Chapter 4: The Thing About Gravity

I follow him into a private elevator and the doors close and we are alone and I immediately regret every decision that led to this moment.

The elevator is all dark panels and low light and it is not a large space, which means Thalrion Bloodryn is close, which means his scent is everywhere, which means my scent blocker is working about as well as a screen door in a hurricane right now and there is nothing I can do about it.

He faces forward, hands clasped in front of him. He doesn't look at me.

"You can stop fighting it," he says to the doors.

"Fighting what?"

"The bond."

I go very still.

He says it the same way he says everything, level and factual, no fanfare, like he's naming the weather.

"There's no bond," I say.

"Your wolf has been down since you crossed the room." Now he looks at me, just his eyes moving sideways, just enough. "Mine has been pulling toward you for three years."

Three years.

I stare at him. "That's not possible. We've never met."

"No." Something moves in his expression. "But the bond doesn't require an introduction."

The elevator opens before I can answer and he steps out and I stand there for one breath, two, three, with the doors trying to close on me before I move.

He's already walking. A long corridor, dark floors, the kind of quiet that comes from very good soundproofing and a lot of money. I follow because the alternative is standing in an elevator and that is not a plan.

He opens a door at the end of the corridor and steps through and I follow him into a room that is all low light and floor to ceiling glass and a city spread out below us like something on offer, and he turns and looks at me and for the first time tonight the controlled patience he has been wearing slips.

Just slightly.

Just enough.

"You're exhausted," he says.

It is the last thing I expect him to say.

"I'm fine."

"You haven't slept properly in weeks. You've been rationing your scent blockers. You've been alone in this for eight years." He holds my gaze and something in his voice shifts into something I don't have armor for. "You don't have to be anymore."

My throat does something inconvenient.

"You don't know me," I say, and it comes out quieter than I mean it to.

"I know you're tired." He takes one step toward me. "I know you're scared. I know you're furious at yourself right now for still being in this room, for following me." Another step. "And I know your wolf is not scared at all."

He's right in front of me now and I should step back and I don't and his hand comes up slowly, giving me every opportunity to move, and his fingers touch my jaw, just his fingertips, just the lightest possible contact, and my wolf surges up from that low reverent place and slams into my chest like a wave hitting a wall.

I grab his wrist.

Not to pull his hand away.

My wolf makes sure of that.

Thalrion looks down at my hand on his wrist and then back at my face and something in those silver eyes goes very dark and very focused and very, very still.

"There it is," he says softly.

And I have no idea if he means the bond or my hand on his wrist or something else entirely, but my wolf is pressing forward and my heart is doing something catastrophic and Thalrion Bloodryn is looking at me like I am the only thing in this city worth looking at.

"I'm not staying," I tell him.

His thumb moves against my jaw, just once, just slightly.

"You're already staying," he says. "You just haven't admitted it yet."

And the worst part, the absolute worst part, is that my wolf doesn't disagree.