Chapter 49-1
Kiana
Begging.
Claim
I never thought I’d live to see the day. Never thought I’d hear that voice tremble like it carried grief
instead of command.
I wanted to stay angry. I tried to. Fury had been my armor, my shield, my only damn company some nights. But not when he looked at me like I was the only thing left keeping him alive. Not when he said those words with all that broken gravel in his throat.
The fight drained out of me, slow and inevitable.
Quietly, I walked toward him. With the alphas gone, his wolf had curled in, retreated somewhere inside him. Troy didn’t look like Wolfspire’s brutal protector. He looked tired. Human. Mine.
Climbing into his lap, I tucked my head against his chest, listening for the heartbeat I already knew
by rhythm.
Still strong. Still steady. Still beating…for me.
I laid a hand there, feeling its pulse through my palm.
Intimacy was never my strong suit. And maybe it was unfair to expect him to know how to give what I didn’t know how to ask for.
But I could try, too.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, the words soft and clumsy, but true. “We’ll keep working at it.”
“Thank fuck,” he growled, his arms tightening around me like I was his anchor. Like he’d let go of everything but this.
We stayed in that silence, wrapped in exhaustion and ache, until the quiet felt heavier than my
chest could take.
“Lunessa may cause problems.”
“True.”
“But if she hadn’t shown up when she did, Finn would be dead. Maybe you as well.”
“Also true.”
If the other alphas found out, they would be even more suspicious. Morven had done an excellent
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<Chapter 49-1
job in fostering a hostile environment. “What will you do about Bridget’s treachery?”
Claim
Troy tensed under me, but we needed to make a plan. “I’ll need to tell Jenson and Amelia. Otherwise, I’ll need to keep her disappearance quiet. No need to give the other alphas any more ammunition against us. Afterward, I will deal with replacing her.”
His voice was clipped in anger. Bridget’s betrayal cut him deeply. It would take some time for that
to heal.
“I’ll assign Amelia to you. I want you to visit Finn tomorrow and see if he has anything to add. Then
take Amelia back to the spot where Bridget and Dean met and see what else they might have
buried. When the alphas are gone, I’ll see to it that the cause of Parker’s death is rectified.”
Silence overtook us as I closed my eyes and tried to relax. Troy was warm beneath me. We weren’t
the most comfortable bit, but the moment helped me feel a little more whole again.
“I could feel you inside me,” he murmured, voice low, almost reverent. “It was… strange. For one terrifying moment when I thought I would die from the oozing pestilence inside me, I felt you absorbing it. Sucking it through the mating bond and drawing it out of me.”
“Best sucking you’ve ever had in your life, then?” I quipped, because his awe was making my skin itch in all the wrong places. Uncomfortable Kiana had a tendency to get inappropriate-especially
when feelings came knocking
“Kiana,” he growled, a warning in his throat. “Really?”
I shrugged, grinning. “Well, if you say you’ve had better, I might need to level up my technique.”
“I’m trying to have a serious conversation.”
I leaned on the back of his chair and eased myself into his lap, straddling him slow enough to make my point. “And yet, you’re hard as a rock.”
Growling, he caged my waist with his hands and pulled me more snugly against his erection.
“And whose fault is that?”
“Mine,” I said sweetly. He grew even harder at that word making my smirk widen.
“You sound proud.”
“I am,” I said, chin tilted. “Just a little. But also… I’m guessing you’re too weak to do anything about this problem. Lucky for you, I’m very generous with my services. I’d be happy to-”
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