CHAPTER 121

Seraphina's POVI kissed him. I put my hands on his face and pulled his mouth down to mine and I kissed him with my eyes open and my feet on the ground and the full weight of everything we'd been through sitting between our lips. He made a sound into my mouth, low and rough, and his hands came up and hovered at my waist without touching, trembling in the air beside my hips, waiting.I grabbed his wrists and put his hands on my waist and the contact went through me like fire. His fingers tightened on the fabric and I gasped against his mouth and he swallowed the sound. His tongue found mine and I tasted him and my knees buckled and he caught me."I've got you," he said against my mouth."Don't say things like that.""Why?""Because I might believe you."His hands slid up my sides over the shift and his thumbs traced the curve of my ribs and my skin was burning under the fabric and I bit his bottom lip and he growled, the real kind, the one that came from Ruin, and my wolf answered with

CHAPTER 122

Seraphina's POVHis mouth found me again and this time he didn't tease. His tongue pressed flat against the bundle of nerves and he sucked gently and slid two fingers inside me at the same time and I came so hard my vision went silver and my legs gave out completely.He caught me and lowered me onto the bed with his fingers still inside me and his mouth still on me working me through every wave until I was shaking and gasping and pulling his hair and the silver light was pouring off my skin in pulses."Get up here," I said, and my voice was barely a whisper. "Get up here now."He stood up and I pulled him onto the bed and pushed his shirt off and the bandage on his side was white against his skin and his stomach was lean and hard and I pushed him onto his back and he went without fighting."Take these off," I said, pulling at his pants, and he lifted his hips and I pulled them down and he was thick and hard and straining and the sight of him made the ache between my legs sharpen into

CHAPTER 123

Seraphina's POV"You should stay exactly where you are for the rest of your life."I laughed. A real laugh, small and surprised and rusty from months of not using it and the sound startled both of us and he pulled back and looked at my face and his eyes were wide."You laughed," he said."Don't make a big deal out of it.""You laughed. I made you laugh. That hasn't happened since—""Since the study. When you knocked the ink bottle off the desk and it went everywhere and you looked at me like a puppy that had peed on the floor.""I didn't look like a puppy.""You looked exactly like a puppy. A six-foot-four Alpha puppy covered in black ink trying to explain to your Luna why your reports were ruined."His face had gone soft and warm and amazed and he said "I would ruin every piece of paper in Blackthorn to hear that sound again."I kissed him to shut him up and the kiss started soft and turned deep and his hands were in my hair and I was still in his lap and he was hardening inside me a

CHAPTER 124

Seraphina's POV I walked south from Rena's pack with the mask on and his scent fading behind me and the dawn cold on my skin and every step I took away from that bed was harder than the last.My body still ached from the night. Between my legs was sore and warm and my skin still smelled like him under the smoke and ash of the mask and every time the wind shifted I caught a trace of pine and iron on my clothes and my wolf whined and pressed forward and the bond pulled north and I kept walking south.I'd told him I'd come back. I'd told him it was a plan. But first I had a door to walk through that I'd been standing outside for longer than any hallway in a border pack, and it was waiting for me in Greymist.The territory came into view on the second day. I knew it before I saw it because the smell hit me on the wind, old pines and cold water and the musty thick scent of a pack that hadn't changed in twenty years.The trees and the ridgeline and the stone wall running along the northern

CHAPTER 125

Seraphina's POVThe words came out flat and cold and my mother's hands stopped in the air between us and her face crumbled and my father stood up from the bench and his carving fell to the ground and he took a step toward me and stopped when he saw my face."Inside," I said. "Both of you. Now."They went. My mother walked into the house on shaking legs and my father followed her and I followed him and the door closed behind us.The house smelled exactly the way I remembered, old wood and cooking herbs and the faint trace of Octavia's perfume still clinging to the walls after all these months because they hadn't cleaned out her room or opened her windows or done anything to erase the ghost of their favorite daughter.The kitchen table was the same one we'd eaten at as children. I sat on one side and they sat on the other and my mother was crying and my father was staring at his hands and neither of them could look at me for more than a second before their eyes dropped."How long have y

CHAPTER 126

Seraphina's POV"No. You're going to hear all of it. You're going to sit in these chairs and hear what happened to your daughter while you were pulling weeds and carving wood and pretending she didn't exist."I told them about the breeding camp. The posts and the ropes and the dirt floor. I told them about Maren and the apple tree and the fire and the beam falling on her while she held the door. I told them about the refugee road and standing fifty feet from Dax with his baby in my belly and watching him close the gate. I told them about the barn and the blood and the ten seconds and the silence after.I told them about the mask and the smoke and ash and the woman who walked into a plague camp and put her hands on dying wolves because she had nothing left to lose.I told them about the name the packs gave her and how the children said "she's not a demon to us, she's a demon to the things that hurt us" and how their daughter had become a legend and they'd missed all of it because they