Chapter 180

Julian’s POV

At home, I felt special as Amber fussed over me. She was obviously still worried about me, even though I had been given the clear to leave the hospital.

Even with the silver bullets removed from my flesh, the fact that some of the toxin had entered my bloodstream made it hard to shake off.

I was doing okay, could walk around if I needed to, but I got tired easily. I couldn’t stay upright for very long without getting somewhat woozy.

So for now, I was laid up on the couch. With a pillow behind me, propping me upright, my legs were stretched out across all of the cushions.

Alice was on the floor, a coloring book and crayons in front of her.

Amber was busy walking between me and the kitchen and back again. On the coffee table, I had a wide assortment of things, anything I could need from tea to snacks to warm soup and even ice if I started to feel too hot.

It must have been difficult for her to see me like this and know there really wasn’t anything she could do, not as a Healer or as my mate.

My body had to handle the poison now, and it would. I just needed a little bit of time to sort it all out.

“Come on and sit down for a minute,” I told Amber as she busied herself with cleaning the room, since there was nothing more she could bring me from the kitchen.

“I can’t,” she said. “I have to do something.”

“The servants clean the house every day.”

“I need to do something,” she said again, as she dusted the tops of the furniture with a rag, even though there was no dust there really at all.

“Well, that something could be keeping me company,” I said. I waited until she looked at me with a somewhat annoyed expression, and then I winked at her. That seemed to break the tension in her because she huffed a harsh breath and set aside the rag.

“Fine,” she said and started to come closer.

At the same time, I noticed Alice wasn’t coloring anymore and was instead standing under one of the nearby paintings. It was a landscape of horses in a meadow. Alice seemed quite taken with it.

“Do you like that picture, Alice?” I asked her. I didn’t remember it being anything particularly special. I was fairly certain one of the decorators I had hired picked it out.

“I do,” Alice said. “But Cousin Tony didn’t like it.”

“I like it,” Amber said, so I chimed in too, “I also like it.”

“Why wouldn’t Cousin Tony like it?” Alice asked. “Is it because it’s too cheap?”

My eyes bugged out for a second at that comment, before I recovered myself. I remembered the decorator’s bill. Nothing about anything in this house was cheap.

“This isn’t Tony’s house, it’s ours,” Amber said. “He doesn’t need to like the same things we do.”

I fell silent, immediately distracted by Amber’s verbiage. Ours, she said. Not mine. Not Julian’s.

Ours.

Like she wanted to be here, to make this a home for herself and Alice, alongside of me.

“Okay,” Alice said. “That’s true.” She turned from the picture and grabbed her coloring book. “Is it okay if I go and read?”

“You can do anything you’d like,” I told her with a smile. As she left the room, I focused my attention back to Amber, my heart still racing from her comment.

Amber stood beside me, her gaze on the floor, her body rigid.

“You can sit,” I told her.

She shook her head. “I almost lost you today.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But you didn’t. I’m still here. I’m right here beside you… in our home.”

She lifted her gaze to me.

For a long moment, we just stood there staring at each other, but then from one moment to the next, she was beside me, sitting on the couch, and in the next, she was kissing me.

I surged forward, not caring how tired it made me, brought back to life by the touch of her lips to mine. I kissed her back with as much vigor as I could manage.

Gods, there was nothing better in the whole world than kissing her, holding her. With my arms around her, I dragged her closer to me so that she was sitting on my lap and could feel how pleased I was with her choice of activity.

She continued kissing me, breaking away from only a moment to turn her head to a new angle before diving back in.

There was passion in this kiss, and some desperation, like she wanted to be closer, like she couldn’t be close enough.

Then, when she broke it, she sobbed a little. Opening my eyes, I realized a stray tear had dropped down her cheek.

“Amber?”

“I almost lost you,” she said again, more brokenly this time.

My body changed course at once. Instead of desiring more, I sought to comfort. Lifting my hands, I cupped both her cheeks while I brought my forehead closer, pressing it to hers.

“I’m sorry,” she said and started to pull away.

“You don’t have to do that,” I told her, frightened she would move away even further, not just physically. I didn’t want her to rebuild the walls between us. I liked when she kept them down, allowing herself to be vulnerable with me.

“I can’t…” Her voice was weak and breaking.

“I will protect you, Amber. All of you, including your heart. I know I messed up last time, but you mean so much to me now. I didn’t know how much then, but I see things clearer this time. You and Alice are the whole world to me.”

“Julian…”

“You mean everything to me, Amber. More than myself. Even more than my pack.” I dipped my head so she could look into my eyes and see that I meant every word, every syllable. “I would give this all up if you wanted me to, Amber. I would do anything to be with you. I love you.”

Rather than stop her crying, that seemed to simply open the floodgates. She sniffed once, twice, then folded herself in on me, dropping her head to my shoulder.

I wrapped my arms around her, holding her through the tears. I would hold her forever if she let me.

She only needed to let me.

Tony’s POV

As Olivia and I listened to the recording, I couldn’t believe my luck. Placing that recording device in Julian’s living room had been the best idea I’d ever had. Now we had crystal-clear evidence that he was not placing his pack first.

And if he couldn’t place his pack first, then he didn’t deserve to be Alpha.

Surely the pack would agree with me, and with Julian’s reputation in tatters, the pack would be looking for someone strong to replace him.

There was no one stronger in the pack than me.

Olivia smiled at me. With her by my side, capable and crafty as she was, I couldn’t lose this fight.

Soon. Very soon. The pack was going to be mine.