Chapter 4: One Bed, One Boundary

By the time Azriel guided me out of the Radcliffe Crown, our marriage had already become breaking news.

Reporters crowded behind the hotel barriers, calling our names as camera flashes cut through the night. Security officers formed a path toward a waiting black sedan, but microphones still reached between their shoulders.

"Mrs. Castallane! When did your relationship with Mr. Castellane begin?"

"Mrs. Castellane, was your engagement to Mr. Radcliffe fraudulent?"

"Mr. Castellane, did Nightfall arrange this marriage to acquire Silverpine territory?"

Azriel placed his hand against the small of my back and kept walking. "Smile, wifey," he murmured to my ear. His hot, minty breath was fanning my neck. "They're hoping you'll look devastated."

I turned my face toward the cameras and smiled brightly enough to appear on every financial page by morning. "Enjoy it while it lasts, hubby," I said sweetly.

His fingers pressed more firmly against my back. "Careful. I might start believing you like calling me that."

The car door closed behind us, silencing the questions. Dark privacy glass separated the rear cabin from our driver. Outside, the city blurred into lines of gold and red. Inside, the sudden quiet left me with nothing to distract me from the black diamond on my finger.

My phone illuminated with a news alert.

'FAIRMONT HEIRESS SECRETLY WEDS NIGHTFALL ALPHA DURING REDFANG SCANDAL.'

Under the headline was a photograph of Azriel kissing my knuckles while Caelan stared behind us. Thousands of comments had already appeared. Some called the marriage a brilliant corporate strike. Others insisted I had been having an affair with Azriel for months.

He reached over and turned my phone facedown. "Don't let strangers explain your own decisions to you."

I had ended a six-year engagement, married Caelan's greatest rival, transferred Silverpine's alliance, and publicly humiliated Redfang in less than twenty-four hours. There would be no returning to the life I had woken up expecting yesterday.

Azriel loosened his collar and watched me study the ring. "Regretting it?"

"No," I replied quickly.

I regretted trusting Caelan. I regretted ignoring how Evelina's expression changed whenever he entered a room. But marrying Azriel had been my decision, made with open eyes and a contract I had examined myself.

"Good," he said. "I would hate to spend our first night convincing my wife not to run away."

"Your wife still wants to know how an ancestral ring happened to fit her perfectly." I crossed my arms over my chest as I arched my eyebrow.

His gaze dropped to my hand. "Perhaps, the Moon Goddess approves of us."

"You don't strike me as a man who leaves jewelry sizes to divine intervention."

"And you don't strike me as a woman who accepts evasive answers."

"I don't."

"Then, our marriage won't be boring."

Before I could press him, the sedan entered the secured underground level of Nightfall Tower. Electronic gates closed behind us. Cameras tracked the vehicle toward a private entrance, where two guards scanned Azriel's fingerprint and the car registration before allowing us through before inclining their heads.

The elevator required his palm, a numerical code, and a retinal scan.

"Expecting an invasion?" I asked.

"Planning for one."

"From Redfang?"

"From anyone foolish enough to believe they can reach what belongs to me." His olive eyes settled on my face as the elevator began climbing.

I refused to ask whether he meant the penthouse or me.

The doors opened into a private reception area. The Nightfall crest had been etched into smoked glass behind a curved desk, and the city stretched beneath the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Four members of Azriel's household staff waited with the night security supervisor. They weren't dressed like servants from an ancestral estate. Each wore the discreet black uniform of Castellane Residential Services.

The house manager stepped forward. "Welcome home, Luna Maquia."

Luna...

The others lowered their heads respectfully. Their scents carried surprise and curiosity, but not rejection. Even the instinctive part of me recognized their deference as genuine. Nightfall had accepted its Alpha's marriage without hesitation, although its new Luna had never stepped inside their territory before tonight.

The title struck differently here than it had in the ballroom. There had been reporters, contracts, and Caelan's furious expression to hold my attention. Inside Nightfall Tower, no one treated my position as revenge or performance.

They believed I belonged here.

Azriel took my hand. "My wife has had a long evening. Anything that doesn't require our immediate attention can wait until morning."

Our immediate attention.

Our morning.

I thanked the staff before Azriel led me through another secured door and into the penthouse.

The space was unmistakably his. Black marble, dark wood, steel, and smoked glass formed clean lines beneath warm recessed lighting. A sunken living area faced the skyline. Beyond it stood a dining space, private office, and terrace high above the city.

There were no personal photographs. Nothing appeared misplaced or unnecessary.

Even his home felt controlled.

My phone vibrated repeatedly inside my purse. Messages from Silverpine's board, Pack Council members, and journalists filled the screen. Caelan had called eleven times. Evelina had sent one message.

'We need to talk.'

I locked the phone without answering. I even put it to silent.

"You can use my office if you need to contact Silverpine," Azriel said.

"Tomorrow." I looked down the hallway. "Which room is mine?"

He opened the final door. "This one."

The master bedroom was nearly as large as my apartment at the Fairmont residence. A wall of glass overlooked the northern district. Dark rugs softened the black floors, and an enormous bed stood beneath a textured charcoal wall.

Only one bed.

I looked at Azriel. "And yours?"

"You're standing in it."

"We're not sharing a bedroom."

His attention lowered to the Nightfall ring on my finger. "You publicly declared yourself my wife less than an hour ago."

"That doesn't mean I agreed to sleep with you."

"I said we would share a room, Maquia." He stepped inside and removed his cuff links. "What happens inside it will remain entirely your decision."

The assurance eased something inside me, but not enough to make me agree. "This penthouse has other bedrooms."

"Six."

"Then, choose one."

His eyebrow lifted. "Why would I leave my own bed?"

"Because you're the one insisting we maintain appearances."

"Appearances aren't the only problem." Azriel placed his cuff links on the dresser. "Every wolf employed in this residence will know by breakfast if their Alpha and Luna slept apart. You won't carry my scent, and I won't carry yours."

"Then, give me one of your shirts."

His mouth curved. "Clever. But not convincing."

"Your scent will be on it."

"On the fabric, not your skin. Wolves recognize the difference between borrowed clothing and two people sharing the same space for hours."

I narrowed my eyes, already guessing that this man wouldn't back down. But still, he had a point. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Immensely."

I folded my arms. "I can sleep on the sofa."

"You could," he agreed. "But I won't explain to my household why my new Luna spent her first night on a couch while I occupied a bed large enough for four people."

"Four?" My brow lifted in curiosity.

His smile became dangerous. "Would you like to test the estimate?"

"No."

"Then, we share the bed."

He crossed to the walk-in wardrobe and returned with a black button-down shirt. "Your luggage hasn't arrived. You can wear this until Silverpine sends your things tomorrow."

I took it from him. His scent clung to the fabric—cedar, smoke, and something colder I couldn't name. "Bathroom?"

Azriel pointed toward a door beside the wardrobe. "Take as long as you need."

The bathroom contained black stone counters, a glass shower, and enough unopened toiletries to supply a hotel suite. I locked the door before removing my gown.

The hot water washed away the perfume, camera flashes, and lingering scent of Redfang's ballroom. But it couldn't wash away the memory of Caelan's hand on Evelina's back or Azriel's mouth against mine inside his office.

My fingers rose to my lips before I stopped them. That kiss had only been his way of sealing our agreement. At least... that was what I intended to believe.

Azriel's shirt reached the middle of my thighs. I fastened enough buttons to remain decent, rolled the sleeves, and opened the bathroom door.

He stood beside the bed wearing black lounge pants and nothing else.

I stopped.

His suit had concealed the breadth of his shoulders and the hard lines of his torso. Faint scars crossed one side of his ribs, pale against his skin. He had turned away to place his watch on the nightstand, but when he faced me, his control faltered.

His gaze moved slowly from my bare legs to the open collar of his shirt.

"Problem?" I asked.

"Several." His voice had become lower. "All of them are currently wearing my clothes."

Warmth spread under my skin. "This was your suggestion."

"I'm reconsidering my generosity."

"Too late." I gathered every spare pillow I could find and arranged them in a straight line down the center of the bed.

Azriel watched from the opposite side. "What are you doing?"

"Establishing a boundary. What else?"

"With pillows?"

I finished arranging them before looking at him. "Cross this line, and I'll break your fingers."

His gaze traveled over the barrier before returning to me. "You believe those can stop me?"

"No. I'm testing whether my new husband possesses basic self-control."

Azriel placed one knee on the mattress and leaned across the pillows until his face hovered close to mine. "Those are for your peace of mind, wifey. Not for my protection." Then, he withdrew to his side and switched off the lamp.

Darkness settled over the room, broken only by city light slipping through the glass. I lay with my back toward him, painfully aware of the warmth on the other side of the pillows.

For several minutes, neither of us spoke.

"Are you going to keep calling me wifey?" I finally asked.

"Are you going to keep answering to it?"

"I answered once."

"Twice."

"You counted?"

"I pay attention."

The same answer he had given about the ring.

"Your receptionist said you instructed security to admit me whenever I arrived," I said. "Not if." I slightly stretched my arm where the ring was resting, staring into it.

Azriel remained silent.

"Did you know I would come to you?" I added after a moment of silence.

"I was optimistic."

"That still isn't an answer."

"Caelan has always underestimated you." His voice hardened slightly. "I trusted him to eventually make a mistake large enough for you to stop protecting him."

"And you expected to benefit from it."

"I usually benefit from other men's mistakes."

I turned onto my back. "What did you mean earlier when you said marrying me had been your purpose?"

A quiet pause lingered between us.

"I said diminishing you would defeat the purpose of marrying you."

"That isn't an answer either."

"Go to sleep, Maquia."

"Evasive again."

"Persistent again."

One of the pillows began tipping toward his side. His hand rose in the darkness. My body tensed because of that.

Azriel caught the pillow and returned it carefully to the center without allowing his fingers to cross the line. "Relax," he murmured. "I know which side belongs to me."

His restraint should have reassured me. Instead, it left me more conscious of him.

I listened as his breathing gradually evened. He never moved toward me. Never tested the barrier. Never used the marriage, the shared room, or my presence in his shirt as permission for anything I hadn't offered.

At some point, exhaustion pulled me beneath the city's fading lights.

When pale dawn entered the room, Azriel's side of the bed was empty. Every pillow remained exactly where I had placed it. He had respected every boundary.

I should have been relieved. But instead, I found myself wondering why I had spent half the night hoping he would ask me to remove one.