Chapter 17 Chapter 17
…In weeks.
Now it was day three in the safe house, and we were navigating a strange new intimacy.
We moved around each other carefully, hyperaware of boundaries and space. When his hand
brushed mine reaching for coffee, we both pulled back like we'd been burned. When I emerged
from the shower in just a towel, he turned away so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash.
It would have been funny if it wasn't so sad.
"This is ridiculous," I said finally, standing in the kitchen doorway watching him very deliberately
not looking at me while I was wearing pyjamas shorts and a tank top. "We've seen each other in
worse situations. You literally held me while I cried for three hours yesterday."
"That was different," Alex said, still focused intently on his laptop screen. "You were
emotionally vulnerable. I wasn't going to—"
"Going to what?" I interrupted. "Acknowledge that we're attracted to each other? That the mate
bond isn't just some abstract concept but an actual physical pull that makes me want to—"
I stopped, heat flooding my face.
Alex finally looked at me, and the intensity in his dark eyes made my breath catch.
"Makes you want to what?" he asked quietly.
I crossed the kitchen, moving until I was standing right in front of him. Close enough to feel the
heat radiating from his body. Close enough to see his pulse jumping in his throat.
"Makes me want to stop being so careful," I whispered. "Makes me want to actually feel
something other than fear and anger and violation. Makes me want..."
"Mia." My name on his lips was half warning, half plea.
"Kiss me," I said.
"You're not ready—"
"I'm ready to stop letting what Xiang did control how I feel," I interrupted. "I'm ready to reclaim
my body and my choices. And I'm choosing this. I'm choosing you."
For a moment, he didn't move. Then he stood slowly, his chair scraping against the floor, and
cupped my face in his hands.
"If we do this," he said, his voice rough, "we do it right. No walls. No pretending it's just physical.
The mate bond doesn't work that way."
"I know," I said. "I'm not asking for just physical. I'm asking for real."
He kissed me.
It wasn't gentle or tentative. It was fierce and desperate, months of tension and fear and longing
pouring into that single point of contact. His hands tangled in my hair. Mine fisted in his shirt. We
kissed like we were drowning and each other was air.
When we finally broke apart, both breathing hard, he rested his forehead against mine.
"I've wanted to do that since the night I met you," he admitted. "When you moved like a predator
to protect that homeless man, I knew. I knew you were mine."
"Possessive much?" I asked, but I was smiling.
"Completely," he said without apology. "The mate bond made me possessive. You made me
obsessed."
"Good," I said, kissing him again. "Because I'm pretty obsessed with you too."
We moved to the couch, unable to stop touching each other now that we'd started. His hands
traced patterns on my skin. Mine explored the muscles of his back through his shirt. We kissed
until my lips were swollen and my body was aching with want.
"Bedroom?" he asked against my neck.
"Bedroom," I agreed.
We made love slowly, carefully, learning each other's bodies with the reverence of something
sacred. When he touched the scars from Xiang's facility—the needle marks on my arms, the
bruises that were still fading—I didn't pull away. I let him see all of me, the broken pieces and
the healing ones, and he loved every part equally.
Afterward, we lay tangled together, skin to skin, hearts beating in sync.
"I love you," Alex said quietly. "I know it's too soon. I know we're in the middle of a war and
everything's complicated and you're still healing from trauma. But I love you. I need you to know
that."
I traced the scar on his face, the one that ran from his eye to his jaw. "Where'd you get this?"
"Afghanistan," he said. "Special ops mission that went wrong. My entire team died. I barely
made it out."
"Is that when you left the military?"
"Yeah. Came back different. Couldn't just slot back into normal life. Started taking jobs that used
my skills but didn't ask questions about methods. Eventually built an organization around it." He
caught my hand, pressing a kiss to my palm. "I'm not a good man, Mis. I've done things that
would make you run if you knew the details."
"I killed my father," I reminded him. "I'm not exactly innocent either."
"That was self-defense. What I've done... I chose it. Chose violence because it was easier than
processing trauma. Chose crime because it gave me power when I felt powerless. I'm trying to
be better now, but I'm not sure I can ever be actually good."
I shifted so I could look him in the eyes. "I don't need you to be good. I need you to be real.
Honest. Present. Can you do that?"
"Yes," he said without hesitation.
"Then that's enough," I said. "We're both broken, Alex. But maybe broken things can fit
together in ways whole things can't."
He pulled me closer, burying his face in my hair. "I love you," he said again.
And this time, I said it back.
We spent the next two days in a bubble of intimacy and planning. During the day, we worked
with Dave remotely, gathering intelligence on Dr. Mitchell's Romanian facility. At night, we
explored the connection between us, the mate bond deepening with every conversation and
touch.
I learned that Alex took his coffee black and bitter, that he had nightmares about Afghanistan
that left him gasping and shaking, that he'd built his entire criminal empire as a way to fight
organizations like Xiang's from inside the system they operated in.
He learned that I couldn't sleep without some kind of light, that I had panic attacks when
confined in small spaces now, that I sang off-key in the shower and could quote entire episodes
of medical dramas I'd watched during slow hospital shifts.
We learned each other.
On the third morning, Dave called with news.
"We have confirmation," he said, his face serious on the video screen. "Dr. Mitchell's facility is
operational and actively experimenting on supernatural subjects. We've identified at least fifteen
captives, possibly more. The security is sophisticated—military-grade equipment, supernatural
guards, the works."
"Who's funding it?" Alex asked.
"That's the interesting part," Dave said. "The money trail leads back to a shell corporation
registered in the Cayman Islands. But our financial analyst traced it further and found
connections to the same Alpha King network that funded Xiang."
I felt my blood run cold. "They're still operating."
"Not just operating," Dave corrected. "Expanding. We've identified at least three other facilities
worldwide, all connected to the same financial network. This is bigger than we thought."
Alex cursed. "We can't take down multiple international facilities. We barely survived one."
"So we don't hit them all at once," I said, an idea forming.