Chapter 32 The Point of No Return

Chapter 32 The Point of No Return


I knew tonight would change everything.

The knowledge sat in my chest like a second heartbeat as I walked through the quiet lodge, my feet carrying me toward his rooms without conscious decision. The hour was late. The corridors were empty. Everyone else slept.

Everyone except me. And him.

I had seen the way he looked at me during the evening meal. The way his eyes tracked me across the great hall. The way his jaw tightened when a warrior stood too close, spoke too long, made me laugh at something I'd already forgotten.

I had felt the heat across thirty feet of stone floor.

Now I stood before his door, my hand raised to knock, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. I should turn back. Should return to my room, my cot, my solitary sleep. Should let another night pass the way all the others had passed, full of tension and want and nothing.

I knocked.

The door opened so fast he must have been standing on the other side, waiting. Garrick filled the doorway, broad shoulders blocking the light from within. He wore only trousers, his feet bare, his chest bare, his hair disheveled like he'd been running his hands through it.

He didn't speak. Just looked at me with those dark eyes that held everything.

"I couldn't sleep." My voice came out rough.

"Neither could I."

"I kept thinking about today. About the patrol. About the way you looked at me when you thought I wasn't watching."

His jaw tightened. "Anika."

"Don't." I stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin. "Don't tell me to go. Don't give me reasons why this is a bad idea. I've spent weeks listening to reasons. I don't want reasons anymore."

"Then what do you want?"

I reached up and placed my hand on his chest. His heart hammered beneath my palm, matching mine beat for beat.

"I want you to stop pretending. I want you to stop fighting this. I want one night where we're not Alpha and debt slave, not bound by rules and duty and fear." I looked up into his eyes. "I want you, Garrick. All of you. Just for tonight."

Something broke in his expression. The control he'd held onto so tightly, the walls he'd built so high, they cracked right there in front of me.

"If I touch you," he said, his voice rough as gravel, "I won't be able to stop. I won't be able to go back to the way things were. You need to understand that."

"I understand."

"If we do this, you're mine. Not because of the bargain, not because of the debt. Because I won't be able to share you. Because the thought of anyone else touching you, looking at you, wanting you—" He stopped, chest heaving.

"Then claim me." I rose on my toes, bringing my face closer to his. "Right now. No more waiting."

He kissed me.

Not gentle. Not tentative. This was the kiss of a man who had held himself back for too long, who had denied himself for weeks, who was done pretending. His hands tangled in my hair, pulling me closer, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on.

His mouth moved against mine, hungry and demanding, and I matched him kiss for kiss. Heat built between us, urgent and unstoppable. His hands slid down my back, pulling me against him, and I felt exactly how much he wanted me.

"Anika." He breathed my name against my lips like a prayer. "Tell me you're sure. Tell me this is what you want."

"I'm sure. I've never been more sure of anything."

He pulled back just enough to look at me. His eyes were dark, pupils blown, the gold flecks almost lost in the black. His chest heaved. His hands trembled against my back.

"Then stay." His voice cracked. "Stay tonight. Stay tomorrow. Stay."

"Yes."

He kissed me again, slower this time, deeper. His hands found the ties of my dress and worked them loose with a patience that contradicted everything I felt trembling through his body. The fabric slipped from my shoulders, pooled at my feet.

He looked at me then, really looked, and the hunger in his eyes made my breath catch.

"You're beautiful." His voice was barely a whisper. "I've dreamed of this. Of you. For weeks. For years, if I'm honest."

"Show me."

He lifted me easily, my legs wrapping around his waist, my arms around his neck. He carried me to his bed and laid me down like something precious. Then he stood there, looking at me, and I saw the war in his eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. Everything's right. That's what scares me." He lowered himself beside me, his hand tracing the line of my collarbone. "I've spent so long alone. So long convinced I didn't deserve this. And now you're here, in my bed, looking at me like I'm something good, and I don't know how to process it."

I reached up and cupped his face. "You are something good. You've always been something good. You just forgot for a while."

He turned his head and kissed my palm. Then my wrist. Then the inside of my elbow. Each kiss sent fire through my veins.

"I love you." The words came rough, broken. "I've loved you since I was seventeen years old. I'll love you until I die. And if you'll have me, I'll love you beyond that."

I pulled him down to me. "Then stop talking and show me."

He did.

His mouth found mine again, but this time it was different. Slower. Deeper. A conversation rather than a demand. His hands explored my body with reverence, learning every curve, every sensitive spot, every place that made me gasp.

I learned him too. The breadth of his shoulders. The scars that marked his skin, each one a story I wanted to hear. The way he trembled when I touched him, this powerful Alpha reduced to need by nothing more than my hands.

"Anika." He breathed my name like it was the only word he remembered. "I need—"

"I know." I pulled him closer. "I need it too."

When he finally entered me, we both stopped breathing. The world narrowed to this moment, this connection, this man who had been my first love and my deepest wound and now, somehow, my present and future.

He moved slowly at first, giving me time, watching my face for any sign of discomfort. But I didn't want slow. I wanted all of him, everything he'd held back for so long.

"Harder," I whispered. "I won't break."

His control snapped.

The pace changed, became urgent, desperate. I matched him, clung to him, lost myself in him. The world outside this room ceased to exist. There was only Garrick. Only his hands, his mouth, his body moving with mine.

When I shattered, it was with his name on my lips and his eyes on my face and the knowledge that nothing would ever be the same.

He followed moments later, burying his face in my neck, his body shuddering against mine. We lay there tangled together, breathing hard, hearts racing.

For a long time, neither of us spoke.

Then he lifted his head and looked at me. His eyes were wet. I'd never seen him cry, never imagined he could, but there it was. Tears tracking silently down his temples.

"Garrick?"

"I'm sorry." He tried to turn away, but I caught his face, held him there. "I didn't expect—I don't know why I'm—"

"Don't." I wiped the tears with my thumb. "Don't hide from me. Not now. Not after this."

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, the walls were gone. All of them. He looked at me with nothing held back, nothing protected, nothing hidden.

"No one has ever looked at me the way you do." His voice was raw. "No one has ever touched me like I matter. Like I'm more than the Alpha, more than the weapon, more than the man who keeps everyone at a distance."

"You matter to me. You've always mattered to me. Even when I hated you, you mattered."

He kissed me softly. Tenderly. A kiss that held all the words we hadn't said.

"I don't deserve you."

"Probably not." I smiled against his mouth. "But you're stuck with me anyway."

He laughed. Actually laughed, the sound muffled against my skin. I felt it vibrate through his chest, through mine, through the space between us.

"I love you." He said it like a vow. "I will spend the rest of my life proving that to you."

"Then start by holding me. I'm cold."

He pulled the blankets over us, wrapped himself around me, tucked me against his chest. His heartbeat thrummed against my back, steady and strong.

"Anika?"

"Mm?"

"Thank you. For coming to my door tonight. For not giving up on me. For everything."

I smiled into the darkness. "You're welcome."

We lay there as the fire burned low and the night deepened around us. I should have slept. Should have rested. But I didn't want to miss a single moment of this. Of him. Of us.

"Garrick?"

"Yes?"

"Tomorrow, when we wake up, what happens?"

He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Tomorrow, we figure it out. Together. The pack, the council, Harker, all of it. We face it together."

"And us?"

"Us is forever." He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. "If you want that."

"I want that."

"Then that's what happens. Forever starts now."

I turned in his arms to face him. The fire had burned low, but enough light remained to see his face. To see the peace there, the hope, the love.

"Forever," I repeated. "I like the sound of that."

He kissed me again, slow and sweet. Then he pulled me close, and we lay there in the darkness, wrapped in each other, and I knew that whatever came next, we would face it together.

I slept better than I had in weeks.

\---

I woke once in the night to find him watching me.

"Can't sleep?" My voice was thick with drowsiness.

"Don't want to." His hand traced lazy patterns on my back. "Don't want to miss a single moment of having you here."

"You're ridiculous."

"I'm in love. There's a difference."

I laughed softly. "Is there?"

"Apparently." He kissed my forehead. "Go back to sleep. I'll be here when you wake."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

I closed my eyes and let sleep take me, held safe in his arms, loved beyond measure.

It was enough. It was everything.