Chapter 6

Wren's pov

Three weeks passed before the real ceremony date arrived, and every one of them changed me a little more than the last. Odette trained me in secret, evenings mostly, tucked away near her cabin where nobody thought to look. She taught me to sit still with the feeling instead of running from it, the cold pull in my chest that came before something went wrong. Small things first. A cracked cup before it slipped from Maribel's hands. A storm two days before the clouds ever gathered.

"You are getting stronger," Odette told me one night, watching me flinch at a warning I could not yet name. "Faster than I expected, given how long it was buried."

"It does not feel like strength. It feels like something is wrong with me."

"That is fear talking, not truth." She patted my hand. "Your family taught you shame instead of pride. We are unteaching that now."

"What happens when the ceremony finally comes? When Kade actually claims her?"

Odette went quiet for a moment, her eyes far away. "I do not know, child. I have never seen a case quite like yours. Whatever happens, it will not be small."

"That is not very comforting."

"I did not say it to comfort you. I said it because it is true, and you deserve truth more than comfort at this point in your life."

Kade found reasons to be near me all three weeks, careful, quiet reasons that fooled nobody paying close attention. A question about pack business that could have waited. A walk past the kitchen at the exact hour I usually finished my chores. Neither of us spoke of the barn, though it sat between every conversation like a held breath neither of us wanted to release. His gaze on my body made my nipples harden and my pussy grow wet with need every single time.

The night before the real ceremony, I could not sleep at all. I gave up trying around midnight and walked out to the garden instead, needing air, needing anything other than the four walls of my room pressing in on me. Kade was already there, sitting on the low stone wall near the roses, like he had known I would come.

"You could not sleep either," he said. "No."

"Come sit."

I hesitated only a second before crossing the grass to sit beside him. The night was cold enough to see our breath, but neither of us moved to leave. Heat throbbed between my legs as I sat close to him.

"Tomorrow," he said quietly.

"I know."

"Grier thinks I should call it off." He said it flat, like he was reporting weather. "Says a man cannot stand in front of his pack and lie about who he wants."

"Grier said that?"

"More or less. He is not usually one for speeches, but he made an exception." A tired laugh escaped him, gone as fast as it came. "I told him the law does not care what either of us wants."

"What did he say to that?"

"Nothing worth repeating." Kade shook his head. "I keep telling myself it will feel different this time. That I will walk up there tomorrow and mean every word, the way I am supposed to." He stared at his own hands. "It does not feel different, Wren. It feels exactly the same as it did three weeks ago."

"Kade, do not do this to yourself tonight."

"I am not doing anything. I am just telling you the truth." He turned to look at me, and something in his face had stopped hiding.

"The truth is I have spent three weeks trying to convince myself the bond does not matter more than the law. I have failed every single time."

My chest ached. "You cannot say that. Not tonight of all nights."

"Why not tonight? Tonight is the only night that matters anymore." He reached over and took my hand, slow enough that I could pull away if I wanted to. I did not want to. "Tell me you have not thought about it too. The barn. Every day since."

"That is not fair to ask me."

"I am not asking what is fair. I am asking what is true."

I looked at him for a long moment, the cold air between us doing nothing to cool whatever had been building for years. "I have thought about nothing else."

Something shifted in his eyes at that, dark and certain all at once. He lifted his hand to my face, the same way he had that night in the barn, except this time neither of us pulled back when the door creaked or a branch snapped somewhere in the trees.

"Wren." His voice had gone rough. "Tomorrow I stand up there and become someone else's. Tonight I am still mine to give away."

"Kade, if we do this, there is no taking it back tomorrow. You know that."

"I know exactly what it means." His forehead came down to rest against mine, both of us breathing unevenly now. "Tomorrow I belong to pack law. Tonight I still belong to myself, and I am choosing you with whatever is left of that."

"That is not fair to either of us."

"No," he agreed. "It is not fair at all. I stopped caring about fair three weeks ago in that barn."

"Kade."

"Tell me to stop, Wren. One more time. I will listen if you mean it."

I did not tell him to stop. I answered instead by closing the last inch of space between us, my hand finding the front of his shirt, pulling him toward me instead of away, every ounce of restraint I had carried for years finally giving out at once.

He kissed me like a man who had spent years starving. His tongue pushed deep into my mouth as his hands roamed my body. We stumbled inside the house together and went straight to my room. He closed the door and pushed me against the wall, pulling my dress off quickly. His mouth moved to my breasts, sucking my nipples hard until they throbbed with pleasure. He pushed two thick fingers into my wet pussy and pumped them fast, making me come hard on his hand.

He dropped to his knees and licked my pussy with long strokes of his tongue, sucking my clit until I came again, shaking against his face. Then he stood up, freed his thick cock, and bent me over the bed. He thrust into me deep in one motion. I moaned loudly as he fucked me hard from behind, one hand in my hair and the other rubbing my clit. I came around his cock and he filled me with his hot cum.

He turned me around and kissed me again. Then he laid me on my back and entered me slowly, rocking deep while looking into my eyes. After some time he flipped me onto my hands and knees and took me from behind again, harder this time, his balls slapping against me as he reached around to play with my clit. I pushed back against him, moaning with every thrust.

Next he pulled me into his lap facing him and I rode his cock fast, grinding down on him until I came once more. He laid back and I kept riding him, rolling my hips in deep circles. He sat up and thrust up into me while we kissed. Then he pressed me onto my back with my legs folded high and drove into me deep and powerful, rubbing my clit until I came so hard my whole body shook.

Finally he turned me onto my side, spooned behind me, lifted one of my legs, and slid into me again. He fucked me slow and deep at first, then faster, his fingers on my clit and his mouth on my neck. We came together, his cock pulsing inside me as my pussy squeezed him tight.

We kept going like that for hours, changing positions again and again, his cock filling me over and over. He took me against the wall, on the floor, and back on the bed in every way we could. My pussy stayed wet and aching for more of him the whole time. By the time midnight crept close we were tangled and spent, his cum leaking from my well used pussy, bodies slick with sweat. Tomorrow loomed but tonight he was mine buried inside me and nothing else mattered.