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Jaxon I went to Nicolai's office a few days ago to ask him something. I don't remember now what it was. Something unimportant—something about Benji's schedule, maybe, or a question about the estate's arrangement for the week. Something that required a thirty-second conversation and I had nothing better to do so I chose that moment to seek him out.I’d give anything to have that moment back now, to make a different decision. To find something else to do. I heard sounds before I arrived but didn’t fully register them, just assumed it meant he was there. I walked the last few feet to his door and stopped cold. The door wasn't fully shut, leaving a crack wide enough to see into the room clearly. I wish I could unsee what I saw. I haven't been able to stop seeing it since.I should have stepped back immediately. I know that. Knew it within the first second, the way you know something before your mind has fully caught up to your body's understanding of a situation. But my wolf reacted.No
SkyeJust when I think I’ve seen all sides of the man that is Nicolai Woolf, he’ll show me another part of himself no one but me gets to see. Tonight, for example, he made love to me for hours. Not urgent—not the over-the-desk version, not the I need you right now and the door can take care of itself version. The unhurried kind. The kind that leaves me feeling utterly and thoroughly worshipped.Afterward, lying in the dark with his arms around me, I feel something warm dripping down my cheek. A drop lands on his chest and I feel the moment he registers it.“Why are you crying?” He growls, his arms tightening around me and his heart beating faster, like he’s suddenly on high alert, ready to slay whatever evil has dared upset me. "I didn't know it could be like this." I say on a choked sob. Then, “embarrassed I’m actually crying after sex, “Can we just pretend I’m not crying? It must be the post-pregnancy hormones still fluctuating.”He sits up against the headboard, pulling me with him
SkyeI used to think desire was something other people had. Not that I lacked it entirely—I understood it in theory, had felt versions of it at various points. But the particular kind I'd read about in the novels I'd been consuming since I was a teenager, the kind that lives in the body and doesn't require coaxing or telling yourself that this is fine, this is enough—I had filed that away. Not with grief, exactly. More with the pragmatism of someone who's learned to want what's available.I had not expected to ever feel the kind of desire you read about in romance novels. I had not expected Nicolai. Case in point: earlier today, in his office.I'd gone in to ask him something—I can't remember now what it was. Something mundane. And what happened instead was that I ended up with my back against the wall and then on his desk, and his voice in my ear was low and filthy in the specific way he is when he's past controlling anything, and we were—I lose the thread of what I was about to th
NicolaiAlone in my office is where I do my best thinking. I should be working. But more and more, the work doesn’t hold my attention the way it used to. Today, I find myself thinking about when I first wanted Skye. Not recently. It was much further back than that.We knew each other as children—our fathers' alliance brought our families together at gatherings I mostly remember as tedious. Skye was twelve. I was fifteen. She was entirely unimpressed with me, which I found startling at the time, because most people at that age had already learned to perform deference around the Woolf heir.She hadn't gotten the memo."You're not as interesting as everyone says," she told me once, with the devastating honesty of a twelve-year-old. "You just stand there looking serious."I'd been startled. Then, within a year, I found it funny, the way she never fed my ego or sugar-coated things for me. Then, years later, she became something else entirely—the girl who saw past whatever performance I'd a
NicolaiEvery time I look at Skye, I’m struck again with awe at how completely she’s changed my world. I've stared death in the face and walked away smiling. I’ve brought powerful Alphas to their knees and laughed as they begged for their life. My days were filled with decisions that ended careers, ended businesses, ended—on a small number of occasions—considerably more than that.I am not, generally, a man who struggles with other people occupying space near me. I note their presence, calculate how much of a problem they’re likely to be, and decide how to handle it. Then I move on with my day. Jaxon Vale has been in my house for nine days, and I am discovering that this requires considerably more of me than I anticipated.Take this morning for example. I'm up early, so Skye doesn’t have to be—Benji had a difficult night, the kind that wears down even her considerable resilience, and I let her sleep through the morning feeding because Rena has formula prepared and I'm capable of hold
Skye Nicolai and I make no effort to conceal our relationship from Jaxon—neither of us changes behavior because he is in the house. Nicolai doesn’t sneak in and out of my bedroom, hiding the fact that he sleeps there every night. The times when I'm in Nicolai's office and the door is closed and nobody needs to interpret what that means. It’s our life, not a dirty secret, and we live it openly. Still, I watch Jaxon watch this and feel something that isn't quite guilt. Guilt would require that I'd done something wrong. I haven't. He made choices. I made choices. Both things are true simultaneously and don't cancel each other out.But the not-quite-guilt persists anyway, because I'm human enough—wolf enough—to register when something causes pain for someone in proximity. Even if it's the right pain. Even if it's the consequence of their own decisions."Does it bother you?" I asked Nicolai directly, two nights ago. "Watching him watch us."Nicolai considered this. He always actually cons
JaxonCassandra admits the original test was faked. She'd bribed the lab technician. Not a complex bribe—just money, and enough of it. The technician has since moved abroad, which was part of their deal.She always knew Liam wasn’t mine. Knew since before he was born. Knew when she came back to Iron
JaxonI'm reviewing boring border reports, trying not to think about Skye, our baby, or basically anything else about my messed up life, when my Beta knocks on the open office door."You have a visitor," Noah says. His expression tells me everything before the words do. Whoever it is, I don’t want t
SkyeNicolai doesn't want me to see my sister. He says this quietly, his hands still at my waist, his voice controlled. "There's no obligation. I can have her removed."I lean back to look in his eyes and what I find makes my breath catch. There’s an inferno burning in them, promising a fiery death
SkyeSeven months pregnant, and I've stopped counting the days until I "go back." Back to where, exactly? I’m not sure anymore. I vaguely recall I had a plan for my life once the threat was dealt with, but it all seems so hazy now. Because this is my life now. Living here at Nicolai’s estate. The w







