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As I slip between the covers, I cross my fingers and pray for my pack gift to visit me while I sleep.
Instead, I spend the night tossing and turning, tormented by nightmares.
I run through a dark maze, hunted by my sister, who laughs when she traps me in a dead end. I stumble through a snowy forest carrying a baby, my hand pressed to the child’s lips to keep it from crying out and attracting the attention of the monsters hiding behind the trees, only to reach a safe house and realize the baby is a giant worm with rows and rows of deadly teeth.
I hide under a table in the North Star pack’s atrium, holding my swollen belly while a bloody battle wages all around me, knowing it’s only a matter of time before one of my enemies finds me, rips my child from my womb, and tears me in half with his bare hands.
Each dream is worse than the last, making me grateful when I open my eyes to see gray dawn light creeping through the curtains.
I’m still exhausted, but sleep isn’t a safe place for me.
And neither is this apartment, a voice shouts from the recesses of my foggy brain. What happens when the fertility expert examines you and realizes you’re still a virgin?
“Shit,” I murmur, my stomach knotting.
Panic thrumming in my veins, I toss off the covers and rush to get dressed, determined to think of a way out of my latest mess.
Chapter Fourteen
Maxim
I sleep for shit and wake up hard and aching to be buried in Willow and instantly feel disgusted by myself.
I can’t fuck my baby into her against her will.
Even if it wouldn’t technically be rape, it’s far too close for comfort. She made it clear I could seduce her into going along with it in the moment, but she’d hate me for it after.
And I don’t want her to hate me.
I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but sometime between waking her yesterday and hearing her promise her support last night, something has…softened inside of me.
I’m starting to give less and less of a shit about finding a way out of the engagement. Even if Bane and Kelley’s betrayal wasn’t a factor, I just…
I want her.
I want her in my bed, yes, but I also want her on my team and in my life. She’s the answer to questions I didn’t realize I had before I met her, but now that I do, I can’t go back to business as usual. I can’t go back to being the man I was before Willow showed me how lonely I’ve been, how much I’ve longed for a person who feels like my person.
For someone who feels like home…
I tell myself I barely know her and that this is just fated mate pheromone bullshit that will fade with time, as it becomes clear we’re about as well suited as a feral dog and a dandelion. I tell myself that I’m going to curse my dick for getting me into a match I can never be free of—our people don’t divorce—but even as I’m mentally lambasting my aching cock, I know it isn’t to blame.
It’s my heart that’s the problem. I was so positive that no woman would ever rule it that I arrogantly left it undefended.
And now Willow has snatched it up in her tiny hands.
The realization is terrifying in so many ways that I do my best not to think about it as I shower, dress, and head downstairs to meet Hermione and the rest of my team for the morning briefing.
I’ll worry about becoming a besotted fool for my little wolf after I’ve ensured my pack is prepared for war.
“Have we heard from our allies?” I stride into the meeting room next to my office to find Hermione, my father, and the entire advisory team already assembled.
From the looks on their faces, it’s clear Hermione has already filled them in on the new developments. My poor father looks as devastated and betrayed as I felt last night, but…determined, too.
But then, he’s the one who raised me to keep fighting for my people, no matter what’s happening in my personal life.
The pack always comes first.
I hold that top of mind as Hermione starts her update, “The Montreal pack checked in last night. They’re ready to mobilize in twenty-four hours or less. As soon as we need them, they’ll be here. The Vancouver pack said the same, though they’ll need more travel time and can only spare one enforcer unit. They’re still in a pretty ugly fight with a rebel faction from The Vancouver Parallel.”
