Chapter 168 Why is the door unlocked?

Chapter 168 Why is the door unlocked?
The scent of him,pure cedar, rain, and the deep, electric spark of his Alpha energy,flooded my senses, wiping away the lingering political questions from the amphitheater, wiping away the ghosts of the North.
He kicked our bedroom door open, entering the room like a storm, before pressing my back firmly against the heavy wood and locking the bolt behind us.

"Rayder," I breathed against his lips, my hands frantically tearing at his silk tie, pulling it free from his collar and dropping it to the floor. "The suit... Elias will kill you if you ruin the stitching."

"Let him try," Rayder growled into my neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin right above my collarbone, making my toes curl.

His large hands caught the hem of my emerald dress, the silk sliding upward with a soft, fluid hiss as he bunched the fabric around my waist. The contrast between us was startling,my pale, slender frame caught against the massive, dark bulk of his chest, the elegant human formal wear torn and disheveled under the weight of an ancient, primitive heat.

We stumbled toward the massive king-sized bed, collapsing into the dark velvet sheets in a tangled heap of limbs and discarded wool. 

Rayder shed his jacket in one violent motion, the fabric flying across the room to land somewhere near the balcony doors. I reached up, my palms sliding over the hard, ridges of his chest through his thin linen shirt, feeling the frantic, heavy thudding of his heart beneath my fingers.

There were no generic courtly declarations between us, no hollow, repetitive romantic filler. 

Every touch was written in the language of survival. My fingers traced the jagged white line of an old vanguard scar on his shoulder; his mouth mapped the faint ridges on my ribs where the heavy armor of Cyrus had rubbed my skin raw during the long winter. We were two soldiers who had finally found the sanctuary we had spent our entire youth fighting for, and the release was explosive.

He pulled the pins from my hair, letting the dark strands spill across the white pillows like ink. His golden eyes were wide, completely wild, reflecting the absolute dawn of our future as he pinned my wrists to the mattress, his heavy body settling between my thighs with a heat that felt like a localized fever.

"You are mine, Selene," he whispered, his voice rough, stripped of all diplomatic polish as his fingers locked with mine, the emerald ring clicking sharply against his knuckles. "Every horizon. Every pack house. You are my wife."

"I am," I breathed, arching my back to meet his touch, my heart fluttering so violently I could feel it in my throat. "Always."

The room grew small, dark, and hot, the world outside the glass completely vanishing until there was nothing left but the rhythmic, heavy drag of our breath and the absolute, uncomplicated fire of our skin.


The heat was at its absolute peak, the heavy velvet blankets tossed to the floor, the shadows of our bodies twisting against the amber light of the bedside lamp. Rayder’s back was arched, the thick muscles of his spine glistening with a light sheen of sweat as he leaned down to press his forehead against mine, both of us completely breathless, completely consumed.

Creak.

The sound was microscopic, but to two trained vanyards with heightened Lycan senses, it might as well have been a flashbang exploding in the center of the mattress.

Rayder froze mid-motion. Every muscle in his massive back went instantly rigid, locking up like solid iron. I stopped breathing entirely, my eyes widening in the dim light as my gaze darted past his large shoulder toward the bedroom door.

The heavy oak door,which Rayder had sworn he locked had drifted open by approximately four inches.

And standing right in the center of the gap, illuminated by the bright green glow of the hallway nightlight, was a three-foot-tall silhouette wearing bright blue fleece footie pajamas covered in yellow dump trucks.
Winter.

The toddler was standing completely still, his small fingers wrapped around the ear of a ragged, stuffed grey wolf that Elias had bought him from a boutique in London. His large golden eyes,the exact duplicate of Rayder’s—were completely wide, unblinking, and locked onto the bed with the solemn, terrifying curiosity that only a three-year-old could manage at two in the morning.

For three agonizing seconds, the room was a living statue. Rayder was suspended above me, half-naked, his massive chest heaving, his dark hair disheveled, while I lay pinned beneath him in a state of absolute, horrifying parental paralysis. 

The red-hot, primitive passion that had been consuming the room evaporated in a single, devastating second, replaced by the sheer, unadulterated panic of a mother caught in the wild.

Winter took a slow, deliberate step forward, his fleece pajamas making a soft swish-swish sound against the hardwood. He raised his small hand, pointing his stuffed wolf directly at his father’s bare, muscular shoulder.

"Papa," Winter said, his small toddler voice incredibly clear, entirely unbothered by the atmospheric trauma of the room. "The truck lost a wheel."

Rayder let out a low, strangled sound in his throat,a sound that was half-groan, half-prayer before slowly closing his eyes and dropping his forehead directly onto the pillow beside my ear.

"Tell me he isn't looking at us, Selene," Rayder whispered, his voice trembling with a frantic, desperate restraint as he tried to use his massive frame to completely shield my state of undress from our son's vision. 

“Please tell me the boy is looking at the lamp."

"He is looking directly at your left shoulder blade, Rayder," I hissed under my breath, my face burning with a flush that felt hot enough to melt lead. My hands were frantically clawing at a discarded white sheet near the edge of the mattress, trying to haul it over my chest without making any sudden movements that would trigger a toddler tantrum. "And he has his stuffed wolf. Why is the door unlocked? You told me you locked the magnetic bolt!"