005

BLADE

I never thought I would see one again.

Not a female. Not in my lifetime. Every wolf I knew had grown up on the same story: they were gone, all of them. A bedtime tale. A loss we carried like a stone in the chest.

And now one was sitting in my bedroom.

It felt like a nightmare. The kind I didn't want to wake up from, which made it worse.

I paced my office from the window to the desk and back again. My wolf wouldn't settle. He kept dragging my mind up the stairs, down the hall, to the door I had locked behind me.

Locked. I'd actually locked my own bedroom door from the outside, like she was a prisoner and I was the one with something to lose.

She hadn't answered a single question. Not how she'd survived, not where she lived, not whether there were others. Only that sharp little chin lifting at me and those eyes burning holes through my skin.

I had faced down rival alphas. I had walked into fights where the odds were three to one. None of it had ever made me feel the way one stubborn woman did when she said that's a lot of questions and turned her back on me.

The most difficult creature I had ever met.

"Alpha?"

I stopped mid-step.

Eric stood in the doorway, one hand still on the frame. His brows were pulled tight. "Are you alright?"

I looked at him for a long moment. He was my beta. He had bled beside me more times than I could count. I trusted him with my pack and with my life.

I did not trust him with this.

"Everyone will be damned," I said slowly, "if they hear what I'm about to say."

His eyes sharpened. "What is it?"

My mouth opened.

Then I shut it.

"Just focus on what you're doing, Eric."

His jaw shifted like he wanted to argue. He didn't. He nodded once and stepped aside, and I walked past him without another word.

I headed for the kitchen. The corridors were quiet, but it was the kind of quiet I'd grown used to, the kind that came when I walked into a room. Warriors straightened and dropped their heads, Someone bowed so low I thought his forehead would hit the floor. Nobody looked at my face. Nobody even seemed to breathe until I'd passed.

It had never bothered me before.

The kitchen smelled like roasted meat and herbs. The staff froze when I walked in, and the clatter of pots died all at once.

"Who's the cook?"

A broad man stepped forward from the back, wiping his hands on his apron, and bowed. "Alpha. What can I get for you?"

"Food." I thought about it, and then I thought about how thin she'd looked under my shirt. How her ribs had shown when she'd breathed. "Plenty of it. Dish it out. All of it."

He didn't ask questions. That was why he still had his job. In minutes there was a tray stacked with meat, bread, roasted vegetables, a bowl of something steaming. It looked enough to feed four men.

"I can carry it for you, Alpha," he offered.

I growled low in my throat. He took a step back.

"Don't worry about it."

I took the tray myself and left, ignoring the way the whole kitchen stared after me. Their alpha, carrying his own dinner. It would be all over the pack by morning.

I didn't care.

The tray was warm in my hands as I climbed the stairs. By the time I reached my door, I realized my heart was beating faster than it had in the fight at the border last month. Over a door.

I put my key in the lock. I turned it. I stepped inside and locked it again behind me, tight enough that no one could come through.

"I brought food. You should—"

I stopped.

The room was dark except for the light spilling in from the window. The bed was a mess. The sheets were twisted, one pillow thrown to the floor.

And she was on it.

Sprawled across my bed on her back, one arm flung over her head, the other hanging off the edge. My shirt had ridden up. Her hair had come loose, a wild red-orange tangle across the pillow. Her mouth was slightly open.

And she was snoring.

A small, rough little sound that came with every breath.

I stood there, holding a tray of food enough for four men, and stared at her.

A quiet chuckle slipped out of me before I could stop it.

The same woman who'd threatened to gouge out my eyes. Who had kicked me and bit me and sworn she belonged to no one. She'd climbed into the alpha's bed, in the alpha's room, behind the alpha's locked door, and gone to sleep like she hadn't a worry in the world.

It was a sight.

I set the tray down on the table as softly as I could. I don't know why I was being quiet. I only knew I didn't want her to wake up yet.

My boots made almost no sound on the floor. My wolf was practically purring, which I would deny to my grave.

I stopped at the edge of the bed and bent down.

Up close, she was even worse for my self-control. Her hair wasn't just red. It was red and orange together and a few strands clung to her cheek. Her skin was flushed from sleep. Her lashes lay dark against it. Her face was beautiful in a way I hadn't expected, too soft for someone who'd spat fire at me an hour ago.

Her lips were full and slightly parted.

My throat went dry.

I leaned closer, my hand braced on the mattress beside her head.

Then my eyes drifted lower.

I reached out carefully. My fingers brushed the outside of one thigh, then the other. I eased her legs apart curiously. She didn’t wake. Just a soft shift of breath.

I lifted one of her knees a little higher, opening her further. I knew i shouldn’t be doing this but I was curious to see what a female truly looked like down there.

My breath locked in my chest.

Her slit stared straight up at me. Soft and bare. A faint sheen already clung to the folds, like her body knew I was looking even while she slept. My cock thickened hard and fast behind my zipper. Heat slammed through me so sharp it almost hurt.

I dragged the shirt higher, up over her hips, exposing everything. That pretty little cunt fully open to my eyes now. She mumbled something low in her sleep and shifted, one leg falling wider. The movement made her folds part just enough that I saw the tighter entrance beneath.

Her scent hit me next.

Sweet. Warm, heavy with sleep and something richer underneath—arousal, faint but real. It filled my lungs and went straight to my head. My wolf surged hard against my ribs, growling low in the back of my mind.

Claim her.

Mate her.

Now.

I dragged in another breath through my teeth. My hands settled on her thighs, thumbs stroking the soft inner skin. Higher. Closer. Until the pads of my fingers brushed the outer edges of her folds. Heat radiated off her. She was warm and slick even in sleep. My cock throbbed once, heavy and demanding.

I wanted to push those thighs wider. Wanted to lower my mouth and taste her until she woke up gasping. Wanted to bury myself inside that soft heat and mark her so deep no one else would ever get close.

My fingertips slipped higher, tracing the seam of her.

A sharp knock cut through the room.

“Alpha.” My beta’s voice came through the door, tight. “There’s a problem.”