Chapter 121
Kara
He kicked open the door to the master bedroom. Their room. The room with the massive bed where all three of them had held me after my Heat, where I'd first understood what it meant to belong to them.
He set me down on the edge of the bed, then collapsed to his knees in front of me. Just... folded. This huge, powerful Alpha, kneeling on the floor with his head bowed, his entire body shaking.
"Tell me Tyler is dead." His voice was wrecked, broken. "Please. Please tell me Cole killed him."
"He didn't. He hurt him badly, but he left him alive."
"Fuck." A sound tore out of him—half-sob, half-snarl. "Fuck!"
His scent was disintegrating. The gunpowder sharpness was dissolving into something charred and bitter. Scorched earth. The smell of a man who'd burned everything inside himself and found only ash.
I slid off the bed, kneeling in front of him. "Blake. Look at me."
"Can't." He was still staring at the floor. "If I look at you with those marks on your skin, I'm going to lose it. I'm going to shift and I'm going to hunt down everyone who's ever hurt you and I'm going to bathe in their blood, and I won't stop, Kara. I won't be able to stop."
"Then stop trying to." I cupped his face, forcing his head up. Those gold eyes locked on mine, wild and desperate. "Stop trying to murder the whole world to make up for what you did to me."
He flinched like I'd struck him. "I have to. Don't you understand? I put you in that ice river. I held you under. I laughed while you almost drowned. How do I live with that? How?"
"By living." My thumbs stroked over his cheekbones. "By being here with me. Not by destroying yourself."
"I deserve to be destroyed." The words were barely a whisper. "I spent years making you wish you were dead. The least I can do is—"
"Stop." The command in my voice startled us both. My wolf surged forward, dominant and clear. "Stop trying to die for me, Blake Sterling. I don't want your death. I want your life."
He stared at me like I'd spoken in tongues. "You... you can't possibly..."
"I love you."
The words fell into the space between us like stones into still water. Ripples spread outward—through the bond, through his expression, through the very air.
"You can't." His voice broke. "After everything—"
"I love you." I said it again, stronger. "I love the boy who tortured me and the man who wants to kill for me. I love your violence and your gentleness. I love every fucked-up, damaged piece of you." I leaned forward until my forehead touched his. "And I want to mark you. Not to stop you from murdering people. Not because biology demands it. But because you're mine, Blake. You've always been mine."
The change was instantaneous. The self-destructive spiral in his scent evaporated, replaced by something fierce and possessive and hungry. He surged up, lifting me, and then I was on the bed with him over me, his eyes blazing gold.
"Say it again," he demanded, his voice rough.
"I love you."
"Again."
"I love you, Blake. I love—"
He kissed me. Desperate, consuming, like he was trying to breathe me in and never let go. His hands were everywhere—in my hair, on my waist, trembling against my skin.
"Mark me," he breathed against my lips. "Please, baby. Please make me yours. If I'm yours, I can't hurt you. If I'm yours, I can't—"
"You're already mine." I pushed at his shoulders until he pulled back enough for me to see his face. "But I'll prove it to you."
I pulled off his shirt, traced the hard planes of his chest, pressed my lips to the pulse point at his throat. His fire-and-leather scent wrapped around me, and I felt my white-musk-and-snow rising to meet it. When I bit down—hard, claiming—his entire body went rigid.
The bond exploded.
Through the connection, I felt Asher gasp in his office. Felt Cole stumble in the hallway. Their pleasure, their triumph, their fierce joy crashed through me in waves as Blake's blood touched my tongue, as my scent flooded into his system.
He tastes like gunpowder and wild storms and coming home.
"Yours," Blake groaned, his hands fisting in the sheets. "Always yours. Every broken piece, every violent impulse, every—oh fuck—"
I licked the wound closed, sealing my mark into his flesh. When I pulled back, his eyes were pure molten gold, fixed on me with something like worship.
"Now," I said, my voice steady despite the heat building low in my belly, "show me I made the right choice."
He moved. Fast and sure, stripping away my clothes and his own until we were skin to skin. His hands on my bruises were gentle—so gentle I wanted to cry—but when he entered me, there was nothing gentle about it. Just possession. Just claiming. Just two people who'd spent ten years hurting each other finally, finally becoming whole.
"Mine," he growled with every thrust. "Mine, mine, mine."
"Yours," I gasped back. "Yours, yours, yours."
Through the bond, I felt Asher and Cole experiencing echoes of our joining. Felt their pride, their love, their absolute certainty that this was right. That we were right.
When Blake came, he roared my name, and I felt the final piece of our bond lock into place. Three marks on my throat. Three Alphas bound to my soul. Three broken people becoming one unbreakable whole.
Afterward, Blake pulled me against his chest, his nose buried in the fresh mark on his neck. His scent had changed—was changing still. The scorched-earth bitterness was gone, replaced by warm embers. Controlled fire instead of wildfire.
"The marks change everything," he murmured. "Now when someone hurts you, they hurt all of us. Tyler will pay for that. Konstantin will pay. Anyone who even thinks about—"
"I know." I pressed closer. "I'm not asking you to be less violent, Blake. I'm just asking you to let me be the reason you survive it."
His arms tightened around me. Through the bond, Asher and Cole sent waves of agreement, of welcome, of home.
One pack, my wolf purred contentedly. One Luna. Three Alphas.
Complete.