She was alive.She would be mine.
Even if she hated me for it.
“Child.”
Alice’s voice from the doorway.I didn’t turn.Didn’t need to.She had been with me my entire life, even through the dark years at the boarding school, since my mother’s death shattered whatever remained of my childhood.She was one of the only people in the world who had seen me without the mask.
She crossed the room, her footsteps soft on the hardwood.She stopped behind me.Her breath caught sharp as she saw the damage they’d done.
“The Pakhan’s men.”Her voice was flat with fury.She had seen wounds like these before, decades ago.On my mother.Before the end.
“It’s done.”I straightened, reaching for the shirt I had discarded.“She agreed to the marriage.”
Alice stepped closer.Her hand hovered near my shoulder blade, tracing the path of a claw mark that ran from my spine to my side.“And what did you sacrifice, child?”
She was the only one who called me that.The only one who had known my mother, who remembered the woman whose death had turned me into this creature of vengeance and carefully controlled violence.The only one who saw the boy underneath the monster I had become.
“The only cost that mattered.”
I pulled the shirt back on, hiding the evidence.The fabric dragged across the raw wounds and fresh pain bloomed across my back, but I didn’t wince.Couldn’t afford to show weakness, even here.
“The courthouse ceremony is set for Thursday afternoon,” I said.“Minimal witnesses.Parsons and you, if you’re willing.”
“You know I am.”She moved around the desk to face me, her weathered face carved with grief.Not just for me.For both of us.For the girl who didn’t know she was being saved and the man who couldn’t tell her.“Does she know what you’ve done for her?”
“No.”
“Will you tell her?”
The question I had been asking myself since I made the choice.Since I had looked into the Pakhan’s eyes and said the word that had condemned me to this.Marriage.Not murder.My mate would live, even if she spent the rest of her life hating me for it.
“If I tell her,” I said slowly, “her forgiveness becomes obligation.She would stay out of gratitude, not love.”
Alice studied me with those knowing eyes that had seen too much of my darkness.“And you want her to love you.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I want her to choose me.”The admission burned, more honest than I allowed myself to be with anyone else.Even myself.“When she looks at me without hatred, I want it to be because she sees who I really am.Not because she owes me.”
Alice was quiet for a long moment.The grandfather clock in the corner marked the seconds, each tick a small eternity.Then she nodded, the grief in her eyes deepening into pride.
“That’s either the most selfless or the most foolish thing you’ve ever done.”
“Probably both.”
She left me alone with my pain.I sank into the chair behind my desk, the leather cool against my wounded back, and stared at the documents Parsons had already sent over.Marriage certificate applications.Name change paperwork.The legal machinery of binding her to me.
Lena Antonov.
Her name next to mine on the official form.Permanent.
This was not how I had imagined it, if I had let myself imagine anything at all.In some buried corner of my mind, there had been a fantasy.A dream I had never admitted to anyone, barely admitted to myself.Telling her the truth about what we were to each other.Watching her accept the bond.A real wedding, with her wearing white and looking at me like I was a man, not a monster.
Foolish.I had known from the beginning how this would have to happen.The Pakhan would never have allowed me to court her properly.Would never have accepted a relationship outside pack law.The ultimatum had only accelerated what was inevitable.
I picked up a pen and began filling in the forms.Date of ceremony.Witnesses.Venue.
Courthouse, no ceremony, the bare bones of a marriage without any of the meaning.I had chosen that, sparing us both the charade of pretending this was anything but what it was.A legal binding.A protection.A cage I was locking us both into.