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My father’s grave was unmarked, but a headstone commemorating his life and death would eventually mark the spot of his final resting place. Yet another thing she had been denied by the Northwood pack.
It was callous and selfish to lean on her when her own grief was still so fresh, but she never complained. She steeled her spine and tightened her grip on my hand. Talia was my rock. The guiding light that I needed to find my way to the other side of my grief.
I wouldn’t have made it back to my apartment without her by my side.
My betas would have propped me up, made sure that I was taking care of myself and helped ease my transition as alpha. They would have done their best and as much as I would have appreciated it, their best wouldn’t have been enough.
They shared my pain, but they couldn’t understand it. Not the way Talia did.
She ushered me from Marcus’s car through the bar. People dressed in black stood elbow to elbow, glasses and bottles raised in toast to Max, a hell of a guy who was gone too soon and would be missed. The crowd’s chorus of my father’s name followed us up the staircase in the back of the bar that led to my second floor apartment.
Talia held the collar as I shucked off the suit jacket and proceeded to drape it over the back of a kitchen chair. She grabbed the remote for the sound system and turned up the stereo to drown out the sounds from the bar below.
“Want a drink?” I moved on autopilot to the bar, dropped an oversized ice cube into each bourbon glass and poured two fingers of aged oak barrel whiskey.
“Come sit with me.” Talia had curled up on the couch cushion with one arm draped over the back of the love seat, waiting for me to nestle in beside her.
“To Max.” I handed her a glass and clinked mine against it. “Salute.”
“To Max.” Talia echoed, sipping the whiskey before she set her glass on the coffee table. She patted the cushion beside her. “Sit.”
I emptied my glass, set it on the table beside her and collapsed onto the empty cushion.
“Closer.” She grabbed my tie and tugged me onto her side of the loveseat.
I shifted onto my back, legs draped over the arm of the couch and rested my head on her lap. The tips of her fingers brushed my jaw as she ran her hands through my hair. Her bright blue eyes glistened with unshed tears.
We’d been through so much in such a short time together.
I opened the bond I shared with the members of the Northwood pack as their new alpha and focused on the connection to the woman beside me. Her pain was so familiar to me. It may as well have been my own.
Talia needed to be comforted as much as I did.
I reached up and cupped the side of her face in one hand and slipped the other around the base of her neck, easing her down until her lips brushed mine. She smelled of vanilla with a hint of whiskey on her breath and I wanted nothing more than to lose myself with her at that moment.
Talia kissed me; mewing with pleasure when I not only returned the kiss but deepened it. She loosened my tie and slipped it off my neck, before moving to the buttons on my crisp white dress shirt.
I pulled back from the kiss and sat up, shedding my clothes and helping remove hers until we were skin to skin without a shred of fabric between us.
She was soft, warm and everything I needed.
We took our time, savoring each other; exploring each other’s bodies. Any other time, the slow tease would have driven me crazy with need, but this was more than passion. It wasn’t just the heat of the moment or desire. It was something more.
Love.
When I fell in love with Talia, I fell hard. I thought I’d been in love before, but even the feelings I had for Jamie paled in comparison to what I felt for Talia. It was unlike anything I’d experienced before.
There was a fleeting moment of guilt and grief for the loss of a woman that I cared for. We were young, foolish and carefree. I thought she was my mate and I mourned her as if she were, swearing off any other mating when she died.
But then I met Talia.
She broke through the barrier I’d built around my heart without even trying. Talia completed me and through the bond I knew she felt the same. She owned me body and soul. She reached down through the darkness that threatened to take hold of my heart and pulled me back into the light.
Talia thought I saved her, but it was the other way around.
It didn’t matter that she had been destined for another. Fate was wrong. Talia was meant for me and I would do whatever it took to make her mine.
