9. Let Him Watch

He was watching.

The certainty hit like ice water down my spine. Larry was watching me. Somehow. Somewhere. I scanned the room with new eyes and spotted it, a tiny camera lens in the corner, barely visible against the dark ceiling molding.

Of course he is.

A different woman might have covered herself, might have felt violated or afraid. But I'd spent nineteen years being watched, being displayed, being treated like I had no right to privacy or dignity. What was one more violation added to the pile?

So instead of hiding, I finished.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

If he wanted a show, I'd give him one, but on my terms, not his.

I took my time with my chest, my movements unhurried and intentional. Then my face, massaging the cream into my cheeks, my forehead, down my jawline. I caught my reflection again and held my own gaze.

This body survived nineteen years of hell. This body is mine, not his. No matter what he thinks he owns.

The bond pulsed again, confusion now, layered over the desire. Had he expected me to cower? To hide?

You don't know me at all, Alpha. You never bothered to try.

When I finally reached for the nightgown laid out on the bed, I took my time with that too. The silk whispered against my lotioned skin as I pulled it over my head, the fabric settling around me like dark water. Black, of course, Larry seemed determined to dress me in shadows, as if he could make me disappear into the darkness he lived in.

The bond was still pulsing with that heated awareness, but now there was something else underneath. Uncertainty? Surprise?

Good.

I walked to the bed and pulled back the covers, sliding between sheets that felt like heaven. The pillows cradled my head, the mattress conforming to my exhausted body, and for a moment I just lay there staring at the ceiling.

Processing.

The claiming. The challenge. Jackson's blood steaming in the moonlight. Larry's blood-soaked promise that I was his to protect, even if I was also his to torment.

"What are you doing to me?" I whispered into the darkness.

I didn't know if I was asking Larry or the Moon Goddess or myself. Maybe all three.

The mate bond offered no answers, just that steady pulse of connection that wouldn't let me forget, even for a moment that I was tied to him now. Bound to a man who hated everything I represented but whose wolf wouldn't let anyone else hurt me.

Through the wall, I heard movement. He was in his room. Probably staring at whatever screen displayed the camera feed. Probably fighting with himself over what he'd seen, what he'd felt through our bond.

Let him fight. Let him struggle with the same chaos I'm drowning in.

My eyes grew heavy, exhaustion finally winning its war with adrenaline. As I drifted toward sleep, I felt the bond settle into something almost peaceful, like even our wolves were too tired to keep fighting tonight.

Tomorrow would bring new battles. New tests. New ways for us to hurt each other in this beautiful disaster of a mating.

But tonight, in this moment, I was clean and warm and alive.

And I'd be damned if I'd let him take that small victory from me.

My last conscious thought was of silver eyes and the ghost of jasmine in the air, and then sleep pulled me under like a gentle tide.

In his room, separated by a locked door and a chasm of hatred that neither of us could quite maintain anymore, Larry Talbot stared at a screen and wondered what the hell he'd gotten himself into.

But I didn't know that yet.

All I knew was the darkness behind my eyelids and the strange, terrible comfort of the mate bond humming between us like a promise neither of us wanted but neither of us could escape.

Tomorrow, I thought as sleep claimed me. Tomorrow I'll figure out how to survive him.

Tonight, I would just survive myself.

And somehow, improbably, that felt like enough.