Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The heat was gone.

I knew it the second I opened my eyes. The constant, low-grade fire under my skin had finally burned out, leaving only soreness and the heavy, undeniable evidence of everything Riven had done to me. My body felt used. Stretched. Marked. The claim on my neck pulsed with a dull ache, and when I shifted under the furs, a slow trickle of his come slipped out of me.

I was alone in the bed.

For a moment I just lay there, staring at the ceiling of the Alpha’s den, and tried to decide whether the quiet was a mercy or a threat. The bond was still there—steady, warm, possessive—but Riven’s actual presence was missing. I could feel him somewhere nearby, not far, but not watching me for once.

I sat up slowly.

Every muscle protested. My thighs were bruised. My hole felt swollen and sensitive. The oversized shirt he had put on me yesterday was gone; I was completely bare under the furs. His scent clung to my skin like a second claim.

I hated how natural it already felt.

The den door opened. Riven stepped inside carrying a tray, steam rising from a bowl and a cup. He looked unfairly composed for someone who had spent days knotting me into the mattress. Dark pants, no shirt, hair still damp like he had washed while I slept. His eyes found me immediately.

“You’re awake.”

“You left.” My voice came out rough.

“I went to get you food.” He set the tray on the low table near the bed and crossed to me. His gaze dragged over my bare shoulders, the claim mark, the way I was holding the furs around my waist. “Heat’s over. You’ll need to eat properly now.”

I didn’t move toward the tray.

Riven noticed. Of course he did. He stopped at the edge of the bed and looked down at me, expression unreadable.

“You’re going to try to pull away again,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“The heat’s over,” I answered. “You don’t need to keep me in here anymore.”

“I never kept you here because of the heat.” His voice was calm. Final. “I kept you here because you’re mine. That hasn’t changed.”

I tightened my grip on the furs. “I said the words in front of the pack. That doesn’t mean I’m going to spend the rest of my life locked in your den.”

Riven’s eyes darkened.

He reached out, hooked two fingers under my chin, and tilted my face up. The touch was gentle. The look in his eyes was not.

“You’re not locked in,” he said. “You’re claimed. There’s a difference. Today you’re going to bathe, eat, and then you’re going to walk through the pack grounds at my side. People need to see you. They need to smell me on you. They need to understand that the choice you made yesterday was real.”

“And if I refuse?”

His thumb stroked once over my lower lip.

“Then I’ll remind you why you didn’t walk away when I gave you the chance.”

The bond pulsed between us—his certainty pressing against my resistance. I wanted to shove it away. I wanted to tell him that yesterday had been a moment of weakness, that the pack and the pressure and the lingering heat had cornered me. But the words sat on my tongue and refused to come out cleanly.

Because part of me still remembered stepping toward him instead of away.

Riven released my chin and nodded toward the tray.

“Eat. Then we shower. After that, we go outside.”

I stared at the food. My stomach growled, traitorous. I reached for the bowl mostly to have something to do with my hands. Riven watched me the entire time, like he was cataloguing every small surrender.

When I finished, he took the tray away without comment and held out a hand.

“Come.”

I hesitated.

He waited.

The silence stretched until the weight of it became heavier than my pride. I put my hand in his. His fingers closed around mine immediately—warm, strong, absolute—and he pulled me out of the bed.

The shower was not gentle.

Riven washed me himself, large hands moving over every inch of skin like he was relearning what belonged to him. He cleaned between my legs with thorough, deliberate strokes that made my breath hitch, even though the heat was gone. When his fingers brushed my still-sensitive rim, I grabbed his wrist.

“Riven—”

“You’re still carrying me,” he said against my temple. “I want it gone before we walk out there… and then I want to put it back later.”

He turned me to face the wall, braced one hand beside my head, and pushed two fingers into me. I was sore enough that the stretch burned, but my body still opened for him. He worked me open slowly, not to prepare me for sex this time, but to clean what he had left behind. The intimacy of it felt more exposing than any of the times he had fucked me.

When he was satisfied, he washed himself quickly, dried us both, and dressed me in another one of his shirts and a pair of soft pants that still hung too loose on my hips. His scent was everywhere.

At the door, he paused with his hand on the wood.

“Once we step outside, you stay beside me,” he said. “You don’t lower your eyes. You don’t apologize for the claim. And if anyone says something you don’t like, you let me handle it.”

I looked up at him. “And what do you expect me to do? Smile and pretend I’m happy about this?”

Riven’s mouth curved, slow and dark.

“No,” he said. “I expect you to look like what you are. Claimed. Taken. Mine.”

He opened the door.

Sunlight spilled in. The pack grounds waited beyond it—wolves already moving through their morning routines, conversations quieting as they caught sight of us. Riven’s hand settled on the back of my neck, thumb resting over the claim mark in a clear, public gesture of ownership.

I stepped out beside him with my pulse hammering in my throat.

The bond hummed between us, warm and heavy and inescapable.

And for the first time since the heat ended, I realized the real fight wasn’t about escaping the den anymore.

It was about surviving what came next without losing the last pieces of myself.