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If we had that long.

Beyond these walls, six operatives in red cloaks were moving through the dark toward us. Tomorrow, the Crimson Order would come for her. For me. For my pack.

Ruby’s breathing slowed and evened out against my chest. Her fingers twitched once in sleep and then relaxed.

I held my mate in my arms and didn’t close my eyes. Not yet.

Let them come.

They wouldn’t lay a finger on her. I’d tear apart anyone who tried.

RUBY

Iwoke surrounded by warmth. Not from the blanket or a fire, but body heat.

Conan.

His warmth, all along my back, solid and steady, and a heavy arm draped across my waist. His breath, low and steady, in my ear.

A smile crept on my lips. When had I ever woken up like this? So warm and protected. I nestled back against him, relishing the heat of his skin everywhere it touched mine. This was how I wanted to wake up every morning. It didn’t matter where I was, as long as I was with him.

At some point in the night, we’d made it up the ladder. I remembered it in pieces. The fire burning down to embers. His voice low in my ear, asking if I was cold. Climbing up ahead of him with the blanket around my shoulders, and him laughing softly behind me when I missed a rung, and he touched my calf to steady me. Then his bed, which smelled like him. His strong arms closed around me. And after that, nothing but sleep. Deep, dreamless sleep, the blissful kind I hadn’t had since I was a child.

I lay still and let myself enjoy it. Gray light seeped in through the shutter slats. The loft ceiling sloped down a few feet above my head.

How had this happened?

How had we gotten here?

That first night, I’d lain awake by the hearth with a knife beside my hand, listening to him breathe in this very loft. I’d told myself I was tracking my target. Gathering information. That was the operational truth.

The other truth was that I’d been cold and lonely in a way I’d never let myself name, and some part of me had wondered what it would be like to climb that ladder and lie down beside him.

Now I knew.

Last night came back to me in flashes that heated my face. His mouth on my neck, my thighs, everywhere. The way he’d held me down with one arm while he took me apart with his tongue, slow and thorough, as if he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it on me. The sounds I’d made. I’d never made sounds like that in my life. The stretch of him inside me. The way he’d looked at me when he did it, like I was someone precious to him.

And his teeth.

My pulse kicked. I pressed my hand flat against the side of my neck, where his canines had grazed my skin. I’d felt them lengthen against my throat, piercing and hot, and every instinct I’d been trained to have should have screamed threat. Instead, a thrill had shot through me so fierce it had frightened me more than any blade ever had.

The teeth of a predator.

To mark you. Make you mine.

The teeth of a wolf to mark his mate.

Wolves and humans didn’t mate. Not that I’d ever heard. Yet here I was, wrapped in a wolf’s arms, and some part of me that I didn’t understand had leaned toward that bite instead of away from it.

I was drawn to him in a way I couldn’t explain.

Toward a wolf. A sworn enemy.

But everything I’d ever been told was a lie.

Except for what Conan had said. He told me the truth, no matter how brutal or painful.

Lying here now, I wondered whether my hesitation had been wisdom at all. Or whether I’d simply flinched.