "Need more room for this."
I carry her the three steps to the bed, still buried inside her. Teeth scrape down her throat to her collarbone, finding sensitive skin that makes her arch and clench around me. She tangles her hands in my hair, pulling hard enough to hurt.
I pull out despite her protest and she whimpers at the loss. But then I'm flipping her onto her stomach, pulling her hips up, and she understands. Pushes up onto her hands and knees without me having to ask.
This position. The one for claiming.
I enter her from behind, deeper this time, the angle letting me hit places that make her gasp and shake.
My hand slides up her spine to the base of her skull, fingers tangling in her hair.
The other grips her hip as I start moving, harder now, faster, building toward the moment where instinct will demand I complete this.
She pushes back to meet every thrust, taking everything I give her and demanding more. Sweat slicks our skin. The sound of flesh meeting flesh fills the room along with our breathing, ragged and desperate.
"Do it." Her voice is raw. "Claim me."
My hand tightens in her hair, pushing her head down, exposing the vulnerable line of her nape. The place where one bite would transform her, bind us permanently, make her a tiger.
She doesn't resist or pull away. She stays there on her hands and knees, breath coming fast, offering herself for the claiming.
Every instinct screams to do it, to bite down, complete the bond, make her mine in every way that matters.
My teeth find her nape, pressing against skin without breaking through yet. She trembles beneath me, caught between anticipation and need. Her body clenches around my cock, so close to the edge that one more thrust might send her over.
At the last second, I release her hair and change my grip to her shoulder instead, pulling her up and back against my chest, changing the angle, moving my mouth from her nape to her shoulder blade. Teeth sink deep into muscle there, breaking skin but not completing the transformation.
She cries out, the sound caught between pain and pleasure. Her body convulses around me, clenching in waves as the orgasm rips through her. I keep the bite, keep driving into her, feeling her come apart while I hold her against my chest.
Blood fills my mouth with copper and salt and everything that is uniquely hers. My tiger screams fury at being denied, but I hold firm, maintaining control even as my own release builds, even as she shudders and comes apart in my arms.
When I finally let go, when my body drives into hers one last time and I come with force that makes us both gasp, I release the bite. Pull back to see the deep impression of my teeth in her shoulder, blood welling in the marks.
For a heartbeat, maybe two, I keep her body locked against mine, our bodies convulsing with aftershocks. Her breathing is ragged. Her body still clenching around me in smaller waves.
Then she pulls away, pushing me back. I slip out of her as she turns to face me. Fury blazes in her eyes.
"You bastard."
"Catriona—"
"You made the choice for me." She pushes me back enough to sit up despite the tremors still running through her.
Blood streaks her shoulder where my teeth broke skin, the mark already darkening into a bruise that will last for days.
"You let me think you were going to claim me.
You positioned me for the bite. You had your teeth on my nape.
And then you chose my shoulder instead because you're still too afraid to give me what I asked for. "
"I'm protecting you—"
"From myself? From what I'm capable of deciding?" She's naked and bleeding, facing a predator who could end her life, and she doesn't flinch. "You don't get to decide what I can handle. You don't get to make decisions about my body, my transformation, my future without my consent."
"You gave consent. You got on your hands and knees, you stayed down when I pulled your hair, you offered your nape—"
"To the claiming bite. Not to some half-measure that brands me without transforming me.
Not to being yours without actually being claimed.
" She grabs her shirt from the floor, yanking it on despite the blood.
"You talk about consent and autonomy, but you're just as controlling as any alpha male who thinks he knows better. "
She's right. I made the call without asking her.
"I've watched you kill," she continues, voice shaking with fury rather than fear. "I've seen what you're capable of. And I still asked for the bond. I still offered myself for the claiming. But you couldn't trust me to know my own mind."
"It's not about trust—"
"Then what's it about? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you made a promise with your actions and then broke it at the last second.
You had your teeth on my nape, Kian. You were inside me.
I was offering everything, and you took my shoulder instead because you decided I couldn't handle the truth of what you are. "
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. A text from one of the Russians:
Boss wants update on cop. Keep her cooperative.
She grabs it before I can, reads the message, then tosses the phone back onto the bed. "Get out." Her hand shakes as she points toward the door. "Get out of this bedroom. I'll deal with Zharkov tomorrow. Tonight, I need space from you and your overprotective bullshit."
I grab my clothes and the phone, leaving because she's right to be angry, right to demand space, right to hate me for deciding what she couldn't handle.
The door closes behind me with a finality that echoes through the safe house. I stand in the hallway wearing hastily pulled-on jeans, tasting her blood on my tongue. The phone sits heavy in my hand, the message still glowing on the screen.
The syndicate expects cooperation. They expect control. They expect me to keep her in line. What they're going to get tomorrow is a police chief with fury in her eyes.
I sink onto the couch in darkness, listening to her move around in the bedroom, knowing she's as awake and unsatisfied as I am.
I set the phone down and lean back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. My shoulder aches where her nails broke skin. The taste of her blood lingers on my tongue. The bite I left on her shoulder burns in my mind like a brand.
She's mine now, marked if not claimed. And tomorrow when this Zharkov walks into her office, I'll be nearby, whether she wants my protection or not.
Eventually the sounds from the bedroom stop. No more movement, no indication of what she's doing. I close my eyes but sleep won't come. Not with her scent everywhere, saturating the safe house, reminding me of what just happened.
My tiger paces beneath my skin, snarling fury at me for denying the claiming. He doesn't understand protection or consequences. He only knows that our mate offered herself and I refused.
The rational part of me knows I made the right choice.
She doesn't understand how the first kill is the hardest and they get easier with each one until taking a life requires no more thought than breathing.
How the line between necessary force and excessive brutality can blur until you can't remember where one ends and the other begins.
The syndicate's text glows in my memory. They want updates. They want control. They want proof that the police chief investigating their operations is being handled.
Tomorrow might end with both of us dead if we can't convince them she's cooperative rather than compromised.
I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling again. The bedroom door stays closed. The space between us might as well be miles instead of a few feet of hallway and wall.
The tiger snarls again, demanding I go back in that bedroom and finish what I started.
I stay on the couch. Her fury can burn without my explanations or apologies.
Tomorrow at ten, Zharkov walks into her office expecting a cooperative police chief. The syndicate expects me to keep her in line. They're both going to be disappointed.