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Chapter Sixteen

L ina

I’d just been to check on Betty again. She was still fast asleep, and the peaceful rise and fall of her chest were a comforting sight. She’d woken once in the night, needing some medicine, but she was definitely on the mend.

Now, as I returned to my room, I was met by the delicious sight of Stephen sound asleep in my bed.

After we’d fucked on my desk, we’d come up to my bedroom and done it again.

It had been slower and quieter, a new flavor of intimacy burgeoning between us with a peacefulness that seemed to linger on as I savored the sight of him sleeping in the soft dawn light filtering through the drawn curtains.

The sheets had slipped low on his back, exposing the strong muscles that rippled beneath his taut, bronzed skin.

I felt breathless with anticipation as I replayed last night’s events, each moment swirling through me, making me eager to wake him and have my fill of him before the day took us away from each other.

In the lightening room, my gaze distinguished some markings down the center of his spine, a tattoo I realized. I hadn’t noticed last night. But as I took in the shapes of the black markings, shock thumped through me .

The lingering warmth of Stephen’s kisses, still thrumming in my veins, seemed to turn to ice. The tattoo was a totem mark. It was the one the rogue wolves who had attacked at my arranged ceremony had along their backs.

I forced my trembling legs to react, rushing to my bedside table.

I snatched up my phone, snapping a picture of Stephen’s exposed back and another with his face angled toward me, visible in the picture.

Cold reality washed over me as I recorded this new evidence that once more twisted everything I thought I’d known.

Stephen blinked awake, his emerald eyes sweeping over my silk robe where I stood beside the bed.

A smile formed on his lips, but it quickly vanished as he took in my tense stance and expression. “What’s wrong?” His voice was thick with sleep. “Is it Betty?” he demanded, instinctively rising as if he were about to go stumbling out of bed to her.

I felt my heart crack, those fractures across my heart starting to splinter, threatening to make a mess if I let them.

But I couldn’t pretend my thoughts hadn’t already galloped ahead.

In this moment, as dread clawed at me, I knew I’d already begun to envisage a future with Stephen.

I had already imagined telling him who Betty really was.

After last night’s honesty, the future had seemed to glimmer with possibility.

It was a future that I knew was about to vanish. “I’ve just checked on her. She’s fine,” I said, my voice clipped.

His gaze flickered over me, searching. “Then what is it?”

I forced the words out. “You have a totem tattoo on your spine.”

Shock seized his features. He quickly got out of bed now, shucking on his pants that were on the floor. He regarded me with a wary look. He sat down at the foot of the bed, angling himself toward me. “I set up the rogue wolf attack on your mate ceremony.”

My gut clenched. As soon as I’d seen the totem tattoo, I’d known. But I shook my head, part of me wanting him to deny it. “But you were injured in the attack—”

“Victor and Ben, my associates, were rough,” he agreed, his hand falling to the white scar marking the edge of his torso and crisscrossing his right rib, running down his right side.

“ I needed to get Magnus to trust me,” he explained.

“I needed to divert his suspicion from me. Protecting him—and you,” Stephen added, regret clouding his expression and wincing as pain stamped across my face.

“It was the best way to ensure I gained his trust.”

The bottom fell out of my world. All this time, I’d thought that Magnus had organized the rogue wolf attack on our mate ceremony—to take out my parents and me and take the Silvermoon Pack for himself.

But I’d been utterly mistaken. It had been Stephen. He was the leader of the rogue wolves.

“You used me,” I said, my voice sounding hollow.

Just last night, he confessed to me that he was sorry he hadn’t found a way to protect me as his mate all those years ago and that he regretted choosing vengeance over me.

But he hadn’t just walked away from me. He’d used me in his plan to gain Magnus’s trust without regard for the danger it posed to me and my family.

“My father died in that attack,” I accused.

A flicker of remorse crossed his face, but he quickly argued, “Your father sold you to Magnus.” His voice was low and rife with defiance.

“That’s your excuse?” I snapped, bitterness eclipsing the urge to simply walk away. “You—orchestrated a violent attack, endangering me and my family—yet you twist it as if you were saving me from my father?”

“I did set the attack to save you from that ceremony, too,” he argued. “Your father would have let you be yoked to a man no woman should be.” The furious light returned to his green eyes. “I moved my attack forward to stop you from suffering the fate my mother did.”

“And got my mother injured in the process,” I threw back at him.

Real regret this time flashed across Stephen’s face, but once again, that righteous fire lit up his gaze. “And you would never organize an attack, risking lives to make your cover look authentic?”

I flushed, realizing I had done similarly when I’d organized the attack on Stephen and me on the way to the airport.

But my fury for his lies overshadowed my guilt. “If you’d let Paul shoot me, you’d never have been in any danger,” I argued .

“So, I’m the bad guy for wanting to protect you?” he shot back.

The thought of how he had shielded me—both at the mate ceremony and from the gunmen whirled through me.

But just as I’d set up that attack, he’d set up the one in the beginning.

The fact was his need for vengeance against Magnus had, from the very beginning, eclipsed his feelings for me.

I couldn’t trust him. The rawness of that thought had my throat closing up, disappointment seeping through me.

“Lina,” he said, “please, let me help you. With both of us looking for your mother and helping each other at Blackthorn Corporation, we’ll be better placed to rescue her.”

I shook my head. “No, I see you for who you really are now—someone who puts vengeance before the safety of their mate. Last night was a mistake—”

He stood up, coming toward me. “Lina, please—” He reached for me.

“Don’t come near me.” I ground out, flinching away.

He froze, hurt clouding his expression.

“I want you to leave,” I told him fiercely. “I don’t want to see you except at work. And if you dare tell Magnus anything about me and my friends, I’ll present evidence of your alliance with the rogue wolves.” I clenched my phone in my fist.

Fury stole over his features, and a muscle ticked in his jaw as his attention fell to what I held.

“Lina, don’t do this. I never meant to hurt you. I regret how I handled things between us back then, but I want to be here for you now.”

“I don’t need you,” I argued. “I don’t want you in my life, Stephen.”

His nostrils flared, and a muscle ticked in his clenched jaw, but in a moment, he’d pulled on his shirt. I flushed as I saw how shredded it was down the middle, barely covering up evidence of our shared passion, something I told myself I could forget once again. Something I needed to.

In a moment, I had the bedroom door open. He strode down the stairs. I got to the front door, opened it, and silently willed him to leave, refusing to look at him .

But his step paused. “I know you’re strong, but you don’t need to do this alone, Lina.”

I shook my head, feeling emotion constricting my throat again, but I forced it away. “You’re wrong. I do need to do it alone because that’s the path you set us on when you chose vengeance over your own mate.” I averted my gaze and shut him out of my life for the second time.

Needing to wash the torturous spicy and earthy scent of Stephen off, I showered and dressed in a fresh pair of pants and jumper, tossing my shredded clothes into the bin.

After a quick check on Betty—still safe in her slumber, her little form stirring ever so slightly beneath her blankets—I went downstairs to our office with cleaning supplies.

As I moved through the sunlight beneath the skylights, my heart squeezed painfully as I cleaned up, wishing I could wash away all traces from my memory and heart of what had transpired between Stephen and me here as easily.

I’d just retrieved my laptop from my bag and booted it up when the sound of the bookcase rolling aside echoed down the corridor.

Both Emily and Matt walked in. I’d texted them that Stephen had gone, so they knew the office space was useable again.

“God, I slept like a log,” Matt said, his voice buoyant as he carried a cup of coffee and a chai tea for me before going to his desk.

“Thanks,” I said, a wash of comfort enveloping me as I reveled in how familiar this felt with the three of us settling into our space.

“How come Stephen didn’t feel the need to tail you anymore?” Em asked, eyebrows knitting together as she twirled around in her chair to face me.

As much as I wanted to push aside the events of last night, I owed my friends honesty about the danger surrounding us. “I found him in here last night,” I revealed.

“Shit,” Matt said, his expression tightening. “Shall I go get Betty ready?” The protectiveness in his tone touched me.

Em’s gaze darted straight to her machines, probably already calculating what she needed to wipe.

I shook my head quickly, reassuring them. “We’re fine. Stephen won’t report us to Magnus.”

“How can you be sure?” Em asked incredulously.

“Because it turns out Magnus murdered his mother, Charlotte Blackthorn, the original alpha of the Blackthorn Pack.”

“Holy cow!” Emily exclaimed, returning to sip her coffee and stare at me as if she were watching one of her favorite K-Dramas.