Chapter 82

DEREK

Six and a Half Years Ago

The safehouse was barely more than a converted hunting cabin tucked into the edge of the preserve—far enough from Silverclaw territory to avoid suspicion, but close enough that I could keep watch without losing sleep.

I hadn’t planned on bringing her here. Hell, I hadn’t planned on finding her at all. One moment, I was on patrol, watching a group of rogue women pick their way through the trees—wary but not hostile—and the next, my entire world shifted.

She turned toward me, and everything else disappeared. The second our eyes met, I felt it. So did she. The bond hit hard and fast, ancient and undeniable.

I didn’t know her name. I didn’t know why she was with them. But I knew she was mine. And walking away wasn’t an option.

Her name was Mia.

At least, that’s what she’d told me. Her voice was quiet when she said it, like she wasn’t even sure it belonged to her.

She hadn’t asked where we were going when I walked her to my truck. She hadn’t asked again when I parked in front of the cabin.

But now, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the cot, she looked at me like she was still deciding whether or not I was a threat.

“Here,” I said, handing her a folded pile of clothes. A hoodie and sweatpants from my emergency stash. They’d swallow her whole, but they were clean. “They’ll be big, but they’re warm.”

She hesitated—then took them. “Thank you.”

“I also brought food.” I held out the takeout container. I’d grabbed the first hot thing I could find. Chicken and rice from a roadside diner. “It’s not great, but—”

Her stomach growled audibly. Her cheeks flushed, and she grabbed the container with a muttered, “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” I sat down across from her on the opposite wall, elbows on my knees. She picked at the food, cautious but hungry.

It wasn’t until she rolled up her sleeve to reach for the water bottle that I saw the wound on her arm.

It wasn’t fresh, but it hadn’t healed properly either—half-wrapped in a fraying strip of gauze, crusted with dried blood.

“Let me see that,” I said, rising to my feet.

She hesitated, eyeing me.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I added.

“I know,” she said quietly. “I just… I’m not used to people offering.”

That sat heavy in my chest.

I fetched the first aid kit and sat beside her, gently reaching for her arm. “This might sting,” I murmured, unwrapping the gauze.

She flinched when I touched her, but didn’t pull away. Just clenched her jaw and looked off to the side. “This is the worst first date I’ve ever been on,” she muttered under her breath.

I huffed a laugh. “This is a date?”

“Hey, you brought food and medical care.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Low bar.”

I shook my head, but didn’t argue. My fingers moved slower after that. Softer. Her skin was warmer than I expected.

Werewolf heat. Fragile. But alive.

When I was done, I reached for the wrap to tie off the new bandage, but something shifted in the air between us.

She was watching me.

And I was watching her.

I forced myself to look away, rising to give her space. But before I could step back, her hand caught mine.

I stilled.

“Why?” she asked.

I looked at her. “Why what?”

“Why are you helping me?” Her voice didn’t accuse—it just wanted to understand. “You don’t even know me.”

My heart pounded once, hard.

“You’re my mate,” I said. “I couldn’t leave you there.”

Her lips parted. Something unreadable flashed in her eyes. Fear, maybe. Or hope.

She didn’t say anything else. Just pulled my hand a little closer. The heat of her fingers soaked into my skin like sunlight.

And then I kissed her.

It wasn’t planned. Wasn’t perfect.

It was tentative. Breathless. The kind of kiss that started as a question—are you real?—and ended as an answer.

She kissed me back like she’d been holding her breath for years. Like I was the first breath she’d taken in a long, long time.

My hands found her waist. Hers threaded through my hair. She trembled, and I pulled her closer.

We didn’t rush. There was no room for urgency here—just this aching need to be close. To feel.

The bond flared, hot and sure, like a current running beneath my skin. She inhaled lustily and the voltage increased.

Then her hands were everywhere, pulling at my shirt, tugging it up and over my head. I wasted no time returning the favor.

It had been a while since I had made love to anyone, but my fingers came alive with sense memory; skimming the soft planes of her body in hungry strokes, wanting to feel everything, taste everything.

Her hands were doing the same thing to me. Her fingers, long and efficient, were burning their way over my body. I imagined them leaving afterimages, like traces of light.

I bent down to kiss a scar that ran through her eyebrow and then slid my teeth to the seashell curve of her ear. She moaned softly against my neck, her thumb tracing the rough curve of my jaw.

The dull aching in my cock bloomed to fervent need.

My mouth bled heat along the angles of her neck and then moved lower, trailing kisses just below her collarbone. I cupped her breasts and tested the weight of them in my hands.

Perfect. Like she was made for me. And maybe she was.

I dipped my head down and slipped her nipple into my mouth suddenly, rasping my teeth against her sensitive skin. Her back arched under me sharply and I gripped her roughly in my arms, holding her against my mouth.

“Derek,” she hissed, the first time she had said my name, and it was almost my undoing.

I could not wait any longer and slipped my hand inside the waistband of the borrowed pants she was wearing, brushing against the insides of her thighs and pushing them further apart.

I pulled back to watch her face as I slid one finger inside of her, then another, my thumb stroking up to find that tight nub of flesh, and she hissed once again, her eyes slamming shut with pleasure.

I had to have her. Erebus would no longer wait, and neither would I. I pulled my fingers out of her and then yanked at the waist of her pants, which came off in a cartwheel of limbs and then I was poised at her entrance, cock in hand.

“Mia,” I said to her, willing her to open her eyes, to look at me. “I need you to say yes.”

She took one hitching breath and then hissed a quiet “yesssss,” and I waited no longer, plunging into her in one hot, hard stroke.

It was fire, it was lighting. It was magic.

Fucking her felt primal, ancient, vital. I could practically hear the Esbat drums.

She was hot and slick under me, cheeks cherry wine red, her fingernails pressing tiny crescent moons into my skin. Her hair unfurled on the pillow like a carmine bloom, and I was utterly lost.

Goddess, I wanted to mark her, to sink my teeth into her neck and close the circuit that was running like electricity between us. To bind her to me forever so that she could never leave, so that she was mine, mine, mine.

But no, I thought, though I couldn’t remember why.

Erebus gnashed his teeth, angry.

I roared, thrusting wildly, more turned on than I’d ever been in my life and suddenly from under me, she gasped, orgasm breaking over her in a way I found heartbreakingly earnest.

I followed her into bliss, Erebus howling, for that moment happier than I had ever been in my entire life.

Afterward, I flung myself down next to her, pressed my face into the pillow next to her head.

“What’s your wolf’s name?” I asked into her damp hair.

“Nox,” she replied, her breath still coming in hitched gasps.

I smiled. “Consort to Erebus. Would you like to guess my wolf’s name?”

She looked up at me through her lashes and smiled for the first time. And it was everything.

Later, when she was curled up against me in the narrow cot, her head on my shoulder, I held her like she was something I hadn’t realized I’d been waiting for. Something I hadn’t dared to hope for.

She was asleep in minutes. Soft breaths, soft skin, soft everything.

But I stayed awake.

The fire in the little stove cast a faint orange glow across the room. Outside, the wind stirred the trees. And I just lay there, watching her, heart thudding with something too complicated to name.

She was a rogue. A stranger. A girl with no memory of who she was or where she came from. She could’ve been dangerous. She could’ve been anyone.

But right now, she was mine.

And I couldn’t explain why, but it already felt like I’d never be able to let her go.

Cassandra and I had made a vow once. No marks, no bonds, no other connections to anyone else.

But this? What I felt in this moment?

This was a connection I hadn’t chosen.

And it already felt stronger than anything I’d ever known.

Even if it tore everything else apart.