That was him.
And me.
And everything we’d spent weeks pretending we didn’t need.
I closed my eyes.
I should’ve left before dawn. Slipped out while he was still sleeping. Put the walls back up before he woke and looked at me like I mattered. But I didn’t move. Because for the first time in years, my body was quiet. My wolf wasn’t snarling, and I had to admit that I simply didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Even if that scared the hell out of me.
“You keep rubbing your ass against me, I’ll wake up properly,” he murmured, his lips skimming over the nape of my neck.
“Go to sleep,” I told him, not fighting the smile. His arm tightened, pulling me back into his body. “Aren’t you done?”
“Fuck no,” Wolfe said with a low chuckle.
I didn’t speak. Neither did he. For a moment, it was enough just to exist like this. Still. Tangled. Not pretending we didn’t know what we were to each other.
His voice broke the silence, low and rough. “You okay?”
I swallowed. “I am.” A beat passed. “You?”
“I feel good.” His thumb rubbed softly across my skin.
“I thought about getting up,” I admitted.
His lips pressed into my shoulder. “Why didn’t you?”
I turned to face him. His hair was a mess, one cheek creased from the pillow, but his eyes were sharp—clearer than I’d seen them.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe I wanted to see what would happen.”
He nodded once, like he understood more than I said. Like he felt it too. His hand moved, thumb brushing across my waist. Slow. Thoughtful.
“Doesn’t mean this fixes everything,” I said.
“No,” he agreed. “But it means something.”
I looked at him. “Even if the bond didn’t seal?”
He didn’t flinch. “When you are in heat and I fill you, the bond will seal,” he said quietly. “Last night was more about the choice.”
That made my breath catch because for so long, it hadn’t felt like a choice. The bond. The roles. The pressure. Everything had felt prewritten. But this? Lying here with him in the quiet, no Council, no rogues, no rituals? This was ours.
Our moment.
Our choice.
“What happens now?” I asked.
Wolfe propped himself up on one elbow, gaze steady. “Business?” He didn’t look pissed off at mentioning it. “Corrin’son my radar,” he said. “Murrow, too. I’m not ignoring that Lewis was close to all of them.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.” While it scared me that the betrayal may run that deep, I was ready to listen.
He hesitated. “I’ll need you beside me when I confront them.”
I rose, mirroring his position, my hair tangled and wild falling over my shoulder. “I will be.”
