Filed to story: The Wolf Prince’s Fated Love
My earlier determination that maybe it was time to strip off all the curses and face the ODL toe-to-toe came roaring back to the forefront of my mind as I turned off the shower. If they were going to hunt us anyway, we needed to be at full strength to fight back.
The prospect was terrifying, but the idea had taken root. I dressed quickly, happy to be warm and clean again, but it was eerily quiet with only the two of us in the bunker. I was ready to get out of here as soon as I was dressed.
When we climbed into the car, though, I gasped with realization. “Gael, we can’t go yet. Your letters! I left your letters inside a tree trunk. We have to go back and get them, please! I can’t leave them.”
His hand on my arm stopped me from bailing out of the door I’d just flung back open. “I’ll write you new ones, Leigh. Those are just paper. The important thing is you and me, here.” His eyes shone with sincerity, which made the knots of regret in my muscles loosen just slightly.
“But they were precious to me. All the things you shared, the funny stories and the sad ones. The one about you cashing in your v-card, by the way, made me laugh so hard. It takes a very secure man to admit how badly that went.”
He rolled his eyes at my barely repressed laughter. “I’m glad you enjoyed them. I made myself a promise that I wasn’t going to keep anything back. Even stories that should never be told about the embarrassing sexcapades of youth. But I promise I’ll write you more.”
“Okay,” I reluctantly agreed, reaching over and shutting the door again.
The bunker’s garage was attached to another long tunnel, which let us out several miles away from the castle. I was anxious when the door lifted, but we were on a deserted back road, surrounded by thick, overgrown forest, with not a sign of another soul in sight. Gael waited until we were on the nearest highway to call the rest of the pack.
I was glad for the reprieve. My emotions were everywhere. I had mate marks. Gael had mate marks. I knew in my gut that our agreeing to bond was the right decision. But even so, there were still so many things up in the air. How would Petal be safe? Was Gael meant to die with me and leave her orphaned? Were we going to be hunted down so soon by the insane mob outside that it didn’t matter?
That grim thought would keep me up tonight, I had no doubt.
I was a roll-with-the-punches kind of girl, but this was my child’s life at stake. There weren’t many possible outcomes I found acceptable. The conversation at least provided a distraction from my mixed-up knot of emotions.
Reed was the one who answered. “You make it out okay?” he asked without preamble.
“Yep, we’re on the pavement. Did you guys have any trouble?”
“Not unless you count Cristian refusing to evacuate. He’s still in the castle, but all the household staff made it safely home and have checked in, and the perimeter crew is almost finished with the sweep-up. Andrei called in so many of the Pack Caelestis males, the remaining invaders didn’t take much persuading to leave. But the news is still ramping up, and we need to lie low. Lucien left with the household staff. He’s going to try to work on the IGC from the inside and meet back up with us when it’s safe.”
Anxiety grew in my belly, adding to the brew already stewing in there as I listened to the exchange. We’d been doing our best to keep Brielle’s curse quiet. We hadn’t had a choice over Varga, the castle attacks, or the ODL attacks-anything.
Though I supposed Kane could have chosen to execute Varga quietly. But either way, Petró would have made a stink.
“Where are we going?” I asked as Gael hung up with Reed.
“To see my sister,” Gael said, reaching over and taking my hand. “She lives in basically a fortress. I’m not sure how else to describe it.”
“You called it a Maiden’s Enclave on the phone with Kane earlier. Is it far?”
“We’re going to be driving overnight, but we’ll get there in the wee hours. You can close your eyes if you’re tired.”
It was like the suggestion pulled a yawn out of me against my will. He cracked a smile as he glanced away from the road at me for a split second.
“It’s going to be a long night. We’re safe now, and I promise you that nothing and no one is going to make it past me to you or Petal. I’ll wake you up when we get there.”
“Okay,” I murmured.
I still had questions. Why did his sister live in this enclave and not with their family? How were we supposed to lie any lower if trouble kept finding us? Was my palm ever going to stop glowing? What the hell was a maiden’s enclave anyway? But my eyelids were heavy, and exhaustion was a thick blanket weighing me down. I squeezed Gael’s hand and let my eyes close. The questions could wait for tomorrow.
“Leigh?”
Gael’s voice was a soft invitation, and the smell of coffee tingled delectably in my nostrils. “Are you hungry? I stopped at a drive-through because we’re almost there. I thought you might like sustenance before we arrive and get mobbed by the maidens. They don’t get a lot of visitors, so it tends to be exciting.”
I blinked away the sleep in my eyes, shifting up straighter in my seat and accepting the cup of coffee he offered as I tried to process what he was saying. There was a bare hint of light staining the dark satin sky, and I had no idea what time it was, only that no reasonable person would be awake at this hour.
“I’m not really hungry. When you say mobbed by the maidens… what exactly does that mean? Are they like… nuns? Are we going to disappear into a sea of habits, or…”
“They’re nun adjacent,” was all he said, and then we were rolling down a road that seemed far too narrow for this behemoth of an SUV.
I wasn’t awake enough to decipher what that meant. So I just sipped my coffee and watched the rocky landscape slip by.
Within an hour, the sky had lightened significantly, and I could see a massive stone fortress looming ahead. He was right; there was no other way to describe it, although medieval wouldn’t have been a bad descriptor.
The road turned to switchbacks at the end, and I was more than a little green around the gills by the time the gravel stopped crunching under the tires and Gael put us in Park.
“You ready?” he asked, stroking his thumb over the back of my knuckles.
“Is she going to like me?” I blurted, suddenly realizing that a meeting with his sister was imminent. I was in sweats, hadn’t brushed my hair since yesterday, and had morning-slash-coffee-breath, which was not a pleasant combination.
“She’ll love you,” he assured me with a wicked grin. “And if she doesn’t, well, we won’t invite her to Christmas dinner.”
I smacked him lightly on the arm as he laughed and jumped out of the car to come around and open my door. But when I slid to the ground, he didn’t step politely away the way he usually would. He stayed in my personal space, wrapping his heavily muscled arms around me, and looked down at me with an intensity that made my panties go damp in an instant.
“Tonight’s the full moon.”
I squinted up at the sky, finding the low-hanging moon that hadn’t gone down yet from the night before. “Looks like it,” I agreed. “Are you changing your mind about bonding so soon? I mean, I understand. We could wait. I would be fine to wait, really. It’s a lot to pull together, and we’re already showing up on your sister’s doorstep, so she might not appreciate being asked to put together a whole bonding ceremony in a day. This seems like the sort of old-as-dirt place that has traditions before a run, so that’s also a factor, and- why are you looking at me like that?”
He just grinned harder at the question, and I knew then that I’d give him anything he asked for. The Goddess was giving with both hands when she put this man together, and it was not fair. I was already knocked up, so how was he still leading me around by the ovaries so easily?
Because you’re head over heels in love with him, dum-dum.
“You’re cute when you’re nervous. But no, I just wanted to remind you that tonight’s the night you bond with me.”
I froze, heat filling me from head to curled toes at that devilish tone and the