Pleading, drugging kisses.

In a way, it’s our first time. In all ways, it’s the last.

“Koen,” I exhale. I want to explain to him that he’s rebuilding me from the inside out, molding me into a more solid, resilient shape. But I can’t. Not when he looks up with a stupefied expression, like the existence of me, of what we’re doing, is something he hadn’t taken into consideration. Like I make the world a different place.

“Koen,” I repeat, coming, clutching wetly around his length.

Still twitching with pleasure, I lean over. We kiss, long, leisurely, incriminating. Messy and deep.

“Koen,” I say again.

He remains silent. No words— just the rasp of his breathing, his parted lips, and everything left unsaid trapped behind them. But it’s good, the quiet. It gives me a chance to say the one thing I’ve been holding back. To lean over and whisper in his ear, “I love you. And I’m never going to stop, no matter what.”

I come again, and he comes, too, knot swelling, the pleasure sharper than a knife, slicing right through us. Irreparable damage that doesn’t hurt enough. Koen’s grip notches against me, leaving marks the size of his fingers in my flesh. He is a sting of wordless noises and unseeing eyes, wide with something I cannot comprehend.

He never says that he loves me, but it’s written all over my skin.

CHAPTER 35

His duties, the one to his pack and the one to his mate, should be tearing him in two. And yet he has never felt more intact than he does right now.

THE FIRST THING AMANDA TELLS ME IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, when I emerge from Koen’s empty cabin, is a firm “Don’t.”

“Hello to you, too.” I bend down to pet Twinkles, laughing at the enthusiastic wag of his tail. “Don’t . . . ?”

“Dwell on the intrusive thought that everyone knows the nasty shit you and Koen have been doing to each other for the past few days.”

I stop dead. “I wasn’t going to.” Until now.

“Good. Keep it that way. Koen’s inner circle is very happy that Mommy and Daddy got it on.”

I have so many questions about that, I decide to ask none. I take a resigned seat on the porch, enjoying the way Twinkles curls up against me, the breeze caressing my skin.

I want more of this. I want to explore the cliffs and the shores as a wolf. I want to go for a run. My cells itch for it.

“Are you . . .” Amanda eyes me, circumspect. “All intact? I know Heats can be, um, tempestuous situations. He didn’t . . . ?”

“Mommy did not hurt Daddy. Or vice versa,” I say dryly. “What about you? How was it, being substitute Alpha?”

She groans. “Not much happened. The worst of it was a dispute between a twelve-year-old who kept kicking his soccer ball in his neighbors’ yard, and the elderly curmudgeon who decided to burn it. The parents intervened, then the entire village, and it got blown way out of proportion.”

“Exciting. Who did you side with?”

“That’s the thing of being Alpha— you don’t side. You mediate. You fix. You have the authority to make people stop doing stupid shit, but it takes a while to cement that. Koen? He snaps his fingers, calls everyone a cumbucket, and everything runs smoothly. Me? Pack members push back. They whine. They need to be cajoled, and I’m not cut out for it. Jorma can take over, if he wants.”

“Fascinating.” At the very least, this explains Koen’s utter bewilderment when things dare to not go his way. “Anything else? Are Nele and the Humans okay?”

“They are. Nele said she’d love to talk soon.”

“Cool. Maybe I could— ” A sharp thwack interrupts me. I tense. Track Twinkles with my eyes as he runs behind the cabin to investigate.

“Oh, it’s just Koen. He went for a run and now he’s chopping wood.”

My heart flickers. “Thought he was gone.” I rise to my feet, flushing at how unceremoniously I’m ditching Amanda. “Is it okay if I . . . go say hi to him?” Her smirk is so knowing, I stop feeling bad for her.

Koen’s right there, by the shop, and it all mushes together for me— the strain on his thick muscles as he swings the ax; the scent of pines; the sheen of sweat on his shirtless chest, trickling into the waistband of his jeans. He’s breathing hard but doesn’t stop to take a break.

I observe him for a while, wondering whether it’s normal, feeling— feeling so much about a single person. Surely, it’s unfair. Surely, a love this deep should be reserved for the universe as a whole. But what if, to me, he’s the linchpin? What if he’s the stitch that keeps it all together?

Is this what finding a mate feels like? Is it possible that—

“Everything okay?” he asks without looking my way.

My heart trips all over itself. “Yeah.” Deep breath. Good. “So, you do chop wood.”

He turns, mouth twitching. “Occasionally. This is for the Humans.” He shifts his grip on the ax, lodges it in the splitting block in a single smooth movement, and stands there, arms at his sides.

What would he do if I went to hug him? I picture his hand, coming up to cradle my head. His heartbeat under my cheek. The enveloping quality of being in his presence. It’s all so vivid.

But I can’t. There were conditions. We signed off on them.

The breeze breathes through the trees. A too-long silence ticks by. I briefly avert my eyes, and he does the same. There’s a tic in his jaw, and I’m wringing my hands.

“If— ” I start, just as he says, “You— ”

We stop. His lips curl into a smile. Mine don’t. This territory, it’s uncharted.

“You first,” he says.

“Right. Thanks.” I don’t know why my throat feels like it’s seizing up. “The business with the Vampyres . . . is it over?”

“Owen cleaned up the council,” he says evenly. “There no longer is a bounty on you and Ana.”

“Good. Yeah, I . . . Good. In that case . . .” Why am I having to remind myself that this is precisely what I wanted? “I no longer have my phone, because of the . . . Can I borrow yours? I need to get in touch with Nele and . . . and Misery. We need to figure out . . . well.” My turn to smile. Koen’s mouth tightens. “Everything.”

He nods, like yes, of course, he’s going to hand me his phone. But says, “C’mere, killer.”

I hang back, unsure.

“Serena. Come.”

This time I go. Stop a foot away from him. Pretend his scent doesn’t feel like home, like a blanket, like he’s holding me already, and that my heart doesn’t drop into my stomach as he says, “I’m going to step down.”

I ask, “From what?” But I already know, so I don’t give him time to answer. “Why?” Regrettably, I already know that, too. That only leaves me with “You can’t.”

“See, that’s the thing about being Alpha. I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

“Are you— Please tell me you are joking.”

“While I’m widely known for my prankster personality and comedic timing, no. I’m not joking. Not about this.”

“You . . . We talked about this.” I sound shrill. “The pack is too important to you. And you are necessary to the pack.”

“Things have changed.”

“Things— nothing has changed. You love the Northwest more than anything.”

“Not more than anything, Serena.”

His words are like a rock in my gut, sinking further by the second. I’m surprised I’m still upright. “You can’t,” I whisper. “You don’t have a successor picked out.”

“I’ll wait until the situation with Irene is resolved,” he says, like he has a plan. “Then one of my seconds will take over.”

“Who?”

“Amanda is the most— ”

“Amanda doesn’t want to be Alpha. And she’s not established like you— people would challenge her.”

“She can win any challenge.”

“All of them? Are you sure? Because it would only take one loss, and she’d be dead. And even if she does win, what about Saul? They’re off now, but who knows when they’ll be on again?”

His lips flatten. “Whoever takes over, it wouldn’t have to be permanent. And we will stick around. I can act as an advisor for a while.”