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NicolaiShe said yes.I've been saying this to myself at irregular intervals for three days. Not because I doubted she would say yes. But since the moment she did, life has taken on this dreamlike quality, all soft and fuzzy around the edges. So it seems the reality of it keeps needing to be confirmed.She said yes. She's wearing the ring. I’m going to sink my teeth into her neck and she's going to be my mate in every sense of the word, in front of everyone who matters, in a ceremony I'm going to make certain sends a message that doesn't require interpretation. She’s mine! I'm a man who controls rooms with his presence and manages an empire and does not, as a rule, allow things to show that aren't meant to be shown. But I have been insufferably happy for three days.And unfortunately, Dimitri has absolutely noticed."You're smiling," he says it like an accusation.We're reviewing shipping manifests. Or I'm supposed to be reviewing shipping manifests. Dimitri has apparently been watch
Skye Despite every instinct we possess, clawing at us to never leave our bed, Woolf family business never sleeps. Nicolai’s phone buzzes on the nightstand and he rolls over with a groan to check it. “I have to go to the office, Moonbeam,” he says regretfully. “You stay in bed and rest. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”He kisses my forehead and tucks the covers around me. I try to burrow in deeper, inhaling the way our scents mingle perfectly. But stronger than everything else is the scent of our lovemaking and that has me squirming and restless, unable to settle down.Giving up on sleep entirely, I check the monitor. It's Jaxon’s morning with Benji and he’s already gotten him up for the day. Relieved of that responsibility, I shower and dress quickly, grab my coffee, and head for the garden.It’s my favorite place to relax on the estate grounds. And this is my favorite time to enjoy its beauty, before anyone else is up. The particular morning light that makes everything look like it'
SkyeI wake up the next morning, Nicolai still wrapped around my back, a possessive hand splayed across my belly, and his semi-hard cock still buried inside me. I stretch gently, trying not to wake him, and I take inventory.Taking stock seems necessary after the drastic ways my life changed yesterday—a methodical, honest, checking what remains and what's different and what my life looks like now that so much is different.First, I'm in Nicolai's room, lying in the arms of my second chance mate, the bond singing quietly but happily between us. My body aches in the best way from the night we spent consummating that bond. And my heart… my heart is so full, so overflowing with love, joy, peace, contentment, need and desire, it could burst.But there’s also the second thing. And it cannot be ignored. The bond with Jaxon is gone.I can tell the way you tell when a sound that was always present has finally stopped. Not by hearing silence—silence is just silence. By remembering its particular
Nicolai“Second chance mate.” Skye whispers, that same wonder from earlier coloring her tone. But there’s a question there too. One she hesitates to voice out loud, but I can see the wheels turning in her mind all the same. “If this is truly a mate bond, why didn’t it happen the moment I saw you after rejecting Jaxon?” She finally asks,“I’m not sure.” I answer honestly. “But I’ve heard some bonds don’t actually sever completely after a rejection. Sometimes it takes time for the last remnants to fade away. Maybe your wolf needed that bit of extra time while you were napping to let it all go, to make way for a new bond.”Skye stares back at me wide-eyed. Neither of us speaks immediately, which is its own kind of acknowledgment. Two people who don't have the reflexive impulse to fill silence letting this particular silence be what it is. A mate bond solidifying between us. Not like she described the bond with Jaxon—I've heard her description of that, the sudden overwhelming snap of so
NicolaiI know the approximate time Skye and Jaxon’s Rejection ceremony is scheduled. I told myself I wouldn't watch the clock. I am watching the clock.When the door opens and Skye comes in—still in the dress she wore to the garden, her hair slightly wind-touched—I read her face the way I read everything that matters to me: completely, before she's spoken, taking inventory of every small signal before I respond. She looks different.I'd prepared for her to be devastated. Had prepared myself to be exactly what she needed, to respond to whatever she brought back—grief, relief, shock, any combination. I'd been ready to hold her through the physical aftermath or the emotional one or both simultaneously.But she doesn't look devastated. She actually looks lighter. Scraped clean in the way that isn't damage but its opposite—Like she’s set down something she’s been carrying for so long she stopped noticing the weight. Something about the set of her shoulders is different. Something about how
SkyeJaxon finds me later that morning. I'm changing Benji—the full production version, the one that involves a change of clothes due to circumstances I’d rather not rehash—when I hear his footsteps in the hallway.He appears in the nursery doorway. Not Nicolai, who I was expecting. Not even Dimitri. Jaxon. Who I was definitely not expecting and not sure I’m ready to see after last night’s deliberations. He looks at me, then at Benji, and there's a moment where he almost offers to help with whatever chaos is currently happening on the changing table. He doesn't. He reads the room correctly—I've got it—and stays in the doorway."Can we talk?" he says. "Privately. When you have a moment."He's not performing anything. He's just standing there with the expression that's been on his face for months—the one that exists in the half-second before he manages himself. The honest one."Okay," I say. "Let me get Rena to take Benji. Give me fifteen minutes."I suggest we go sit in the garden. Out
JaxonI'm reviewing boring border reports, trying not to think about Skye, our baby, or basically anything else about my messed up life, when my Beta knocks on the open office door."You have a visitor," Noah says. His expression tells me everything before the words do. Whoever it is, I don’t want t
SkyeNicolai doesn't want me to see my sister. He says this quietly, his hands still at my waist, his voice controlled. "There's no obligation. I can have her removed."I lean back to look in his eyes and what I find makes my breath catch. There’s an inferno burning in them, promising a fiery death
SkyeSeven months pregnant, and I've stopped counting the days until I "go back." Back to where, exactly? I’m not sure anymore. I vaguely recall I had a plan for my life once the threat was dealt with, but it all seems so hazy now. Because this is my life now. Living here at Nicolai’s estate. The w
Jaxon"I need backup," I told Noah when I called him last night. "Moral support," I said.What I really need is someone to stop me from doing something stupid when I see Skye and Nicolai together. Something more stupid than last time, that is. Noah agreed without asking for more explanation. He's b







