Claiming The Enemy Alpha

TooClose ForComfort

We didn't stop running until we reached an old hunting cabin two miles into Ashgrove territory. Damon said it was the one place even his own council didn't know about.

"An enemy Alpha with secret hideouts, how convenient," I said.

"You say enemy like it still fits."

"Doesn't it?"

He didn't answer that. He just crossed the room to check on Mara, who'd finally stopped shaking enough to glare at both of us with real fire in her eyes.

"So," Mara said. "Fated mates, evil fathers, magic healing hands. Anything else I should know before I have a full breakdown?"

"That's most of it," I said.

"Most of it."

"There might be a corrupt councilman too."

"Great. Cool. Love that for us." She pulled the blanket Damon offered tighter around her shoulders. "I'm going to lie down before I say something I regret to the Alpha who let his guards nearly get me killed."

She disappeared into the back room, leaving Damon and me alone with a fire crackling low in the hearth and about a thousand things neither of us had said yet.

"You should sit," he said. "You've been standing since the treaty hall."

"I'm fine."

"Selene."

"I said I'm fine."

He crossed the room anyway, closing the distance between us slow enough that I had every chance to step back. I didn't. That was the problem with him

, he never pushed. He just waited, until I stopped pretending I didn't want him closer.

"You saved my life tonight," he said quietly. "With your hands. After you rejected me in front of two hundred witnesses."

"Don't make it weird."

"I'm not, I'm saying thank you." He said with a small, tired smile.

"You're the reason I needed to save your life in the first place. Someone's trying to kill you because of who you are. I got dragged into that the second I walked back into this territory."

"You got dragged in the second fate decided we belonged to each other," he said. "I just happened to be standing there when it happened."

I hated how close he was standing. I hated more how much I didn't want him to move.

"This doesn't mean anything," I said. "The healing. The bond. Any of it. I still hate what your family did."

"I know."

"I still don't trust you."

"I know that too."

"Then why are you looking at me like that?"

His eyes dropped to my mouth for half a second before he caught himself and looked away, jaw tight, like a man reminding himself of every reason he shouldn't. "Because I've spent eleven years telling myself the Voss girl I never met was just a ghost story my father used to keep me in line. And now she's standing in my cabin, glaring at me like she wants to either hit me or kiss me, and for the life of me I can't tell which one I'm hoping for."

Heat rushed up my neck. "Neither."

"Liar."

"I could still hit you."

"You could." He stepped closer anyway, close enough now that the bond hummed low and warm between us, close enough I could feel the heat coming off him like a fire that had nothing to do with the hearth. "I'd probably let you. I'd probably deserve it."

"Damon."

"I know we're not supposed to want this," he said, voice rough. "I know your family, my father, all of it stands between us like a wall neither of us built. But I rejected trying to talk myself out of this the second your hands closed that wound tonight, and I don't think I can go back to pretending after that."

I should have stepped away. I should have said something cold enough to end it.

Instead I closed the last of the distance myself, and for one reckless second, enemy or not, mate or not, none of it mattered at all.

A branch cracked outside the cabin window.

We both froze.

"Mara's asleep," Damon whispered. "That wasn't her."

Something large moved through the trees outside, slow and deliberate, like it wanted us to know it was there.