His hand moves up my back, tracing my spine.
“Mate,” he says against my hair.
“Mate,” I say. And then, because the word has been sitting in my chest, and I’m done pretending it isn’t there: “I love you.”
His hand stills on my back.
“You’re my mate. And I love you,” I say more firmly. “Both of those things.”
His arms tighten. His face presses harder into my hair. His voice is rough. Cracked at the edges.
“Yeah,” he says. “Both of those things.”
He holds me. I let him. The morning is coming, gray creeping at the edges of the curtain. Outside, there are Syndicate operatives and Aurora contingencies and a woman with a ruined face who will rebuild herself into something dangerous.
But that’s the other side of the curtain.
In here, the man who was made to never bond is holding me.
He’s not cured. The conditioning is still in his body. Faith is alive. Creed is alive. The captives are still waiting.
But he’s here. The man. Not the wolf. Not the weapon. Not the number.
Just Rafael.
His arms tighten once. Then ease. Eventually, he stretches out, rolling onto his stomach again, and I stretch along his back with my cheek between his shoulder blades, one arm curved over his ribs. His hand covers mine and keeps it there.
Outside, a truck passes. The sound fades.
The gray light reaches the edge of the bed.
His hand is in my hair.
I close my eyes.
Chapter 30
Rafael
I wake before dawn. Not from panic. Not from chemical fog or the echo of a voice that used to own me. The gray light filtering through the motel curtains says early…five, maybe. A truck passes on the highway. The vending machine kicks on somewhere through the wall.
Sable is asleep beside me. Curled on her side, one hand tucked under her chin, her breathing slow and even. The red marks I left on her skin have faded.
My wolf registers her first. Safe. Warm. Ours.
Then he registers something else.
A presence. Outside. Across the parking lot, maybe further. Heavy. Deliberate. The kind of thing that doesn’t try to hide itself.
I ease out of bed, find the pants I left on the floor, and pull them on. My shirt is on the chair. I pull it over my head, taking care not to make a sound.
Sable doesn’t stir.
I slip out and close the door behind me.
The morning air is cold enough to burn my lungs. There’s frost on the transport van’s windshield. My breath fogs. The parking lot is empty except for a Ford pickup parked at the far end, mud on the wheel wells, no plates.
He’s standing beside it.
