Chapter 187: Nothing Else Matters

Leo’s POV

I thought about the first time my fangs found her…how the world split open and the dark that had been my constant companion for so long recoiled as if burned.

For months I’d been a hollow thing, a shadow walking the edges of myself. I moved through the cage I was locked in that smelled like ash and old blood, craved things that never satisfied me. When she collapsed earlier, when she’d fallen limp against my hand and the scent of her was a whisper in the wind, I felt a part of me disappear with her…like someone had unplugged a lamp and left me in pitch black.

Confusion glazed my mind then; I couldn’t tell whether the void was mine or hers. The shadows inside me fed on that confusion. They hissed and crowded, urging me to finish what they’d already started: end her, drink deep and drown the pain that was never mine to hold.

But the wolf… my wolf… was there too. Not roaring, not tearing through me the way he once did…just a low thrum beneath my skin, steady as a heartbeat. Patient. Waiting.

Then, without warning, he surged forward, a force I couldn’t resist. He seized control and wrenched me away from her, hurling me back as though I were poison, as though one touch from me could stain her, infect her, destroy her.

When she got up and ran to me, her arms like an anchor, it was as if something unclenched. I could see. Not with vision but like a newborn opening its eyes for the first time: everything sharp, every scent a color, every breath a landscape. For a moment I was not a shadow. I was a man, and she was a hand pulling me back into myself.

When I sank my teeth into her again…the second time, the one that changed everything…it was like a key turning in a lock. Memory rushed me in a terrible, beautiful avalanche. Pieces I had misplaced…days I had been searching for her and the shape of her face in my hands…slid into place.

Even as hunger burned…sharp and throbbing…something gentled me. The wolf inside me began to purr, an absurd, content vibration that made the hollow ache recede.

He paced at the edge of my mind, circling her like a cat testing the world it had reclaimed. My mate. The word felt foreign in my mouth and right at the same time, like a name I’d been waiting to remember.

“Let me take over,” he’d murmured once, his growl echoing in my head. “Let me meet my mate.”

I almost laughed…then choked at the memory, at how severe and ridiculous it sounded. “This moment,” I told my wolf softly, answering him without meaning to, “is for us. For the humans.”

I felt my animal bristle, a low growl nudging my ribs. He resented being told to wait. He wanted to claim, to mark, to tear whatever stain had been left on her away with teeth and fury. But there was something else now. The human part of me, raw and terrible in its tenderness, would not let him.

Because I’ve finally found my Ivy. Heavens I’ve finally found my woman!

As I listened to her story, my breathing got more erratic.

She had been fighting alone for too long. That thought set a new kind of fire in me. Apologies spilled from my mouth like a litany…useless words that somehow wanted to stitch what I’d broken.

I buried my face against the hollow of her throat, swore on whatever gods would listen that she would suffer no more, that never again would she have to look over her shoulder. I would fight for her. For us.

When she asked me if I’d always known, if I had approached her because I knew she was my mate, I couldn’t deny it. “Yes,” I confessed, voice raw. “I knew.” Saying it aloud made something inside me unclench. “You were my second chance mate. The first… I let slip. I would not let you go again. Ever.”

The truth of it sat between us like heat. I felt lighter and wrecked in the same breath.

She laughed then…a small, trembling sound…and kissed me until the little restrain I held at bay slipped loose. Her lips were permission, apology, home. When I drew back for breath, she tugged my ear, twisting it with playful defiance.

“So you wanted to cut my arms off… because of Lila?” she asked. I frowned, confused.

Then she dropped the weight of it, each word like a stone set down between us.

“She bewitched you,” she said simply. “You even wanted to sacrifice me to please her. And the punchline?” Her mouth curled bitterly. “You had your beta and your priestess locked up…because of her.”

The world narrowed to a point of white-hot rage at that. My face must have gone sour; I felt the color drain and the heat rise.

The thought alone made my jaw ache with rage. I could see her smirk, smug and merciless, the moment she turned me into her puppet.

The knowledge rose into a single, monstrous thing. I would kill her. I swore it to the moon with a hollow sound in my chest that was almost prayer and almost a promise of violence. My wolf growled in agreement, furious and possessive.

“I will kill her,” I swore, kissing my mate’s hand.

She laughed at my resolution, a small, defiant sound that softened something warlike inside me.

“I know that wasn’t you talking earlier. There’s no way you will stand by and watch me die,” she offered, gentle and certain, and somehow that steadied me. It did not erase the image or the shame, but it made the pain human, shared. It shifted the center of my grief from self-hatred to a hatred that had a clear target.

Then Ivy, ever my mad little strategist, grinned. “Okay,” she said, eyes alight with that dangerous mischief I love and have missed so much, “but can you listen to my plan? Let’s give her one last show.”

The idea made every blood vessel sing. I felt my throat close around a laugh that was half feral, half relief. I didn’t care about the consequences…there was a selfishness in that, perhaps. I only cared that she stood with me, that I had her scent seared into my skin, that the hollow had been filled.

My wolf paced, thrilled, the purr vibrating through my bones. He danced on the edge of fury, impatience, and something almost like affection…because she is mine now, and the world could burn around us. I felt complete in a way I hadn’t since the first time I’d been allowed to feel like a person instead of a weapon.

“I don’t care,” I told her, and the words were bone-deep. “Whatever you want, Ivy. I’ll do it. I’ll pay for it, burn for it…if that’s what it takes. Because I’ve finally found my mate. My woman. My light.” The last words tasted of a prayer I’d never before dared say.

She smiled then, and it was like a sun breaking through stormclouds. For the first time in so long, I could breathe without that old, constant shadow pressing in.

I lay there and felt it…the small, fragile thing that is hope unfurling. For the first time I felt like a person again. Not hollow. Not merely a shadow with teeth. A man who could love and keep and be kept.

As she explained her plan, I tried to focus…but all I could see were her lips moving, her eyes sparking with mischief. I must’ve looked like a fool, grinning and rubbing lazy circles into her bare back while she talked. When she finally stopped and asked, “Well? What do you think?”

I froze. I hadn’t heard a word.

So I went with the safest answer. “I think it’s a fantastic plan,” I murmured, leaning in to kiss the marks I’d left on her neck.

That was when it hit me. My wolf had been restless all along, but I’d brushed it off, too caught up in the fact that she was here, safe, in my arms. I tilted her chin up. “Hold on. You have your wolf now?” I asked carefully.

She laughed, slipped from my hold, and proved it…shifting with ease, shaking herself out, tail swishing as she looked back at me with a teasing gleam. My chest tightened. After everything, she finally had her wolf. I’d waited for this moment, hoped for it, but actually seeing her…strong, whole…it broke something open in me.

Pride and relief tangled with pure joy. I couldn’t stop smiling, couldn’t stop the burn in my eyes. Like a kid handed the one thing he’d dreamed about, I let go and shifted too.

Our wolves greeted each other instantly, brushing against one another, pacing the room like they’d been waiting their whole lives for this.

I was complete.

And if the world wanted to tear itself apart around us, so be it. I’d pay the price, fight whatever came, as long as she stayed here with me. She is mine. Finally. And nothing else mattered.