Chapter 19 19
So there we were. Two wolves. Two naked disasters. Standing waist-deep in a freezing river like it was some kind of sick mating reality show the Moon Goddess never asked for.
And of course, Gregor had the audacity—the sheer alpha arrogance—to look completely unbothered. Like strutting around stark naked in moonlight was his birthright.
Meanwhile, I was trying to stay submerged up to my chin, praying a family of ducks would adopt me before my dignity flatlined.
“Stop smirking,” I snapped.
“I’m not smirking.”
“You’re always smirking.” I jabbed a finger at him from under the water. “That’s your face. Permanent resting smirk.”
He tilted his head, water dripping from his hair down his annoyingly perfect jawline. “And what’s yours? Permanent resting glare?”
“Better than looking like an underwear ad reject,” I shot back.
He actually chuckled. Low. Dangerous. The kind of sound that curled low in my stomach and made my wolf perk up like, Yes hello, can we have more of that noise please?
I shoved her down. Hard.
“Why aren’t you covering up?” I demanded, squinting suspiciously. “Normal people—normal wolves—have shame.”
“Shame is for the weak,” he said smoothly, lifting his chin like a smug, six-foot-tall Greek statue who knew exactly what he was doing to my blood pressure.
“Oh my god. You’re unbearable.”
“You were the one parading like a siren five minutes ago.” He arched a brow. “What was it? Swan dive? Mermaid hair flip? Sexy frog kick?”
I gasped. “EXCUSE ME, that was art!”
“That was ridiculous.”
“That was art.”
“You almost got eaten by a crocodile trying to be a Vogue cover model.”
“AND WHO SAVED ME?” I shouted. “Oh right, me! With my own screaming and thrashing! You were just my backup plan!”
He barked out a laugh. A real one this time, not his usual smug chuckle. And damn it all, it made something warm and traitorous flicker in my chest.
The silence after lingered. My heart hammered too loudly. His gaze swept over me once, quick but unmistakable.
I folded my arms tighter across my chest. “Don’t you dare.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were.”
He smirked again, softer this time. “If I wanted to look, fairy, you wouldn’t catch me.”
Oh hell no. My cheeks went nuclear. “Go drown yourself, Alpha.”
He stepped closer, the water parting around him, rippling against me now. Too close. Too warm despite the cold.
“You first,” he murmured, low and taunting.
My wolf howled.
I forced a laugh, sharp and fake. “Yeah, no thanks. You’d follow me just to critique my swimming form.”
“Probably.”
“Ugh, you’re impossible.”
“And you,” he said, voice rumbling, “are shivering. Let’s get out before Nonna comes with her spoon.”
I opened my mouth to argue—because arguing was safer than admitting the butterflies—but my teeth chattered mid-sentence. Fine. He had a point.
Still, I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction.
“Turn around while I climb out,” I ordered, waving him off. “Unless you want me to bite your eyes out.”
He smirked. Again. “You already tried to claw my throat in training. What’s a little eye-gouging between friends?”
“I’m serious, Alpha.”
“So am I.”
Our standoff dragged on, steam rising from the water, heat thrumming where our gazes locked. And if my pulse stuttered just a little at the way he finally, slowly turned his back to me—broad shoulders, dripping hair, power radiating off him—I blamed the damn river.
Not him.
Definitely not him.
Gregor POV
I’ve been through wars. I’ve led armies. I’ve stood in the blood of my enemies and walked away untouched.
And yet today, one woman managed to nearly end me more than a hundred blades ever could.
Marigold.
The damn female was chaos in wolf’s skin. She wasn’t refined. She wasn’t careful. She wasn’t the polished kind of woman I was used to—the ones who bent to me, fluttered their lashes, worshipped my shadow just for being the Alpha of Alphas. No. She was raw. She was loud. She was stubborn. And she never shut her mouth.
I told her to build stamina. She cursed at me like a sailor and ran as though the ancestors were dragging her feet through mud. Every push-up was a war. Every sit-up was a theatrical death scene. By the time I asked her to spar, I thought she would spit at me.
And yet… she fought. She wasn’t graceful, no. She wasn’t trained. But she had fire. A wild, reckless spark that made her dangerous in ways she didn’t yet see.
The bear. Moon above, that bear. I told her to face it, and she screamed bloody murder all the way down the trail. I should’ve laughed—I almost did—but then she shifted. And there it was. That dark wolf. That warrior blood running in her veins. She fought like instinct itself had trained her, every strike desperate and sharp, every howl alive with something ancient. She killed it. Messy, wild, but she did.
She didn’t see herself, but I did. And damn me, I wanted more.
Then the river. Saints preserve me. I’ll never erase the sight of her strutting into that water like she was born to torment me. I could smell her defiance in every splash, see her pride in every ridiculous little pose she struck. My wolf wanted to drag her under the water just to show her what real dominance was.
And then the crocodile.
One second she was tossing her hair like some nymph made of sin, the next she was about to be dragged under by reptilian teeth. My wolf snapped out before I thought. Took my shirt so fast then tore into that beast until the water ran red, and by the time it stilled, I was panting in the current. And she was looking at me—half fear, half fury—standing naked in the river.
Naked. Both of us.
“Don’t you dare look at me!” she shrieked.
“As if you didn’t want me to look five seconds ago,” I snapped back, fighting not to notice the way the water slid over her skin.
“Go to hell, Alpha.”
“I’m already there,” I muttered. I’ve had women throw themselves at me their whole lives, baring everything with the hope I’d take them. None of it mattered. But her? Marigold standing there with wet hair clinging to her skin, eyes blazing, snapping at me not to look—Moon damn it, she mattered.
She mattered too much.
Now, as we walked back to the cottage, dripping wet and smelling like river weed, I stripped my shirt off and shoved it at her.
“Wear it,” I ordered.
She scowled, clutching it to her chest like I’d offered poison. “It’s going to swallow me whole.”
“Good. Maybe it’ll swallow your mouth too.”
Her jaw dropped, and she muttered something about “alpha-sized egos” and “shirts with personality disorders” as she tugged it over her head. My shirt looked obscene on her—too big, too long, clinging in the wrong places because she was still wet. My wolf growled low in my chest, and I clenched my fists until the sound died.
By the time we reached the cottage, Nonna was standing at the door like she’d been waiting for this exact mess. Wooden spoon in one hand, a glare in her eyes.
“Dio mio,” she huffed, waving the spoon at us. “You two look like drowned cats. What did you do, roll in mud and then wrestle a swamp monster?”
“Close enough,” Marigold muttered.
“She nearly fed herself to a crocodile,” I said flatly.
“HEY!”
Nonna whacked my arm with the spoon before she turned to Marigold. “And you—you should know better. The river has eyes. You think your little show was clever? The spirits saw it, ragazza. And so did he.”
Marigold went red as a tomato and glared at me like this was somehow my fault. I smirked. Couldn’t help it.
Her mouth. Saints, that mouth. Different from any I’d ever known. Sharp. Merciless. Impossible.
I’d dated models, celebrities, daughters of powerful Lunas. They batted lashes and whispered my name like it was prayer. She? She rolled her eyes, called me an ass, and made me feel more alive than I had in years.
She was fire. And I was the moth too stubborn to admit I’d already flown too close.
Damn it
The gods must be laughing at me because I’ve fought warriors. Faced down rogue packs. Endured tedious dinners with desperate Lunas who fluttered their lashes like I owed them a throne. But none of that—none—prepared me for Marigold.
That damn woman. The way she came at me swinging like a storm, no grace, no form, just fire. She threw herself at me with stubborn fury, and I—an Alpha trained since birth—actually had to work to keep up with her. And then the mud… Saints, the mud. One minute I had her pinned, the next she rolled me over, and before I knew it we were tangled like feral wolves in a brawl. My hand slipped, her knee nearly caught my ribs, and for one dangerous second her face was inches from mine. Mud smeared across her cheek, hair wild, chest heaving. She smelled like rain and adrenaline.
I nearly kissed her. Right there in the dirt. Like some lovesick pup.
And then the river. Oh, the gods have a cruel sense of humor.
She went in shivering, wounded, glaring at me like I’d asked to steal her soul, not lick a scratch. (For the record, it would’ve worked. Wolf saliva heals faster. Not my fault she’s stubborn as hell.) Then, like the wicked creature she is, she decided to taunt me—arching out of the water like some nymph, tossing her hair back, gleaming in the moonlight. Naked. Deliberately naked.