"For the record," she said eventually, "I didn't enjoy being called a club girl."
"Yuri will apologize."
"No, he won't."
"He will if he wants to keep his tongue."
She turned her head slowly. The firelight caught the edge of her smile. "That was almost sweet until the tongue part."
"I'm learning."
"At the pace of a glacier, but yes."
I brought her hand to my mouth. Her knuckles were cold despite the fire. "You defended yourself."
"I insulted a man's suit. Let's not nominate me for sainthood."
"You were magnificent."
She looked away, but her hand tightened around mine. "I was terrified."
"I know."
"He was rude, though. And apparently fear has limits when tailoring crimes are involved." She was quiet for a moment. "What Mikhail said. What Ivan translated. That you defied your father and found me.”
"All alphas know that one special omega is out there. I knew I’d find her, but I never expected to find you."
"Me."
"I’d have fallen in love with you even if your scent hadn’t driven me insane for nine months."
She turned back to the fire. "I'm still not used to it. Having someone who doesn't trade me for things. A pack who just want me for me. When Presely found her pack I was so jealous. I saw how much they wanted her, how real it was. And…"
“Now you have the same. Me, Ivan and Gregor. We’re yours.”
“I’ll get used to it.”
The words landed somewhere beneath my ribs. I thought of my father, who had made me stand in a corridor for six hours to teach me a lesson about power. I thought of Maeve's father, who had put a gravestone in Dublin with her name on it rather than admit she'd escaped. I thought of Mac upstairs, whose entire hand fit around one of Maeve's fingers, and who would never learn what it felt like to be currency.
"You will," I said. “Because you’re ours forever.”
"That sounds like a promise."
"It is."
She leaned her head against the back of the chair. Her eyes stayed on the embers. "You still haven't drunk your whisky."
"I wasn't drinking it. I was looking at it."
"That's either very philosophical or very wasteful and I can't decide which."
"Both, probably."
"Very Russian."
"It's a cultural inheritance."
She laughed, soft and tired, and the sound did more for the weight in my chest than the whisky ever could have.
