Page 26

My alpha kingpin mate.

Epilogue

Liam

The sun climbs gently through the eastern windows of my home, brushing golden light across the floorboards like it’s in no rush to announce the day. This place isn’t the sprawling estate bearing my family’s reputation, and that’s why I chose it. It’s mine. Quiet. Sturdy. Withdrawn. A two-story brick house tucked behind rows of oak and iron fence, wrapped in quiet. There’s no gilded archways here, no ancestral portraits looming overhead. Just high ceilings, dark wood accents, a wide hearth in the den, and enough silence that I can hear Claire breathing two rooms away.

It’s the kind of place where you can build a future with your mate.

The office used to be a second bedroom, but I converted it last fall, once it was clear I’d be taking Alpha from my father whether I wanted the title the way it came or not. The room smells like ink and pine, the leather of the chair beneath me creaking faintly as I lean back and watch morning break across the backyard through tall windows. Fresh security wiring lines the back gate. A stone garden path winds through tall sage and lavender. Restoration crews might not think this home screams kingpin, but that’s what’s beautiful about it. No one expectsblood behind warmth. No one expects a monster with claws hiding behind a home full of quiet rooms and the scent of fresh-baked scones.

There’s a file open in front of me, only a few pages. A whisper of a trail. The beginning of Ronan’s mistake, printed on two photos and a slim finance sheet. I can already sense the way it’ll unravel. There will be blood for what he did to my father. But not today.

Because while the whole kingdom waits for me to exact justice, a stronger command pulses low in my chest. One forged under moonlight, through grit and grace and tangled limbs and ruined silk.

The door clicks open.

My hand stills, resting on the open folder, but I don’t need to turn. I feel her before I see her. That bond between us singing a chord as steady as the beat of the heart she gave back to me when she let me claim her.

Claire steps into the sunlight without hesitation. Her tousled hair dampens my shirt that clings to her shoulders. It’s unbuttoned, loosely draped, like she’s framing the bond mark over her pulse. The silver scars catch the light as if reminding me who she is even before I see her face.

She barely gives the file a glance. Her eyes find mine and pin me.

And gods help me—I stand.

The world falls away, everything outside that one look irrelevant, every pack matter forgotten. She says nothing.

She doesn’t need to.

Claire steps forward slowly, each step deliberate. She shrugs the shirt off. It slips from her shoulders and puddles at her feet as she tips her chin up, that fierce spirit of hers clear in her eyes.

My hand cups her nape, my thumb brushing over the twin sets of scars etched into her skin. I think I’ll combust if I don’t kiss her right now. I lean in.

Her fingers curl into my shirt and stop me.

“I love you, Liam,” she murmurs, eyes gleaming.

I swallow. Hard. I’ve said it in actions. But words? No one’s ever spoken those to me outside of my mother.

“I’m not sure I deserve that,” I say quietly.

“You don’t,” she whispers with half a smile. “But I do, anyway.”

My fingers tighten at her nape, the other sliding along her hip to anchor her to me.

“I love you, Claire O’Reilly,” I say, rough and reverent. “I loved you then. Even when I turned my back. Especially then. I didn’t know what name to give it, but it lived inside me like a curse.”

Her breath catches.

“And now?” she asks, voice thin.

“Now it’s not a curse anymore. It’s fucking everything.”

Then I kiss her. Deep, fierce, unrelenting.

The folder slides off the desk as her sigh falls into my mouth, and I press her back slowly, gently, until we’re nothing but skin and heat and the taste of love given without condition.

Because in this room, in this home that belongs to both of us now, nothing exists beyond the thrum of her pulse beneath my lips and the whispered promise I offer in return.

I love her.

With every part of my blood soaked heart.