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I had no real idea where I was going, but as I headed up to the second floor, I realized I could follow the pulse of Kor’s heartbeat. I wondered if it would ever become intrusive—knowing I could never hide for him, knowing he could feel what was raging inside of me no matter how hard I tried to hide it.
For now, though, it brought me comfort. I hadn’t realized how utterly alone I had been for nearly all of my life until the bond had flared to life between us. Now, the thought of being without it was devastating.
I felt a small pulse of emotion in my chest that I knew wasn’t mine—something that said same, me too, I love you. It made me smile as I walked the short hallway and came to a set of double doors that were cracked open.
Kor was there alone, standing at the window with one hand pressed to the glass. From the outside, the window was mirrored, but inside it showed the wide expanse of the base. The streets were abandoned, and the walls were lit with harsh yellow lights.
It must have felt cold and empty to him, standing there. If we had been in the city, he would have felt the sun warming the glass, smelled the forest, opened a window to feel the breeze. All he had here was darkness and cold from the underground, and I understood more than ever how profoundly gutting it must be for all the Wolves whose nature ran with the moon and the sky.
To be cut off the way we were…
“It’s not forever,” Kor murmured as I walked up, and I knew he must have sensed my swirling thoughts.
I stepped into his arms easily, closing my eyes as his lips brushed my temple, his fingers running through my hair. “I know. But I’m sorry it’s taking so long.”
“Not as long as I feared.” He released his hold on me, but he didn’t step back far. “We received Danyal’s report.”
I let out a small breath and shrugged. “I figured it out when we were driving out of the compound. I mean, I wasn’t sure, but…”
“But it makes sense,” Kor said. “It filled in some of the gaps I was trying to work out. I’m frustrated that I didn’t think of it sooner.” He reached for me again, finding my face with his warm palm. “At the very least, it would have saved me days of agonizing over your potential death.”
I rolled my eyes, but I pushed onto my toes to brush my lips against his. “It’s good to worry about your mate from time to time.”
It was meant as a joke, but his eyes were heavy with lingering fear and pain, and I realized then how deeply he’d been suffering.
“Kor…”
“No,” he breathed out. His hand moved to my neck, his thumb grazing the flat scar from his bite. “I will always worry about you, but you’re stronger than I wanted to admit.”
I raised my brows. “You wanted a weak, docile mate?”
“I didn’t want a mate at all,” he confessed, and the sudden sting of it had me stepping back, but he didn’t let me get out of reach. “Then you showed up, and you were all I wanted. I was willing to give all of this up, Misha. Not just being Head Alpha,” he clarified. “I was willing to leave the resistance, to go into hiding and pretend like none of this was happening, if it meant I could keep you.”
My heart twisted in my chest. “You can’t put me before everyone else, Kor.”
“I know.” He pulled his hand from my neck and rubbed tiredly at his eyes. I watched him for a moment, getting lost in the endless black of his pupils. He really was the most beautiful man I had ever known. “A survey team will be heading out tonight undercover. They’ve been hand-picked and vetted by the Council to ensure there are no information leaks.”
“Okay.” I shifted away from him and leaned one shoulder against the window, turning my gaze out onto the street. It was so dead, so lonely, and his need to leave curled around my own.
“We’ll begin the rebuild as soon as the surveys come back. I’m struggling with the maps, but with Zane’s help, we were able to determine our best bet is Corland.”
I vaguely knew about the city. It had been small, industrial—one of the first casualties in the war. The place was a ghost town and had been for decades.
“It’s fifty miles from here—close enough we can maintain this base for more secretive operations, but far enough away there won’t be an immediate connection.” He wrapped one arm around his waist and held the other out, feeling for the window again. His palm pressed against it, and he took a breath, his eyes closing. “The city was abandoned right after the bomb. The humans released a chemical weapon. I was too young to remember what happened, but I think it was the same gas they used on me in the lab. It prevented the Wolves who survived from shifting and fighting. Most of them were killed. Theo and Francisco were there—they watched our people die.”
My heart ached in my chest. “Monsters.”
“We retaliated in kind,” Kor said bitterly. “There was no mercy on either side of that war. I grew up wanting revenge, not equity.”
“And now?” I asked.
He grimaced, bearing a hint of fang, and he turned his face toward me with his eyes still closed. “I want peace. But I don’t think I will ever have it.”
“Maybe not entirely,” I admitted. I took a step closer—then another. My fingers traced the line of his throat, then over his shoulders, and he leaned in toward me. “But we can find moments.”
He smiled, and though I could feel him want to pull me close, he didn’t. I understood he needed to start creating walls, to separate what we were to each other from his position as Head Alpha. He truly had been willing to give it all up—the safety and freedom of his people for generations to come—in order to keep me safe. And he could no longer make that promise to himself or to me.
But I was strong enough to bear that.
