"Just let me know what you decide. And please—don't leave without saying goodbye."
Harper didn't speak, only nodded, her green eyes swimming with emotions he couldn't read. Dorian turned and walked back toward his room, each step feeling like he was walking away from his own heart.
I've failed everyone. Again.
The thought crashed over him like a tidal wave as he reached his bedroom door. Lila was furious with him, thinking he'd destroyed her relationship with Harper. Harper probably saw him as overbearing and controlling, trying to manipulate her into staying. And his wolf was snarling at him for not being able to simply tell his mate that everything would be okay if she'd just trust him.
Dorian wanted to slam the door with enough force to shake the entire estate, to let out the roar of frustration and despairbuilding in his chest. Instead, he closed it softly and fell back onto his bed—the bed that still smelled like Harper, like jasmine and rain and the promise of a future he might have just destroyed.
For the first time since he'd become Alpha at seventeen, Dorian Holt felt completely hopeless. The one person he'd finally let into his world, the one person he needed, the one person who'd actually cared for him, could be gone within the hour.
And there wasn't a damn thing his strength or control could do to stop it.
THIRTEEN
HARPER
After Dorian turned and left her doorway, Harper clicked the door shut, leaving her utterly alone with the echo of his confession and the wreckage of her carefully constructed world. Her legs finally gave out, sending her collapsing onto the bed beside her half-packed suitcase.
Fated mate.
The words circled through her mind like vultures, picking apart everything she thought she knew about love, about control, about the safe boundaries that had protected her for thirty-three years. Lila had suspected it yesterday during their session on the porch swing, asking about connections with that knowing look in her blue-gray eyes. Even a traumatized seventeen-year-old had seen what Harper had been too terrified to acknowledge existed between her and Dorian.
She pressed her palms against her eyes, trying to block out the memory of Lila's face when she'd burst into Dorian's room this morning—shock morphing into understanding, then into fury at her brother for potentially ruining the one good thing in her healing journey. The professional boundary Harper had never crossed in seven years of practice, obliterated in one night of surrender to something that felt bigger than herself.
"God, what have I done?"
Her voice cracked in the empty room, bouncing off the hand-carved molding that showed Dorian's craftsmanship, his attention to detail, his desire to create beauty in everything he touched. Including her. The thought sent heat spiraling through her chest even as panic clawed at her throat.
This was exactly the kind of thing that could destroy everything—her license, her practice, her professional integrity, her identity as the competent woman who helped others heal while keeping her own wounds safely locked away. The state board wouldn't care about supernatural mate bonds or the way Dorian's touch had made her feel safe for once in her life. They'd see a therapist who'd compromised her ethics for a client's family member, and that would be the end of Harper Lane, licensed child trauma counselor.
But her traitorous heart whispered something entirely different.He's worth fighting for, whatever it takes.
The thought terrified her more than losing her career. Fighting meant staying, meant trusting in something unpredictable and overwhelming. It meant admitting that the mate bond pulsing beneath her skin felt more real than anything she'd ever experienced—more real than her relationship with Matt, more real than the predictable life she'd built around helping others while avoiding her own needs.
Dorian's suggestion echoed through her mind with dangerous appeal. She could revoke the professional relationship, stay as Lila's mentor instead of her therapist. No ethics violations, no licensing board concerns. Just Harper helping a traumatized girl heal while figuring out what this supernatural connection meant.
"But for how long?" she whispered to the empty room.
Lila was making incredible progress, true, but trauma recovery wasn't linear. It could take months of careful work,months of Harper putting her Oregon practice on indefinite hold to stay in this mountain town that felt increasingly like home. Months of navigating whatever this mate bond meant with a man who looked at her like she was salvation wrapped in human skin.
The strategic part of her mind—the part that had survived abuse and emotional neglect—screamed that this was insanity. She barely knew Dorian. Four days ago, she hadn't even known he existed. Now she was contemplating upending her entire life for a supernatural bond she didn't understand and a man whose intensity both thrilled and terrified her.
But then she remembered the raw honesty in his blue eyes when he'd pleaded with her to stay. The way his voice had cracked when he'd admitted he'd denied himself for eighteen years. The careful tenderness in his touch when he'd wiped away her tears, asking for nothing in return except the chance to make things right.
This man really loves me.
The realization hit her like a freight train, stealing her breath. Not the careful, conditional affection she'd known with Matt, who'd wanted her to be smaller, quieter, more available. Dorian saw her strength and wanted more of it. He'd challenged her, trusted her with his most precious responsibility, and still managed to make her feel cherished rather than managed.
Harper stood on unsteady legs and walked to the window, gazing out at the mountain town spread below. The autumn light painted everything in shades of gold and amber, highlighting the careful restoration work that bore Dorian's signature throughout the community. This place that had felt foreign three days ago now seemed to pulse with possibility, with the promise of belonging she'd never allowed herself to want.
Her reflection stared back from the glass—hair still wild from sleep and passion, green eyes bright from shed tears, lipsstill slightly swollen from Dorian's kisses. She looked like a woman who'd been thoroughly claimed and completely wrecked simultaneously.
"He just put his heart in his hands and offered it to you," she told her reflection. "The least you can do is be brave enough to consider it."
The guest room suddenly felt suffocating, filled with the weight of a decision that would change everything. Harper turned away from the window and surveyed the space that had become her temporary sanctuary—noting the attention to comfort in every detail. Dorian had prepared this room for her before he'd even known she was his mate, simply because she was someone who might help his sister heal.
That level of care, of thoughtful preparation, spoke to something deeper than supernatural bonds or physical attraction. It spoke to the kind of man who'd spent eighteen years carrying everyone else's burdens while denying his own needs, who'd built beauty with his hands while his own heart remained untended.
