carried across 99

99 Come Here 

Sera 

Mina kicked me in her sleep. 

Her bare heel hit my ribs hard enough to knock the air completely out of my lungs. I opened my eyes The room was pitch black. The fire in the hearth had died down to a few glowing orange embers, offering 

zero heat. 

I lay flat on my back and listened to Mina’s deep, rhythmic snoring. She was entirely dead to the world. She took up more than half the massive mattress, her limbs sprawled out in every direction. 

I was wide awake. 

The exhaustion in my bones was heavy, but my mind refused to shut down. The adrenaline from the last forty-eight hours still buzzed faintly under my skin. I kept seeing the clay mask peeling off Kael’s face. I kept hearing the sound of his neck snapping. 

I shifted my hips on the mattress. A dull, heavy ache pulsed right between my legs. It was completely physical. It was the lingering, unsatisfied tension from Fenris’s fingers inside me earlier that day. My body felt incredibly tight, strung entirely too high. 

I threw the thick fur blanket off my legs. 

The freezing air in the room hit my bare skin instantly. I wore a thin, white cotton sleep tunic that ended midway down my thighs. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and let my bare feet hit the stone floor. The cold shocked my system, but I didn’t reach for my boots. 

I grabbed a heavy dark wool blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it tightly around my shoulders. 

I walked to the heavy oak door, pushed the iron latch down silently, and stepped out into the corridor. 

The fortress was dead quiet. The torches on the walls had burned down to smoking stumps. I walked down the long, winding stone hallways. The stone was like solid ice under my bare feet. My toes went completely numb within twenty steps. I didn’t care. The freezing temperature kept my mind focused. It kept the phantom smell of the burning pyre away. 

I knew exactly where I was going. 

I walked up the central staircase to the Alpha’s level. There were no guards stationed directly outside his private den. Fenris didn’t allow them up here. 

I saw a thin line of yellow light bleeding out from under his heavy oak door. 

I didn’t knock. I pressed my palm flat against the wood, pushed the iron latch down, and stepped inside. 

The den was incredibly warm. A massive fire roared in the stone hearth, eating through three thick pine logs. 

1/2 

+25 Bonus 

93 There’s Something You Need To See 

Sera 

“I feel like a fraud.” 

I didn’t move. I watched his broad shoulders tense under his tunic. 

“I am the Alpha of this pack,” Fenris continued, his voice thick with a heavy, suffocating torment. “I am sitting on a throne I never wanted. I am wearing my dead brother’s clothes. I am executing his elders.” 

He looked back up at me. His pale grey eyes were completely flooded with guilt. 

“And I am looting what belongs to him,” Fenris said. “Dimitri drafted that treaty. He bought you. He was supposed to build a future with you. When I stand in the same room with you, it feels like an absolute betrayal. It feels like I am digging up his grave and stealing the only piece of his legacy he left behind.” 

He clenched his massive hands into fists at his sides. The leather bracers on his forearms creaked under the strain. 

“But every time I look at you,” Fenris whispered, his voice cracking slightly, “it becomes completely impossible to ignore you. I want you so badly it makes my teeth ache. I want to lock this door and never let you walk out.” 

He was drowning in it. The loyalty to his dead brother and the violent, primal biology of the mate bond were ripping him apart from the inside. 

I didn’t offer a polite southern comfort. I didn’t tell him it was okay. 

I closed the distance. I grabbed the thick lapels of his tunic in both of my hands and pulled him down to my level. 

I kissed him. 

I opened my mouth and kissed him with every ounce of the unyielding want I felt. I pushed my tongue past his teeth. I tasted his sharp intake of breath. 

Fenris completely snapped. 

The guilt shattered. The restraint he had been holding onto for days vanished in a single, violent second. 

He let out a deep, guttural growl that vibrated straight through my chest. His massive hands dropped to the back of my thighs. He gripped the leather of my pants and hoisted me straight up off the stone floor. 

I gasped into his mouth, instinctively wrapping my legs tightly around his thick waist. 

He didn’t break the kiss. He carried me backward across the room. My back slammed hard against the edge of his heavy oak desk. The impact knocked the breath out of my lungs, but his mouth was still completely locked onto mine. He devoured my mouth. His tongue stroked aggressively against mine, mimicking the heavy, downward thrust of his hips against my center. 

1.3 

+25 Bonus