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“I’m very well acquainted with how delicate situations like yours can be, and how much danger you will be in if there is even a hint that you stepped out of line.”
I sighed. “You mean, I’m in a cult.”
“I mean you are a woman who was traded as political capital to secure an arrangement that was secretive and unpopular, and has now goneviolentlysouth. What remaining allies you have are attempting to spin the situation, but will cut their losses with you under very minor provocation, and would not hesitate to turn on you to save themselves. I fully appreciate that your body language, along with every movement, moment, word, and expression must be calculated, choreographed and considered, in addition to being accounted for and justified. The cult aspect only increases how much danger you are in and emphasizes the level of detail required to keep you safe.”
“That is bleak, Hamid.”
“Yes, ma’am. It is.”
I pulled on my heels and ran a hand through my hair before letting him lift the long coat over my shoulders. Patrick and the flight crew were gathering up their things. I bid them farewell and headed down the airstairs. The damp, cold ocean breeze cut across my bare legs and puddles seeped into the open toes of my heels.
It was dark, windy, and the big-droplet rainy where it got you wet, but the sky was too lazy to actually rain. I hurried to the black SUV waiting almost illegally close to the plane while Hamid jogged after me. He yanked open the door and herded me inside out of the drizzle and wind. I flinched at the softball ache in my side as I tried to swiftly coordinate the whole get-into-the-vehicle-quickly while not breaking my ankles on my spiked heels or ripping my skirt.
Even through the MoonDark, a scent hit my soul.
“Sterling!” I gasped, twisting around in the semi-illumination provided by the airport.
Silhouetted by the lights of the airport, Sterling looked like the shadows of a winter forest, his eyes like discs of crescent moon as the light caught the irises at odd angles. “Pretty wolf.”
I slid across the seat and threw my arms around him as he scooped me into his embrace.
Hamid got in next to Darren and instructed the other mandrive.
I gasped for breath and choked on a sob.”What are youdoinghere?"
He stroked my hair, his fingertips gentle while his other hand rested over my spine. I squirmed closer, wanting him to hold me tighter. My leg pressed against his. He flicked a lock of my hair between his fingers, then his fingertips moved over my face while he seemed to inspect me in minute detail.
The shadows moved over his face, a flow of light and dark from streetlights, and it made me dizzy, reminding me of the she-wolf in my nightmare with the blur-tool mangled face. His fingertips caught a tear. Stupid tears. Stupid softball in my side making it hard to breathe.
The kiss tried to yank a sob from me. Soft, gentle, tender. The seasons passed, and the sky turned, and the bond between us strained like a tortured muscle pushed to exhaustion.
“What are you doing here?” I asked again, this time in a rasp because my throat was too twisted to speak sensibly.
“I had to see you.” He ran his hands along my ribs and down my side, careful of my now-healed injuries. He drew me close and inhaled the scent from my neck. “I had to see you. I had to know you’re alive.”
“Of course I’m alive.”
He kept his face buried in my neck, but his touch remained gentle. “I overheard a rumor that you were trying to get Marcella to let you go to Fairbanks, and I knewinstantlywhat you were after. I couldn’t go with you, but I could get this far. I couldn’t let you go to Alaska all alone. Not again. So I made up a lie about being needed in Florida for some business that required my actual physical presence.”
“You lied to Demetrius?” Of all the stupid things to do....
“Technically, I lied to Henri.” Sterling’s expression took on a hint of the wry, cunning wolf under his otherwise tormented mask. “I knew you’d need to change flight crews. I left a few days ago to cover my tracks. I’ll return in two days.”
“It’s not very good covering,” I whispered. That was flimsy, andflimsydidn’t hold up to Elders. They weren’t Elders because they were stupid. Sterling had already proven that much when he’d culled Jerron from the herd.
“It’s flimsy, but I had to see you.” He paused, and his grip tightened as his whole body tensed and his scent shifted. “If you want me to leave you alone, I will. I understand. I know what I did, Winter. I had to save your life. I couldn’t let you die. If it’s over between us for this—”
“No!” I had him with me now. I might not get another chance to see him again before July, and the thought strangled me. Who cared if Demetrius and Marcella found out? It wasn’t like they’d kick me out. They couldn’t afford it. They were in too deep now. Letting me see my mateoncewashumane. I might have come back from the dead, but my soul was still firmly in my body, and Sterling was still my mate.
Death, taxes, and politics would never change that.
“I understand if you hate me,” he whispered as he held me so gently. “I had to save your life. They gave me a chance to save you. I had to take it.”
“I don’t hate you.” My heart was in tatters. How could I ever hate him, even if I wanted to? He was the other half of my soul.
He smiled, sadly, his scent winter forest and storms. The lights passing over his face were more and more like the she-wolf’s blurred face. “How are you recovering?”
My throat was so dry and twisted, only the MoonDark held my human form strapped to my skin because I wanted to howl and howl. “I’m all put back together. Just going to be soft tissue from here. You? They told me you’d been hurt but...”
