CLAUDETHE CUFFS CLICKED open.They took their time about it—one wrist, then the other—like it mattered now, like it would somehow make a difference after everything they’d already said to me.I didn’t move.Didn’t lower my arms.Didn’t speak.The burn where the metal had bitten into my skin pulsed faintly, but even that felt far away—like it belonged to someone else. Everything did. My body. My breath. The air I kept forcing into my lungs even though every inhale scraped like glass.They banned me.From seeing him.From touching him.From Nikolai.I stood there like a ghost in my own skin, listening to the silence stretch. No one spoke to me. No one looked at me. It was like once they’d ripped him from me, I stopped existing.Good. Let me vanish. Let me fall apart somewhere they can’t see.“Move.”A hand landed on my back. I flinched so hard it rattled my chest. But I moved. Legs stiff, joints barely bending, like I’d forgotten how to walk. Like my body was still back in that room, i
CLAUDEI HAVEN’T SLEPT. Not really. I might’ve closed my eyes once or twice, but it didn’t count—not when the nightmares didn’t wait for sleep to drag me under. Didn’t count when every soft beep from the monitor made my heart lurch, when silence stretched too long and I thought—this is it. He’s gone.But Nikolai still hadn’t opened his eyes.They said he was unstable.Said the poison from the blade was flushed out but now all I had to do was pray.Said it like it meant something, like their words could undo what I saw—his blood, too dark and too much, slipping between my fingers while he laid there. I didn’t care what they said. He was still here. Too still. Too pale. Too wrong.The bed barely dipped with his weight. His chest rose and fell, but it was shallow, mechanical, like his body had forgotten how to breathe without fighting for it.I sat curled at the edge, knees tight to my chest, arms locked around them like I could keep myself from falling apart. My palms had been covered i
CLAUDEI DIDNT FEEL the ride.I didn’t feel the hands on me or the arms that held me down when I fought like a cornered animal. I didn’t feel the cold of the floor under my knees or the sting where my nails broke skin, clawing at the cement, at my own skin—anything that wasn’t him.What I felt was the bond.Or what was left of it.Fading. Dimming like a dying star. The tether we’d only just built peeling thread by thread.He was slipping through my fingers, and I couldn’t stop it.I couldn’t fucking stop it.My body shook with it—with pain, with anger, with fear so sharp it chewed through my ribs like acid. The moment they ripped him from my arms, something cracked. I didn’t know if it was in my chest or my head or my soul, but it broke and I couldn’t find it again.And when the metal door slammed shut behind the men working on him—Enzo’s people, his men, strangers who weren’t bleeding, who weren’t me—I hit the wall and slid down, my back scraping raw as I dropped.I curled into mysel
CLAUDEI SIGHED—FOR what had to be the hundredth time today. I’d eaten, showered, done everything I was supposed to do. And now… now I was just waiting. It hadn’t even been four hours since he left, but the quiet was starting to press in, and I was already tired of sitting here, pretending I wasn’t checking the time.Like I wasn’t curious what had him leaving early in the morning.I pushed myself up from the couch and made my way to the elevator and pressed the button to the lobby. When the door opened, the noise hit fast. Loud. Busy. A mess of conversations, suitcases rolling, heels clicking. I kept my head forward and moved through it.Then I stopped. Every part of my body freezing. My ears twitching and my body on alert.It felt like I was being watched.I turned quickly, sniffed the air, tried to find who it was but all that hit me was the scent of heavy perfumes and sweat.“Claude,” A hand touched my shoulder and I jerked, turning, my eyes wide before a breath left my lips and th
NIKOLAITHE SOUND OF Claude stirring behind me pulled me from the window.I turned, and there he was—eyes half-lidded, lashes brushing high cheekbones, pupils sharpening into slits as he blinked up at me. His smile broke through, lazy and unguarded—and just like that, I felt it. That punch in the chest I always got when I looked at him too long.Christ, he was beautiful.“Hey,” I said, walking back to him, my hand already reaching for his hair like it always did. The strands were still a little messy from sleep, golden where the light touched and soft under my fingers. I brushed them back gently.“Hi,” he breathed, trying to stifle his grin. He failed.My thumb grazed the corner of his mouth, then dragged across his lower lip. Soft. Warm. Addictive. I leaned down, took his mouth in a slow kiss, one that started sweet but cracked open with heat, and I had to pull back before I forgot where the hell I was going.I straightened my tie. Smoothed the edge of my coat. Tried to find the part
CLAUDEI COULDN’T THINK. Couldn’t breathe—all that mattered was Nikolai. His hands, his mouth, his body—slamming into me, over and over and over, like nothing existed but the two of us. The heat inside me was like fire, burning me up from the inside out. It consumed me, devoured me, and the only thing that could quench it was him. Only him.His hands were tight on my thighs, forcing me harder against the wall, his thrusts so deep, so punishing, that I gasped—no, gasped wasn’t right—my breath shattered every time he pushed inside, his cock filling me to the point of breaking, of splitting. It felt like fire, every inch of him. A fire I couldn’t put out, a drug I couldn’t quit.His grip was tight on my hips, pulling me back against him with each stroke, driving me harder, deeper, like he was determined to claim every part of me. And I wanted it. Needed it.I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of my heart, the sound of skin on skin, the heat betwee
NIKOLAIHE WAS SHAKING.Not from pleasure. Not from the come-down.I stayed deep inside him, hands locked on his hips, my body tense as steel. Something wasn’t right. I could feel it in the way his pulse hammered beneath my fingers, in the way his body kept clenching around me, like he was trying to pull me in deeper. But he was too hot—way too fucking hot.I didn’t move. Not yet. I had to figure out what was happening. But the instinct to move was clawing at me.“Claude,” I bit out, my voice low, brows pulled tightly. I brushed the damp strands of hair from his neck. “You’re burning up.”He gasped, pushing back into me, his hips grinding against mine like he needed this to breathe. His fingers dug into the sheets, shaking like his body wasn’t his own anymore. Like I was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.“Talk to me.”There was a beat—just ragged breaths, broken and shallow. And then the words hit like a bullet.“I… I think I’m in heat.”The world stilled.Iknew what that
CLAUDETHE SUN HAD dipped behind the sky when we got to the hotel. It was big—absolutely gorgeous and luxurious—and his hand never left my back as we were escorted to the elevator.The doors opened directly into the suite. No hallway. No detour. Just the quiet click behind us as we stepped inside.Nikolai didn’t say a word. He took off his jacket, dropped it over a chair then looked over his shoulder at me, one brow raised.“You must be hungry,” he said.I rubbed the back of my neck, exhaled through my nose. “I’m not.”He didn’t push. Just nodded once, already moving past me toward the bar. “Shower, then. Take your time.”The bathroom was as beautiful as the rest of it—sleek, gold-trimmed, expensive. I locked the door, and stepped in. Water hit tile, steam rising almost instantly. I stood under the spray longer than I should’ve, eyes closed, hands braced on the wall, as a deep sigh slide past my lips.When I stepped out, the scent of food filled the air—rich and warm, but it wasn’t hu
CLAUDEMY LEGS WOULDN’T stop moving, twitching against the floor like they wanted to be anywhere but inside this car. I pushed out a breath, slowly and leaned my head back against the seat.The AC was on, but I couldn’t breathe.Before I could think, my hand was on the door, pushing it open, and I stepped out. The air slapped me first, a cold bite to my skin, but there was something else—something different that wrapped around it, choking out the relief. A scent. A wolf’s scent.My spine snapped straight and I didn’t even realize I was moving until my feet carried me around the corner, down the path, feet crunching on gravel.Then I saw them.Pressed up against the wall. A guard—tall, broad—gripping the front of someone’s shirt, like he owned him. Their mouths were fused together, sloppy and hungry and completely oblivious.The wolf under him was young. Small. Soft, with flushed skin and a trembling throat that looked too exposed, too breakable. But it wasn’t that.It was when he open