When she finished, silence filled the office.
“Listen to me.” His voice was rough. “I don’t care how old this thing is or how long it’s been hiding. I’m going to find a way to end it.”
“You don’t understand.” Her voice came out hoarse. “Direct magic makes him stronger. He feeds on it, grows more powerful. That’s why the Continental Council couldn’t?—”
“I’m not the Continental Council.” His gaze held hers, unblinking. “I’m a predator who’s been denied his prey since you walked into my station. And the man who killed your husband,who threatened your family, who made you live in fear? He just walked into my territory.”
A shiver ran down her spine. Not fear. Something more complicated than that.
“Wyatt—”
“I felt it.” His grip on her shifted, his hand sliding from her cheek to cup her jaw, tilting her face toward his. “At the cabin. When you told me about Niccolas. My panther knew what he meant to you before I did. What Derren took from you.”
“Niccolas wasn’t my fated mate.” She needed him to understand this. “We chose each other. It was different.”
“I know.” His voice dropped. “You loved him anyway. You grieve him. And the bastard who took him from you is going to burn for it.”
His voice carried intensity that made her pulse race. A possessiveness she recognized from the festival, from the sea cliffs, from every charged moment between them since her magic had short-circuited his computer.
He wasn’t just angry about what Derren had done to her.
He was claiming her survival as his own fight.
“We should—” Her voice faltered as his thumb traced her lower lip. “There are things we need to plan. Resources. The dragons might?—”
“They will.” He didn’t move away. “Theo’s wolves have eyes on him.” He met her gaze. “We move to the next step.”
“You’ve been thinking about this.”
“Since the moment you told me he killed your husband.” His voice dropped to that edge of growl she’d heard before. “I’ve been thinking about how to destroy him ever since.”
“Why?”
It was a stupid question. She knew why. Had known since the festival, since the candle visions, since the dinner at his cabin where he’d told her about his parents and she’d realized theywere two people who’d spent their whole lives braced for their own worst impulses.
But she needed to hear him say it.
Wyatt’s gaze darkened. His hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in the hair that had come loose from her braid.
“You know why.”
“Tell me anyway.”
For a long moment, he just looked at her. The silence stretched, heavy with everything unsaid between them.
Then he kissed her.
Not the desperate collision from the festival. Not the gentle brush in the car. The change in between—deep and claiming and thorough, his mouth moving over hers with a hunger that made her knees threaten to buckle.
She kissed him back. Her fingers curled into his uniform shirt, dragging him closer, and she felt the rumble in his chest before she heard it. A sound that was more panther than man.
When he finally pulled back, they were both breathing hard.
“I’m going to keep you safe.” His voice was rough against her temple. “Not because you can’t protect yourself. Because I want you standing next to me for whatever comes next.”
Her eyes burned with fresh tears, but these tears were different. Lighter.
“Okay.” The word came out barely above a whisper. “Okay.”
