CHAPTER 223

CHAPTER 223
AMARA

She swallowed hard, fingers tightening around mine.

For a long moment she didn’t speak.

She just stared at our joined hands, her thumb absently tracing the edge of my knuckle in slow, unconscious circles—

“He’d really do that?” she whispered.

“Cut off his own hands? Just… so he wouldn’t hurt me?”

I nodded once, slow and certain.

“He wouldn’t even hesitate,” I told her.

“The mate bond isn’t just romance or instinct. It’s survival. You’re the center of his gravity now. His reason to keep breathing, to keep fighting, to keep choosing good when every instinct in him wants to be feral. If he ever thought—for even a heartbeat—that he’d become the thing that scares you most… yeah. He’d rather destroy himself than let that happen. The wolf would rip itself apart before it let its claws touch you. That’s not poetry, Cass. That’s biology. That’s fate. That’s him.”

“But… I keep thinking about last night,” she said finally, voice cracking just a little. “The shift. When he grabbed me. I was so scared. My brain just… blanked. All I could see was teeth and fur and those eyes—those glowing, yellow eyes—and I thought, ‘This is it. This is how I die.’ I was sure of it. But… come to think of it… he didn’t bite me. He didn’t even scratch me."

She let out a small, shaky breath that was almost a laugh.

“I threw a lamp at him. I called him every name I could think of—monster, freak, kidnapper, demon dog, you name it. I even threatened to neuter him with a rusty spoon if he didn’t let me go. Full psycho- mode. And through all of it—my screaming, my temper tantrum, my genuine fear—he was shaking the whole time. I felt it. His arms were trembling around me like he was the one about to fall apart. Like he was terrified.”

“That’s because he was terrified,” I said softly.

“Not of your threats—although the rusty-spoon thing probably made his wolf flinch—but of what those threats meant. You weren’t just mad. You were scared of him. And that fear? It hit him harder than any lamp ever could. The mate bond… it’s not just love. It’s survival. You’re his anchor, Cass. His reason to keep the wolf in check. The second he thought he’d become the nightmare you were running from… yeah. He was shaking because he was more afraid of losing you than he’s ever been of anything in his life. Including death. Especially death.”

Cassie blinked—slow, stunned—like the sentence had physically landed on her chest and knocked the air out of her lungs.

For a second she just stared at me, eyes wide and glassy, processing the idea that the massive, glowing-eyed wolf who’d carried her here could have been afraid of her.

He was scared of me?”

The words tumbled out in a half-laugh, half-disbelieving.

“Like… seriously?” she continued, voice climbing back into its natural territory of theatrical outrage.

“He can turn into this massive, terrifying wolf with fangs longer than my attention span, claws that could shred a credit card in one swipe, and those glowing murder-eyes that look like someone installed LED headlights in a nightmare—and I’m the scary one? Me? The girl who apologizes to furniture when she bumps into it? Who once spent twenty minutes giving a snail a funeral with a popsicle stick headstone because I felt bad for stepping on it barefoot?

That’s the funniest, most pathetic, most heartbreakingly sweet thing I’ve heard all night.”

She threw her hands up, the motion so purely Cassie.

“I’m literally the human equivalent of a startled chihuahua. I threw a lamp so badly it hit the wall three feet to the left and still managed to miss him! I threatened his balls with a rusty spoon! And he’s out there thinking I’m the apex predator? Please. I’m a walking anxiety attack in yoga pants. If anything, he should’ve been scared of my aim. Or my playlist. Or the fact that I know all his snack hiding spots and I’m petty enough to eat the last one just to make a point.”

Her shoulders dropped.

“That big idiot,” she muttered, shaking her head with something dangerously close to fondness.

“Terrified of me. That’s… that’s actually kind of adorable. In the most tragic, ‘I need to hug him and also yell at him’ way possible.”

I smiled despite the ache in my chest.

“Hes not scared of you..Hes scared of losing you,” I answered, voice soft but sure.

“Not of your lamp-throwing skills. Not of your sarcasm. Just… of you. Of the moment you looked at him—at the wolf—and decided he wasn’t worth the risk. That one glimpse was enough to convince him he’d ruined everything. That the person who makes the moon feel like home instead of just another cold night was about to walk away forever. He wasn’t scared of your fear, Cass. He was scared of what that fear might make you do. Of what it might make you believe about him.”

“I’m kind of an asshole,” she muttered.

“A scared, lamp-throwing, rusty-spoon-waving asshole.

He really thought I’d run?” she asked.

“After everything? After all the coffee and the memes and the times he showed up at 3 a.m. because I texted him a sad emoji? He thought one bad moment—one scary moment—would erase all that?”

I nodded slowly.

"He’s out there right now. Waiting.
He’s not asking for forgiveness right now. He’s not even asking you to love him back the same way. He just wants you to know he’s still here. Still yours. Still willing to bleed for you every single day until you believe it.”

“I don’t know if I can believe it all the way yet,” she admitted.

“But… I want to try. I want to see him. I want to look him in the eye and see if he’s still the guy who’d drive three hours at 2 a.m. because I sent a sad emoji. I want to see if he’s still the guy who remembers I hate olives but love extra pickles. The guy who remembers I like oat milk in my coffee even though I always order almond. The guy who sends me stupid cat memes when I’m having a bad day." 

She straightened a little, wiping her face one last time.

“I’m ready,” she said.

I smiled relieved—

“Then let’s go see him.”

I reached the door and paused, glancing back at her.

“You sure?” I asked one last time.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

I opened the door.

Matt was right there—still pacing in tight, restless circles, head down, shoulders hunched like he was bracing for a blow that hadn’t landed yet.

He froze the instant the light spilled into the hallway, head snapping up so fast I saw the flash of gold in his eyes—the wolf rising instinctively, then banking down again when he realized it was her.

Alaric stayed back, arms crossed, giving them space but watching everything with that quiet, watchful intensity he always had when someone he cared about was hurting.

Cassie stopped just inside the doorway, arms crossed so tight it looked like she was physically holding her ribcage together. Her chin lifted, eyes narrowing into that signature 'you are in so much trouble” squint I’d seen a thousand times—

“Cassie…” Matt’s voice cracked open on her name—raw, ragged, full of everything he’d been holding back for hours.

He took one instinctive step toward her—then stopped dead, hands flexing at his sides.

“You,” she said, voice still shaky around the edges but now razor-edged with the familiar fire that meant she was back in control,

She took one deliberate step forward, pointing a finger at him.

“have a lot of explaining to do, mister. Like, a TED Talk’s worth. A three-season Netflix limited series worth. I’m talking PowerPoint slides, footnotes, and a Q&A session.
And maybe a signed affidavit swearing on your wolf-mom, that you’ll never again keep life-altering secrets from the girl who once held your hair back while you puked after too many tequila shots. You do not get to stand there looking like a kicked golden retriever who just discovered the concept of guilt and think those big sad puppy eyes are gonna save you. Those eyes lost their Get Out of Jail Free card the second you turned into a furry murder-machine without so much as a heads-up text. ‘Hey Cass, FYI, I can grow a tail and some fur, lol.’ Would’ve been nice. Would’ve been polite.”

Matt’s mouth opened. Closed.

Opened again.

“Sorry,” he rasped, the word scraping out raw.

“I’m so sorry, Cass. I—”

She didn’t let him finish.

"Nope. Not yet. You’re on mute until I say otherwise. You’ve had months—months—to practice this conversation in your head. I’ve had approximately a few hours and three panic attacks..."

"Cass...."

One hand shot out, fingers curling into the front of his shirt—right at the collar.

She yanked him forward with surprising strength for someone who’d spent the last hours crying.

“Inside,” she ordered, already dragging him across the threshold.

“Now. We’re not doing this in the hallway like some bad soap opera reunion scene. You, me, closed door, no audience. Move.”

Matt stumbled forward willingly—more than willingly—like he’d follow her into a volcano if she asked.

Cassie pulled him past me, past Alaric, spun him around, and kicked the door shut behind them with a decisive thud that echoed down the corridor.

The lock clicked.

Silence.

Alaric and I were suddenly alone in the hallway.

I blinked at the closed door.

He blinked at the closed door.

Then we both looked at each other at the exact same moment—like we’d just witnessed a rom-com climax filmed by a caffeinated squirrel—and burst out laughing.

I wiped at my eyes, grinning so wide my cheeks hurt.

“Ten bucks says she makes him apologize in writing. With bullet points. And footnotes. And maybe a signed affidavit swearing he’ll never shed on her throw pillows again.”

“Twenty says she has him fetching her coffee by morning,” Alaric countered, smirking.

“Extra oat milk, no foam, and a side of groveling.”

We both dissolved again—shoulders shaking, heads tipped back against the wall—laughing until my sides ached.

When the worst of it finally passed, we sat there in the quiet hallway, breathing hard, grinning like idiots.

I leaned my head on his shoulder.

“They’re going to be okay.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

“Yeah. They are. Terrified, sarcastic, lamp-throwing okay… but okay.”

I snorted softly. “Best kind of okay.”

He squeezed my hand. “The only kind worth having.”

Behind the closed door, muffled voices continued—Cassie’s sharp, Cassie’s sarcastic,

Matt’s low, earnest replies. Another small crash. A startled yelp from Matt. Then Cassie’s indignant

“I didn’t mean to knock that over!” followed by his immediate

“It’s fine, I’ll fix it, don’t worry about it.”

Alaric and I looked at each other again.

And started laughing all over.

Some things never changed.

And thank god for that.