Chapter 6: Guard Your Guard

Danielle POV

"Hey babe, are you okay," he said, and I startled.

Babe. The word echoed strange in my ear — the same tone Jacob used to use, except this wasn't Jacob. This was Jackson. And Danielle's diary never once mentioned him calling her that.

"Did you just call me babe?" I asked, my voice sharper than I meant it to be.

Guilt flickered across his face, quick, like he hadn't meant to let it slip. "Look — for the whole five years we've been married, I haven't been good enough to you. I know that. I'm sorry. Truly. Out of everyone, you're the one who actually stole my heart. You know that, right?"

I didn't know that. How could I? Rachel had no business knowing the private wreckage of Danielle's marriage.

"I'll try to forgive you," I said, setting the diary down against my chest, rising toward the bed, "but don't get your hopes up."

A hand caught mine. Firm. Unyielding.

I gasped and turned — slowly, carefully, like sudden movement might break whatever this was.

He was breathtaking in a way that made my throat go dry. Spiked hair, sharp and deliberate, framing eyes so blue they looked lit from behind. My fingers lost the diary entirely; it dropped to the bed as my palm found his chest instead, betraying me before my mind caught up.

He leaned in. The air between us thickened, charged, dangerous.

His groan, low and involuntary, did something to me I refused to name.

Perfect jawline. That single slit through his eyebrow. He pulled me in like gravity had chosen a side.

His breath was minty, close, his hand settling at my waist with a possessiveness that made my pulse stutter, then race — three beats for every one it should've had.

Then a sharp sound. Claws, unsheathed, glinting between us.

Am I doomed? What if he kills me too, the way Jacob did?

My eyes went wide, but instead of pulling away, I fisted the collar of his evening shirt and pulled him closer anyway. Traitor. My own body, a traitor.

Our lips met — tight, gentle, then not gentle at all. Smooth, then bruising, then smooth again, like he couldn't decide which version of me he wanted more.

Fear and pleasure tangled together when his claw grazed my throat. A thin line of blood welled up. I should have been terrified.

I wasn't.

The sound he made, breathing me in, wasn't shame. It was hunger. And when his mouth left mine for my neck — sucking, deliberate, claiming — the moan that tore out of me wasn't something I chose. It just happened.

He lifted me clean off the floor. My legs wrapped around him on instinct, needy, possessive in a way that scared me more than the claws had. His hands found my waist, gripping, pulling me flush against him as he laid me back against the sheets and peeled off his shirt.

His chest was carved, deliberate, every line of muscle looking like it had been built for exactly this — for war, for worship, for both. He undid his belt slowly, sweat tracing down his temple, and grinned like he already knew how this ended.

"Looks like you missed this already, Danielle."

The words hit somewhere low in my stomach.

He leaned over me, face inches from mine, and then his mouth was on mine again — hard, certain, claiming something I hadn't agreed to give.

Was I really doing this?

He hooked a hand behind my knee, drawing my leg against his hip, kissing lower, and lower still, deliberate, worshipful, like I belonged to him already.

I did.

This is wrong.

Danielle's diary was full of nights like this with Jackson. But I wasn't Danielle. Not really. And somewhere back in another life, another death, I had a husband already — even if that husband had let me die.

Why am I even thinking about the murderer? Not again. Not this time.

I shook the thought loose and came back to the moment — to Jackson's mouth trailing lower, to each brush of his lips lighting something dangerous under my skin. Lust, unmistakable, unwelcome, curling low and insistent.

This had to stop. Now. Before I lost the thread of who I was.

"Wow. Very well, Jackson," I said — steady, not breathless, deliberately flat.

He lifted his head, eyes still dark with wanting, waiting for more.

"Wow," I said again, letting the words land like blows. "This is quite the welcome for a wife who just woke up from a two-year coma."

The room's temperature dropped.

"The same wife you screamed at for inheriting your father's estate — even though you're his own blood. The same wife you humiliated on WolfChat in front of half the pack. The same one you slapped the day before she went under — because of your mother."

His gaze turned to ice. Something flickered behind his eyes — not guilt exactly, something colder.

The smirk that had been pure hunger a moment ago twisted into something unreadable. He rose without a word and lay beside me instead, silent.

I exhaled. Relief, sharp and immediate.

He wasn't a good husband to Danielle. That much was carved into every page of that diary. But underneath the coldness, I kept catching glimpses of something else. Remorse, maybe. Or guilt he didn't know how to spend.

I slid the diary back onto the shelf and returned to bed, resting my arm across his chest, feeling the steady drum of his heartbeat beneath my palm.

Something shifted in his expression — unreadable, but soft. Relief, maybe, mirroring mine.

Reluctantly, his arm came around me, and we drifted off like that, tangled and silent.

---

"Miss Carmen, breakfast is ready," the maid said the next morning, the same one who'd handed me the diary. She bowed and left.

I dressed quickly and came downstairs to find four women seated with Jackson and his mother. Felicia was among them — the woman I suspected had put me in that coma in the first place.

The table was dead silent. Not a fork clinked.

I took my seat across from Jackson, and Felicia gave me a smirk that curled at the edges — devilish, knowing.

Then I caught it: the old woman's subtle glance toward Jackson. He nodded, almost imperceptibly, and rose to fetch someone waiting just outside.

A tall man in a suit and shades stepped in, and grinned the moment he saw me.

"Danielle, this is Elias. Mr. Carmen's orders — he's your personal bodyguard."

He removed his shades, extending a hand.

"I don't need a bodyguard," I said, fear threading through my voice despite myself.

"How do I know this isn't another one of your plans to destroy me?"

Elias didn't flinch. He pulled a folded paper from his jacket — a signature, unmistakably David’s.

"Mr. Carmen's orders, ma'am." He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping just enough that the words felt aimed only at me. "He told me to protect you. At all cost."

The phrase hung there, deliberate, weighted — like it meant something none of them were saying out loud.

No one at the table moved. Not Jackson. Not Linda. Not Felicia or the others. The silence stretched, taut.

Elias slid his shades back on, a slow, private smile tugging at his mouth and then he winked at me.

Does he know something about the missing page or the accident. Guess I have a bodyguard now.