The silence in my cottage was so complete. I could hear the crackle of dying embers in the hearth three rooms away. I sat cross-legged on a fraying wool cushion, fingers wrapped around a cup of forgotten tea, watching wax drip in slow tears down the moon festival candles on my altar. Offerings of late summer fruit and wild flowers glowed in the candle light, the only color in a life I had stripped bare of joy.

Outside the forest breathed under the full moon, and from the village far below came faint echoes of drums, laughter, and howls. Wolves calling to their faded mates while the goddess listened. It was the third moon festival since I ran to these mountains, since Alpha King Michael stood before the entire court and rejected the bond the goddess had placed between us. My wolf had shattered that night. I'd spent every day since learning how not to ache for a touch that was never meant to be mine.

So when three heavy knocks shook my wooden door at midnight, my first thought was that I was dreaming. My second was terror. No one climbed this high. No one came here. Then a voice I knew like a scar rasped through the wood, raw and shaking. "Evelyn, please open the door. I need your touch before it kills me."

The door shuddered under his weight as I unbarred it. Cold wind punched into the cottage carrying snow, pine, and a scent I had spent three years trying to carve out of my bones. Cedar smoke, wild storm, and something uniquely him. Michael filled the doorway for a heartbeat. Broad shoulders hunched, cloak soaked, dark hair plastered to his forehead before his knees buckled. He crashed forward, catching himself on one arm, the other clutching his chest. When the cloak slipped aside, I saw it. Dark veins like black lightning spidering from his heart across his skin, pulsing with each pained breath. His head lifted. Those storm gray eyes were wild with pain and something that looked horribly like hope. "Evelyn." My name broke in his mouth. "I found you."

Three years of silence and he said that like he had simply been lost and not the one who drove a blade through our bond. I stepped back. "You need to leave."

He tried to laugh. The sound turned into a cough that racked his whole body. He sagged against the door frame, breath shallow, knuckles white. "I almost did," he said hoarsely, "a dozen times. But then I thought, if I die without seeing you again, that will be the only thing I regret."

"Die?" The word lodged in my throat. He shifted his hand from his chest. In the moonlight, the veins looked worse, thicker, angrier. A web of poison shadow beneath his skin. "Silver curse," he said. "Old forbidden magic. Each full moon it spreads. I should have been dead months ago."

My fingers clenched the door. "Then go to your healers, your counsel."

"They can't touch it." His gaze anchored mine. "Only you can."

The bond surged at those words. My wolf, silent for so long, lifted her head and howled inside me. "You don't get to crawl to my door now and pretend I'm your salvation. You stood before the court and told the goddess you didn't want me."

Pain flickered across his face. "I remember every word," he whispered. "I hear them every night. And every night my wolf tears at me for them."

"Good. You deserve it."

He nodded. Then slowly, painfully, he let go of the doorframe and dropped fully to his knees on my threshold. My heart stopped. Kings knelt for no one. Not council, not court, not enemies. The only one an Alpha King bowed to was the goddess. And now apparently me.

"Michael, get up."

"No." Snow swirled around him, catching in his hair. He looked up at me from the ground, proud jaw clenched, eyes unguarded. "If I stand, I will command. I will order, and I will lose you again." His hands curled on his thighs. "I'm done ordering you, Evelyn."

Three years ago, those eyes had been cold. Tonight, they were raw. "I rejected you to save a kingdom," he said, voice low and rough. "I told myself duty would be enough. That I could live without you if it kept my people from war. I was wrong." His breath hitched. "The curse took advantage. It bound itself to that lie. Every time I denied the bond, it sank deeper."

"So this is my fault."

"No." His answer was immediate, fierce. "This is mine. All of it. I broke us. I invited this. I am paying for it." His gaze dropped to his chest. "But it is killing my wolf, Evelyn. And he only howls your name."

My legs felt unsteady. He had no right to say things like that. "I searched for you for three years," he continued softer. "Every village, every border post. I gave half my power to my brother so I could leave the palace and look. Every full moon. The curse spread while I walked through snow and storm, asking strangers if they'd seen a woman with autumn leaves in her hair and moonlight in her eyes."

Heat burned behind my eyes. I blinked hard. "You don't even know me," I said.

"I know you stayed when your mother died and every other wolf ran. I know you give herbs away to widows who can't pay. I know you once offered a starving rogue bread instead of a blade." His mouth trembled. "My scouts talk. Little wolf, I listen to every word about you like a starving man listens to the promise of rain."

Little wolf, the old endearment slid under my skin. "This curse," I forced out. "What does it want from me?"

Fear flashed in his eyes. Not fear of death, fear of my answer. "It feeds on the bond it tried to sever. The only thing that can weaken it is that bond restored. Your touch, your acceptance, the goddess's gift freely chosen." He exhaled, shaky. "I am not here to demand that. I don't deserve it."

"Then why are you here?"

He lowered his head. Snow caught in his hair, melting against his skin. "To beg," he said simply. "Not for your touch to save my life. If the goddess wants me dead for what I did to you, I'll go. I earned it." His hands fisted. "I'm begging for a chance to prove that. If you let me live, I choose you over everything, over crown, over counsel, over the laws my father bled for. I will burn it all before I lose you again."

My heart twisted violently. "Please, Evelyn," his voice dropped to a rasp. "If you shut this door, I won't try again. I'll crawl back down this mountain and let the curse finish what I started. But if there is even a flicker of the bond left in you, let me stay just for the festival week. Let me show you, not tell you, show you that I will never choose anything above you again."

The bond inside me pulsed like a heartbeat waking. My wolf pressed forward, wanting to reach, touch, claim. Three years ago, I had begged. I had stood in the moonlight courtyard, hard on display, and begged him to reconsider. He had turned away. Now the king knelt in the snow on my threshold, begging me. I hated him. I wanted him. I didn't know how to breathe with both truths crushing my ribs.

"You have no right to ask this of me," I said.

"You're right," he answered softly. "I have no right to anything from you. That's why I'm not asking as your king. I'm asking as your mate." He looked up, eyes shining with unshed tears. "You are the only thing I have ever wanted for myself."

Silence stretched between us. The smart thing was to close the door, to lock it, and let the mountain swallow the echo of his voice. I had survived his rejection once. I was not sure I would survive hoping again. But I could feel his pain through the bond, now sharp, searing, edged with cold. I could feel his wolf, ragged and desperate, reaching for mine.

I stepped over the threshold. His breath stuttered. "Lift your head," I murmured. Slowly, he obeyed. My hand shook as I reached out. Three years without touching him, and now his face was right there, close enough to see the tired lines at his eyes, the stubble along his jaw, the faint tremble in his mouth. I set my palm against his cheek.

The world exploded. Heat roared through me, through us. A shock wave that slammed down the bond like a river breaking its dam. My wolf howled, his wolf answered. And for a heartbeat, there was nothing but us. Just the rightness of skin to skin, soul to soul, the way it had always been meant to be. Michael gasped, eyes flying wide as the dark veins at his throat pulsed, then retreated slightly, their edges softening, receding from my touch. The curse, snarling and reluctant, loosened its grip.

"Goddess," he choked, his hand lifted, hovering as if he didn't dare touch me back. "I feel you, Evelyn."

I snatched my hand away before I could drown in it. He sagged, panting. The blackness in his veins a shade lighter. "It works," I said, voice barely more than a breath. "The bond weakens it."

Hope flared in his eyes so bright it hurt to look at. I held up a shaking hand. "Don't say anything. Don't promise me the world. You already had it and chose to break me instead." He flinched. "You may stay," I forced out, each word heavier than stone. "Until the festival ends, I will help you because I won't have your death on my soul." I swallowed hard, but when the last candle burns out, "If you haven't convinced me things are different, you leave and you don't come back."

He knelt there, breathing hard, staring at me with something like reverence. "Thank you," he whispered, "for this night, for your mercy, for one more chance to be worthy of you." I stepped back, opening the door wider. "Get up, Michael," I said, hating how soft my voice sounded. "You're bleeding on my floor."

He pushed himself to his feet with a strained sound. One hand still pressed over his cursed heart. As he crossed my threshold, the bond flared, a low, insistent hum beneath my skin. The Alpha King had entered my cottage. The mate who had once destroyed me was inside my world again. And for the first time in three years, as I closed the door against the winter wind, I wasn't sure solitude had ever been the same thing as safety.

We made it exactly as far as the pallet by the hearth before Michael's legs gave out. "Easy," I muttered, stepping in before he could hit the floor. Heat poured off him in waves. The dark veins at his throat pulsed like something alive. His arm landed heavy across my shoulders. Even through damp wool, the contact punched through me. The bond flared, sharp and sweet, a spark straight down my spine. I gritted my teeth and focused on moving him one step at a time.

"You touched me," he said as I eased him down onto the pallet. "It feels different tonight." My fingers brushed his collar as I worked the clasp. The moment skin met skin, heat slammed into me again. His breath hitched. Mine did, too. I jerked my hands away and stripped the cloak in quick, efficient movements.

"Don't talk."

"That's unfortunate," he murmured. "I came to do a great deal of that."

I fetched tea from the hearth, measuring herbs with hands that were not shaking. Chamomile, valerian, moonflower petals. When I turned back, he was watching me like I was the only thing in the room worth noticing. "Drink," I said, kneeling beside him and passing him the cup. Our fingers brushed. The bond crackled along my nerves. His eyes went half-lidded. "This is going to be torture," he said softly. "Every accidental touch that doesn't get to be more."

I stayed where I was, too aware of his warmth, his scent starting to peel away the layers I'd wrapped around myself. "Talk then," I said. "Make your confession."

He stared into the cup. "They wanted me bound to the east, to the high alpha's daughter. Land, armies, trade routes, all tied up in one neat mating ceremony. Then the moon festival came and the goddess decided to make it complicated."

"You," my chest tightened. "You didn't even hesitate."

"I hesitated," he said quietly. "You just couldn't see it. I went to the temple. I begged for another way. The goddess didn't listen. So, I convinced myself the only way to stop a war was to reject you publicly."

"You could have told me. Instead, you let me stand there like a fool while you pretended you didn't feel it."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. "I thought it would be kinder if you believed there was nothing there."

"Kinder," I repeated bitterly. "You broke my wolf, Michael. For months, she didn't move. I woke up and felt nothing, no hunger, no joy, just emptiness. I couldn't breathe without pain. The only thing that kept me alive was stubbornness and herbs that made the world fuzz at the edges."

His hand tightened around the cup. "I know," he whispered.

"You don't."

"I do," he said, something raw in his voice. "The bond doesn't just break on one side. You were hollow. I was shredded. My wolf wouldn't hunt. Food tasted like ash. All I could feel was the echo of you."

"Yet you still chose duty."

"I said then, 'Yes,' and everyday since I've been choosing differently." He set the cup aside carefully. "I refused the political mating, tore up the treaty. The council threatened revolt. I changed the inheritance laws so the crown doesn't require a strategic bond anymore. I've been rewriting the very rules my father carved into stone. All so that if the goddess ever allowed me near you again, I could say the words I should have said that night."

My throat felt too tight. "What words?"

"That I choose you," he said simply. "No crown, no counsel. I choose you, Evelyn. I always did. I was just too much a coward to act on it."

Silence pulled between us. "I spent three years building walls," I said finally. "I made my world smaller until nothing could reach me. No pack, no friends, just herbs and work and sleep. I told myself I preferred it, that it hurt less not to hope."

His gaze softened. "Does it?"

"Most days," I admitted. "Some nights I wake up reaching for someone who isn't there. But during the day it's quiet, predictable, safe."

He leaned back, closing his eyes. "I have never been safe. Not since my father put the crown on my head. But I was less lonely. Knowing you were somewhere in the world. Even if you hated me."

I didn't answer. Couldn't. Eventually, I dragged a chair closer to the hearth and sat. My knees brushed the edge of his pallet. When I reached for my cup, his fingers brushed mine again. The spark of contact made us both suck in a breath. "We should limit that," I said, voice unsteady.

"Probably," he agreed, not moving his hand away. "We stayed that way too long," the tiny point of contact feeling more intimate than any embrace. Finally, I snatched my hand away and wrapped both around my cup.

"Sleep," I said.

"Healing takes energy," he swallowed. "I just haven't slept without dreaming of your scent in three years. It's strange to be this close and still be on the floor."

I stared into the fire. "I'm not ready for more."

"I know." His voice was soft. "I'm not asking."

I stood, dragged the chair closer to his pallet, then sat again. Close enough that if I stretched my hand, I could touch him, far enough that I didn't.

"Guard duty?" he asked.

"If the curse decides to finish you tonight, I'd like to be awake to watch."

He smiled then, small, tired, devastating. "Stay anyway."

The hours blurred. The fire sank to embers, his breathing evened out. At some point, my head tipped back against the chair, eyes burning, body heavy. Across from me, his hand had fallen off the pallet, fingers dangling, palm up. I told myself not to. Told myself I owed him nothing. Still, sometime between one breath and the next, I reached out in the dim light and let my fingertips rest against his. The bond hummed, quiet and warm, like sliding under a thick blanket on a winter night. I fell asleep like that, two chairs, too much distance, a single fragile touch between us, aching to be closer, and terrified of what would happen if I let myself choose it.

I woke to his screaming. The sound tore through the cottage like a wounded animal, raw and guttural and wrong. I lurched out of the chair, heart hammering, disoriented in the pre-dawn darkness. Michael thrashed on the pallet, back arching, clawing at his chest. The dark veins had spread since last night, creeping up his throat like poison ivy, pulsing with sickly black light.

"Michael." I dropped to my knees beside him, hands hovering, afraid to touch, afraid not to. "Michael, look at me."

His eyes snapped open, unfocused, wild. His wolf was too close to the surface, fighting the curse, tearing him apart from the inside. The full moon. I'd been so focused on him that I'd forgotten tonight was the peak, the goddess's light at its strongest. The very thing that should have blessed us was feeding the curse instead.

"Evelyn," he gasped, voice shredded. "Can't, it's burning." His hand shot out and caught my wrist. The contact blazed up my arm, the bond screaming in response. For a moment, his eyes cleared. Then another wave hit him and he convulsed, releasing me with a choked sound.

"Don't," he gritted out. "Don't touch. Makes it worse when you pull away."

My omega nature surged forward. Instinct overriding thought. Alpha in pain. Mate suffering. Everything in me demanded I fix it, soothe it, protect him even from himself. I had two choices. Let him burn through this alone, suffering, possibly dying while I watched. Or give him what the bond was howling for. I made it before I could talk myself out of it.

I climbed onto the pallet beside him, swinging one leg over his thrashing form, and pressed my full weight against his chest, skin to skin where his shirt had torn open, my hands framing his face, my forehead against his. "Breathe," I commanded, using the voice my mother taught me, the one that could gentle wild things. "Michael, breathe with me."

He went rigid beneath me. Then slowly his chest rose and fell in shaky rhythm with mine. The bond roared to life between us. No longer a tentative thread, but a rope thick and binding, pulling taut. Heat poured through it. His pain. My fear. Something deeper that tasted like recognition, like coming home after years of wandering.

"That's it," I murmured, one hand sliding into his sweat-damp hair. "I've got you. You're not alone."

His arms came up, hesitant, then wrapped around me with desperate strength. He buried his face in the crook of my neck and breathed in like a drowning man breaking the surface. "Evelyn," he whispered against my skin. "Goddess, you smell like..." Another tremor racked through him. I held tighter, letting my omega nature take over, the part of me that knew how to calm, how to heal. I ran my fingers through his hair in slow, soothing strokes. Pressed my lips to his temple. Let my scent—mountain herbs and wood smoke and something uniquely mine—wrap around him like a blanket. "I'm here," I said softly. "I'm not leaving."

The hours blurred together. The moon climbed higher outside, silver light spilling through the window, and with it came waves of pain that left him gasping and shaking in my arms. Each time I held him through it, each time I whispered things I didn't plan to say. "You're stronger than this. The curse doesn't own you. I won't let it take you."

And when the pain receded enough for him to speak, he gave me words back. Fevered, broken, true. "Dreamed of you every night," he breathed into my neck. "Your laugh, the way you bit your lip when you concentrated, how you smelled like spring even in winter." Michael couldn't forget, he continued, trembling. "Tried. Goddess knows I tried, but you were everywhere. In every moon, every garden, every woman who wasn't you." His arms tightened. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I would carve out my heart and give it to you if it would undo what I did."

My throat closed. "Your heart wouldn't do me much good if you're dead."

He laughed, the sound ragged. "Always practical."

"One of us has to be." His hand came up, fingers tangling in my hair. Not pulling, just holding. Like I was the only solid thing in a world gone liquid and strange.

"You could have let me die out there in the snow. Could have shut the door and been free of me."

"I know."

"Why didn't you?"

I didn't have an answer that didn't terrify me. So, I gave him the easy one. "Because the goddess doesn't make mistakes with bonds, even when we wish she did."

He was quiet for a long moment, then softer. "Do you wish she had?" I felt the question against my collarbone. Felt the way he held his breath, waiting for my answer.

"Ask me again when you're not dying," I whispered.

Another wave hit. This one was the worst yet. He arched against me with a sound like breaking, and I felt it through the bond, the curse digging deeper. Silver claws wrapped around his heart, squeezing. "No!" I snarled, pressing closer, flooding the bond with everything I had. My omega nature rose like a tide, fierce and protective, and utterly unafraid. "You don't get to take him." I didn't know if I was talking to the curse or the goddess or death itself. Didn't matter. I wrapped myself around Michael like a shield and refused to let go. My hands found his face, thumbs stroking his cheekbones. My lips brushed his forehead, his temple, the corner of his jaw. Not kisses, not quite, but something more essential. Comfort. Connection. The promise that he wasn't alone in the dark. "Stay with me," I breathed. "Michael, stay."

His eyes opened, barely focused. "Evelyn, stay." Something shifted. The bond flared bright and hot between us, and I felt the curse recoil, just a fraction, like light pushing back shadow. The black veins at his throat pulsed once, twice, then began to recede, pulling back toward his heart. His breathing evened. The trembling slowed. By the time the moon set and dawn crept gray through the window, he'd fallen into something like real sleep. I stayed where I was, draped across him, feeling his chest rise and fall steadily beneath me. My omega purred, satisfied, safe in the knowledge that her alpha was healing. I was too exhausted to fight what that meant.

When I woke, the cottage was full of soft morning light. I was still on the pallet, still pressed against Michael's side. Sometime in the night, we'd shifted—my head on his shoulder, his arm around my waist, our legs tangled together like we'd been doing this for years instead of hours. His face was buried in my hair. I felt him breathe in slow and deep, like he was memorizing me. "You smell like home," he murmured, voice rough with sleep. "I forgot how much."

He went rigid as awareness returned. His arm started to retreat. "Don't," I said before I could stop myself. He froze.

"Evelyn."

I lifted my head, met his eyes. They were clearer now, storm gray and uncertain, and so full of careful hope, it made my chest ache. "Don't pull away," I whispered. "Not yet."

His throat worked. "I don't want to push."

"You're not." I placed my hand flat against his chest, right over his heart. The black veins were still there, but fainter, less angry, healing. "Last night, I felt what it's like. The bond, not broken, not denied, just there, the way it was supposed to be."

His hand came up, covering mine, pressing it harder against his heartbeat. And I should have said it terrified me. Should have said I wasn't ready. Should have pulled away and rebuilt my walls before I did something catastrophically stupid like believe this could work. Instead, I told the truth, and I don't want you to let go.

The forest was silver with morning frost when we set out to gather herbs. Michael insisted on coming despite my protests. "You're still healing," I'd said, watching him lace his boots with hands that trembled only slightly. "I'm not letting you go alone into the woods when there might be..." he stopped, jaw tightening. "I'm coming."

So we walked, my basket over one arm, his presence a warm weight at my side. The bond hummed between us, quieter now than last night's roar, but still there, still undeniable. I led him to a clearing where wintergreen grew in thick patches beneath the pines. We worked in comfortable silence for a while. My hands sure and practiced, his clumsy but willing.

"My father was dying," he said suddenly. I glanced up. He was staring at the herbs in his hands, not seeing them. "He called me to his bedside three days before the end. Made me swear an oath. His voice was flat, controlled, that I would secure the kingdom through political alliance, that I would bind us to the eastern pacts before his enemies could move against us. He said if I didn't, everything he'd built would collapse into civil war."

My hands stilled in the frozen earth. "I was twenty-two," he continued, "barely ready to rule, terrified of failing him, of failing everyone. So I swore it on my wolf, on my honor, on the goddess herself." He crushed a sprig of wintergreen between his fingers. "Alpha oaths aren't breakable, Evelyn. Not without consequences. So when you met me, I was already bound." He finally looked at me, and the pain in his eyes was raw enough to cut. "The goddess gave me a mate, and I couldn't accept her without breaking an oath that would have destroyed my people."

I sat back on my heels. "You could have explained. To what end?"

"So you could watch me choose duty over you with full understanding." He shook his head. "I thought a clean break would hurt less. I was wrong about that, too."

The wind sighed through the pines above us. Somewhere distant, a bird called. "What changed?" I asked quietly.

"I did." He moved closer, kneeling in the frost beside me. "After I rejected you, I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. My wolf was killing me from the inside, clawing at my ribs, howling your name until I thought I'd go mad." His hand clenched. "And I realized, what good is a kingdom if I'm too broken to rule it? What good is honor if it means destroying the one thing the goddess made specifically for me?"

So, you broke the oath?

"No." A bitter smile crossed his face. "I found another way. I spent three years building alliances my father never imagined. I changed succession laws, strengthened my brother's claim, shifted power so the crown didn't rest solely on my mating choice." He reached out slowly, giving me time to pull away, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "I dismantled my father's world piece by piece so I could be free to build my own."

My breath caught. "Why?"

"Because I love you." He said it simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I've loved you since the moment I caught your scent at the moon festival. And my wolf said her, 'I loved you when I rejected you, though I was too much a coward to honor it. I've loved you every day since, through three years of searching, through this curse, through your anger and your walls and every reason you have to hate me.'" His thumb traced my cheekbone with aching gentleness. "Rejecting you didn't just break the bond, Evelyn. It shattered me. Every piece of me that mattered, it all stayed with you on that mountainside when you fled the court."

Tears burned behind my eyes. I blinked them back fiercely. "You can't just say things like that."

"Why not?"

"It's true." He leaned closer and I felt his breath warm against my lips. "I will spend the rest of my life proving it if you'll let me. No crown, no kingdom, just us, just..." he stopped. His whole body went rigid.

"What?"

"Do you smell that?" I lifted my head, drawing in a slow breath through my nose, and there, beneath pine and frost and earth, something else. Foreign, sharp. The scent of wolves I didn't recognize. Michael was already moving, rising to his feet with predatory grace, eyes scanning the treeline.

"How long have you noticed strangers in these woods?"

"I haven't," my heart hammered. "I'm alone up here. No one comes this far."

"Someone has." He pointed. I followed his gaze and felt my stomach drop. Tracks in the frost. Large, fresh. At least three different sets, all circling the clearing like they'd been watching, waiting.

"Damon," Michael breathed, and the name carried weight like a curse. "He found us."

"Who?"

"The one who cursed me. The one who wants my throne." He caught my hand, pulling me up, pulling me close. "The one who will use you to destroy me if we don't move now."

A branch snapped somewhere to our left. Michael stepped in front of me. Every inch the Alpha King now, power radiating off him in waves despite the curse still shadowing his veins. A low growl built in his chest, territorial and deadly. "Run back to the cottage," he said quietly. "Bar the door. Don't open it for anyone but me. I'm not leaving you, Evelyn." He glanced back and his eyes had gone wolf-bright, dangerous. "If they take you, I will burn the world to get you back. And I'm not strong enough for that yet. Please run."

Another snap. Closer. Then from the shadows between the trees, a voice, smooth, amused, utterly cold. "Too late for running, little Omega. We've been waiting for you to come out and play." Three wolves stepped from the treeline. Large, scarred, moving with the confidence of trained killers. Behind them, more shadows shifted. Five? Ten?

Michael's hand found mine. Squeezed once. "Stay behind me," he murmured. "Whatever happens, stay behind me."

The largest wolf grinned, showing too many teeth. "Alpha King Michael, how generous of you to bring us exactly what Lord Damon wants. This will be easier than we thought."

We made it back to the cottage with minutes to spare. Michael shoved me through the door, barred it behind us, and immediately started dragging furniture. The table, both chairs, anything heavy enough to slow an attack. "How many?" I asked, grabbing my leather satchel and shoving supplies inside with shaking hands. Herbs, bandages, the small knife my mother left me.

"Too many?" His voice was grim. "Damon sent a hunting pack. At least eight, maybe more."

"Can you fight that many in your condition?"

He shot me a look that was pure alpha—fierce, possessive, utterly uncompromising. "I will fight an army if that's what it takes to keep you safe, Michael."

The first impact hit the door like thunder. Wood splintered. The bar held, but barely. Another hit and the hinges groaned. "The back window," Michael said, already moving. "Go now."

"Not without you."

"I'll be right behind you. Go."

I ran. The window was small, barely wide enough for my shoulders. I squeezed through, dropping into the snow, and turned back just as the front door exploded inward. Wolves poured through, massive, snarling, and Michael—Goddess. I'd never seen him fight before. He moved like violence given form, all raw power and lethal grace. His fist connected with the first attacker's jaw with a crack that echoed. He spun, caught another by the throat, and threw him into the stone hearth hard enough to crack bone. But there were too many, and the curse had weakened him. I saw it in the way his movements stuttered, the way he favored his left side, the dark veins pulsing at his throat. One of them got past his guard. A blade flashed. Michael twisted, but not fast enough. The steel caught him across the ribs, and blood bloomed dark against his shirt.

"No!" The scream tore from my throat before I could stop it. His head snapped toward me, eyes wide. "Run, Evelyn, run."

I ran into the forest, branches tearing at my clothes, snow soaking through my boots. Behind me, snarls and crashes as Michael fought his way after me. I heard him call my name once, raw and desperate. And then he was beside me, blood streaming from the wound at his ribs, one hand clamped over it. "Keep going," he gasped. "There's a cave half a mile north. We can lose them."

A howl cut through the air. Close. Too close. Michael grabbed my hand and pulled me faster. We found the cave as darkness fell. A narrow opening hidden behind a frozen waterfall, barely visible unless you knew where to look. We stumbled inside and Michael immediately collapsed against the stone wall, breathing hard, his face too pale.

"Let me see," I said, already kneeling beside him, pulling his ruined shirt aside. The wound was deep. Not fatal, but bad enough. Blood pulsed between his fingers where he pressed down.

"I'm fine," he gritted out.

"You're bleeding all over my cave floor. You're not fine." I worked quickly, hands steady despite my racing heart. Cleaned the wound with whiskey from my satchel. Packed it with crushed yarrow to stop the bleeding. Stitched it closed with thread and a needle I'd packed without thinking. He didn't make a sound through any of it. Just watched me with those storm gray eyes, intense and unreadable.

"You should have left me," he said when I finally tied off the bandage.

I looked up. "What?"

"At the cottage, you should have run when I told you to. You'd be safe and you'd be dead."

My voice shook. "Don't ask me to do that again, Evelyn. No."

I pressed my hand flat against his chest, feeling his heart hammer beneath my palm. "You don't get to sacrifice yourself for me. Not when I just decided I might want to keep you."

Something shifted in his expression. Hope, fear, need so raw it hurt to see. "Say that again," he whispered. "I want to keep you."

The words came easier the second time. "I'm still terrified. I still don't trust this won't break me. But I..."

He kissed me. One moment we were separate and the next his hand was in my hair, his mouth on mine, and the world dissolved into heat and sensation and the devastating rightness of finally, finally touching him the way the bond had been screaming for since the moment we met. I gasped against his lips and he swallowed the sound, kissing me deeper, pulling me closer until I was in his lap, straddling him, careful of his wound, but unable to stop touching, tasting, claiming. The bond roared to life between us, not the tentative thread from before, but a wildfire consuming everything in its path. His hands trembled as they framed my face. "Evelyn," he breathed against my mouth. "Goddess, I've dreamed."

I kissed him again, harder this time. Three years of longing and grief and desperate need pouring out of me. He tasted like blood and snow and something uniquely him. And I couldn't get enough. His omega, his mate, mine. The word pulsed through the bond like a heartbeat. Mine. Mine. Mine. I felt the exact moment the bond started to complete. Heat seared through my core. His wolf calling to mine. The final surrender hovering right there. So close.

I pulled back, gasping. "Wait," I choked out. "Wait, I can't. Not yet."

He released me immediately, hands falling away, though his whole body shook with restraint. "I know," he said, voice wrecked. "I know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have."

"Don't apologize for that." I touched my fingers to my lips, still feeling the ghost of him there. "But if we complete the bond now, here, running for our lives..." I shook my head. "I want to choose you. Not because a curse forces it. Not because we're desperate. Because I'm ready."

He nodded slowly, understanding flickering in his eyes despite the pain. "Then we stay ahead of them. Until you're ready. Until you choose freely."

"The Moon Temple," I said. "You mentioned ancient protections."

"Two days north. Sacred ground." Damon's wolves can't enter without the goddess's permission." He tried to stand, winced. Let me help him up. "We leave at first light."

Outside, the howls started again. Closer now, hunting. Michael pulled me against his side, his arm around my waist, solid and warm despite everything. "I will get you there safely," he murmured into my hair. "I swear it on my life, on my wolf, on everything I am. I will keep you safe long enough to choose."

I pressed closer, breathing him in. "Then we run at dawn."

He kissed the top of my head, gentle this time. Reverent. "At dawn," he agreed.

Together, we walked through two days of winter. And somewhere along the way, I stopped counting the distance between us. It started small. Michael's hand at my elbow as we crossed an icy stream. His body angled to block the wind. The way he insisted I eat first when we stopped to rest, watching until I swallowed before taking anything himself. By the second morning, his hand had found the small of my back and stayed there. Possessive, protective, right. I let it. We moved through the mountains like wolves who'd been running together for years instead of days. He matched his stride to mine without thinking. I leaned into his warmth when the wind cut too sharp. When we sheltered in a narrow canyon to wait out a storm, we pressed together for heat, my back to his chest, his arms wrapped around me, and neither of us pretended it was only practical.

"Tell me about after," he said into my hair as snow fell silent around us. "After what?"

"After you accept the bond," his arms tightened fractionally. "If you accept it, what does your life look like?"

I stared at the white-gray sky. "I don't know. I've spent three years trying not to imagine a future that included you."

"Imagine it now," he said softly. "Please give me something to hope for."

So I did. "A cottage," I said slowly. "Bigger than mine with a garden large enough to grow everything I need. A workroom for drying herbs and mixing remedies. People coming to the door not because I'm anyone important, but because they know I can help. And me?"

"You're in the garden," I admitted, "getting dirt under your nails, complaining that you're a king, not a farmer, but doing it anyway because you like the way I smile when the tomatoes come in."

His chest shook with silent laughter. "I would do that, complained the entire time and come back the next day."

"I know." I turned my head slightly, enough to see the edge of his jaw. "What about you? What do you want?"

"You," he said simply. "Everything else is negotiable, Michael."

"I mean it." He shifted and suddenly we were face to face, his gray eyes serious. "I've spent three years dismantling my father's legacy. My brother is ready to take the crown. Better suited for it. Honestly, he likes the politics, the strategy, all the things I only did because I had to." His hand came up, cupping my cheek. "I changed succession laws so the crown doesn't require a strategic bond anymore." He reached out slowly, giving me time to pull away, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "I dismantled my father's world piece by piece so I could be free to build my own."