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She takes a step back. Then another. Until her spine meets the wall beside my office door. I follow, unable to stop myself from caging her with my arms.

“Why were you at my house last night?” she whispers. Her breath fans across my chin, sweet and warm. “How did you know?”

The question hits like a physical blow. How do I tell her I’ve been watching her house? That I’ve had Kasar tracking the shifter who’s been following her? That every cell in my body screams to claim her, to mark her, to make it clear to everyone—especially that mangy wolf—that she’s mine?

“I’ve been... concerned,” I say finally, the words inadequate. “After the bracelet?—”

She crosses her arms. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Concern? Because when I brought it to you, you acted like it was nothing.”

“I never said it was nothing,” I bite out, the memory of that moment burning behind my teeth. “I said it wasn’t from me.”

Her eyes narrow. “You didn’t seem particularly alarmed either.”

“I was furious.” My fists curl against the wall. “It wasn’t a warning, Blake. It was a claim. Someone trying to mark you. Intimately. Obsessively. And yes—I knew exactly what it meant. I’ve been watching ever since. Especially when it involves you.”

“Why?”

One word. Three letters. And it undoes me completely.

I lean closer, letting her see the crimson bleeding into my eyes. Letting her feel the full weight of what she does to me. “Because you’re mine.”

Her breath catches. “I’m not?—“

“You are.” I drop my head, my lips a breath from her ear. “You have been since that night. Since I tasted you. Since I heard the sounds you make when you come apart beneath me. Since I saw how fiercely you protect your daughter. You. Are. Mine.”

She shivers, but her voice stays steady. “You don’t get to claim me just because you took my virginity.”

The words hang between us, scorching the air.

Blake freezes. Her lips part, but no sound comes out. Her pulse stutters, a sharp flutter against the tension that’s pulled her body taut. I can hear it—feel it—like the aftershock of a detonation neither of us meant to trigger.

Her expression shifts—shock, then something softer, more fragile, almost vulnerable. But it’s gone just as quickly, buried beneath a mask I know too well by now. She doesn’t look at me when she speaks next, voice barely above a whisper.

“I didn’t mean to tell you that.”

I don’t know what to say. The burn behind my sternum has nothing to do with rage now. Just that awful, raw truth of wanting someone too much and knowing you’ve just bared something you can’t take back.

Before I can speak—before I can offer a word, a tether, a lie or the truth—she moves.

Not fast. Just decisive.

She steps sideways, out from under my arm, and opens the door without another glance in my direction.

And then she’s gone.

ChapterNineteen

MALACHI

My office is quiet.

The kind of quiet that vibrates along the skin. That stretches and blooms just behind the sternum, where anxiety simmers low and volcanic. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, The Place pulses beneath me—soft light pooling like honey over the restaurant’s copper fixtures, staff weaving expertly between velvet booths like threads tightening a pattern only I know exists. Everything looks perfect. Controlled. Elegant. There’s not a single flaw I can see. And yet that itch between my shoulders won’t stop crawling.

I lean against the edge of my desk, watching a steady stream of guests descend through the curtained entrance. Light spills like gold across their silk lapels and sequined gowns as my servers seat them. The best and the worst of Newgate turned out tonight. Politicians. Investors. All human save for my clan. Influence thick in the air, spiced with anticipation and artifice. This—the grand opening of The Place—isn’t just a show. It’s a move. A claim on Topside real estate made with aesthetics and elegance instead of fangs and bloodshed.

This is my first official venture as a business leader of the Nightshades. My stake—not Ambrose’s—backed with real coin, real personnel, real sweat. On paper, it’s a Nightshade expansion: a theatrical restaurant. A cultural bridge. A legitimate presence in the clean glass guts of Newgate. But beneath the silk it’s diplomacy, dominance, and danger. A foothold, planted quietly and with class.

Failure is not an option.