In her sleep, Selene shifts, her arm sliding around my waist and tightening like she’s afraid I’ll vanish. The gesture is so trusting, so vulnerable, that something in my chest cracks open.
Without thinking, I run my fingers through her hair, brushing the silky strands back from her face. She’s beautiful like this—peaceful, unguarded, without the walls she has built between us over the past two weeks. The mate bond sings at the contact, and my wolf rumbles with contentment.
She’s ours now. Finally ours.
But the satisfaction feels tainted by confusion. My body was on fire from the moment I tasted that wine. Even before I touched her, I’d been able to smell her arousal, thick and intoxicating in the air. It wasn’t natural—the intensity of it, the way neither of us could think straight.
My eyes drift to the bottle sitting on her bedside table.
Zane’s wine. The wine she said they were supposed to drink together.
Cold dread trickles down my spine. If the wine had been drugged—and every instinct I have screams that it was—then it hadn’t been meant for me. It had been intended for the two of them. Selene and Zane, sharing the bottle, alone in her quarters.
What had he been planning?
I carefully extract myself from Selene’s embrace, ignoring her soft sound of protest as I slip from the bed. She rolls into the warm spot I’ve left behind, curling around my pillow, and I have to tear my eyes away so I don’t climb back in beside her.
I grab the wine bottle and bring it to my nose, inhaling deeply. Nothing. Just expensive wine, perfectly aged, exactlywhat you’d expect from someone like Zane Radrick. But my intuition insists that something is wrong. Whatever was in this bottle wasn’t accidental—it was deliberate.
The thought makes my wolf snarl with rage. What would have happened if I hadn’t been here? If I hadn’t found her sleepwalking? If I hadn’t drunk from this bottle myself?
I need answers. But first, I need to clean up.
My shower is quick, the hot water doing little to clear my head. When I return to the bedroom, towel wrapped around my waist, Selene is still sleeping peacefully. The sight of her—tangled in sheets that smell like us, my mark exposed on her throat—sends a fierce wave of possession through me.
Mine.
She was always meant to be mine, even when I was too stubborn and too stupid to accept it.
I grab a clean cloth, dampen it with warm water, and return to the bed. Gently, carefully, I clean her—washing away the evidence of what we did. She stirs slightly, making a small sound, but doesn’t wake. My hands move with surprising tenderness, wiping between her thighs, where I can still see traces of my release, then along her hips and across her stomach.
As I work, satisfaction blooms warm in my chest despite the situation. She is marked, claimed, bound to me in the most permanent way possible. Every reservation I had, every doubt about her strength or worthiness, feels distant and foolish now.
A grin tugs at my lips as I study my mark on her neck. She’s going to be furious when she wakes up. Absolutely livid. But the thing is, she marked me first. In the heat of the moment, her wolf had surged forward and sunk her teeth into my shoulder, claiming me first, before I claimed her back.
So really, this is her fault.
The logic is flawed and I know it, but I don’t care. The satisfaction of seeing my mark on her, of knowing she can never escape me now, drowns out any guilt I may feel about the circumstances.
I lean down and press a gentle, reverent kiss to her forehead. She sighs in her sleep, her face relaxing further into the pillow.
“Sleep, little wolf,” I murmur against her skin. “You’re going to need your strength for when you wake up and try to kill me.”
Still grinning notwithstanding my concerns, I pull the blanket up around her properly, tucking it under her chin. The protective gesture feels natural, right, like I’ve been doing this kind of thing for years instead of minutes.
Finally, I grab my clothes, dressing quickly. I need to get this wine bottle analyzed, need to understand what Zane had really intended. Because whatever game he’s playing with Selene, I just became an obstacle he didn’t plan for.
And I’m not going anywhere.
I take one last look at her sleeping form before I slip out the door, the mate bond stretching but holding strong between us. My wolf settles, content now that our mate is safely claimed and protected.
Now I just need to figure out what the hell Zane Radrick was planning—and how to keep Selene safe from whatever comes next.
I findAstra in her herb garden, kneeling in the dirt with her hands buried in soil. She’s humming softly to herself, completely absorbed in transplanting seedlings from one pot to another. The morning sun catches in her dark hair, and for a moment, she looks so peaceful that I almost don’t want to disturb her.
Almost.
“Astra.”
