Page 10 of Heal Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #5)

Gideon

T he first sign was small. A hitch in her breath, so faint it could’ve been a leftover tremor from pleasure. But the bond twisted sharp and wrong in my chest, a note of panic threaded through her pulse.

I stilled, every instinct pulling taut. She wasn’t afraid of me—that much I knew. No, this was something deeper, older, a wound cracking open under my hands.

“Penny.” I kept my voice low, steady, as if gentleness could anchor her where my strength never would. “Look at me, querida .”

But her eyes had already gone distant, glassy, like the walls of her mind were closing in.

I cupped her cheek, forcing myself to slow, to soften. “Stay with me. Just me. You’re safe.”

Her breath hitched harder, chest rising too fast against mine. The bond pulsed with her panic now, jagged and frantic, crowding my lungs until I couldn’t ignore it. I brushed my thumb along her jaw, careful not to press, not to cage. She needed air, space, not another wall.

“You feel that?” I whispered, pressing her palm flat to my chest, over the thunder of my heart. “That’s me. That’s us. Nothing else.”

For a flicker of a moment she blinked, focus darting back to me. Then her wolf surged, wild and cornered, and I felt the shift coming—the spiral snapping out of her control.

Her nails bit into my shoulders, not with hunger this time but with desperation. A small, broken sound left her throat, and the bond flooded with fear so raw it nearly staggered me.

I pulled her in tighter anyway, mouth brushing her temple. “Breathe with me, Penny. In. Out. You can take what you need from me. All of it’s yours.”

Still, her body shook like she was splintering apart. And then she did.

Her panic tore through the bond like wildfire, her thoughts scattering sharp and painful against mine—fragments of fear, of old scars, of the unbearable weight of feeling safe only to lose it.

She shoved at me, a ragged growl tearing free, and I let her, because fighting her now would only feed the storm.

But I didn’t let her go far. My hands closed firm around her wrists, grounding her, steadying her against my chest. “You’re not alone in this, mi reina . Do you hear me? You don’t get to fight shadows by yourself anymore.”

Her breaths came in shallow, ragged gasps, her chest hammering against mine. The bond between us thrummed sharp and frantic, her panic echoing in my bones, her shame so loud I could barely breathe through it.

“Penny—”

“No,” she snapped, jerking back from me, her voice cracking. “Don’t say my name like that. Don’t make it sound… gentle. You don’t get to—” Her chest heaved, words spilling jagged and broken. “You don’t get to make me feel safe when I’m not. I can’t be safe. Not with you. Not with anyone.”

She shoved at me, hard enough that the bond roared with the sting of her rejection. My body wanted to anchor her, to hold her until she stopped shaking apart. But I didn’t. I let her push me back, my hands falling away, leaving her the air she thought she needed.

Her eyes were wild, glassy with panic. She wrapped her arms around herself like she could hide from me, from the bond still thrumming hot and undeniable between us.

Her breathing turned ragged, claws punching through her fingertips as she wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

“You don’t get it,” she spat, tears sparking in her eyes.

“I don’t know you. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking—bonding myself to someone I don’t even know in a fucking closet at a party.

Begging you to bite me—” She shook her head, disgust and self-loathing twisting her face.

“Gods, I liked it. What the fuck is wrong with me?”

The bond pulsed hot and frantic, screaming that she was mine even as she rejected it.

I remained still, forcing my hands to stay down, forcing my body not to cage her in.

The predator in me wanted to pin her to the wall, make her calm down.

But Penny wasn’t prey. She’d tear herself apart before she let anyone corner her.

“ Mi reina ,” I said softly, the words scraping like broken glass. “You’re not wrong. You’re not broken. You’re mine, yes—but I’m yours, too. You felt it. You know it.”

Her head snapped up, her wild blue eyes bleeding to the gold of her wolf. “No,” she hissed. “I can’t?—”

The click of the door unlocking split the air like a gunshot.

Her wolf surged.

In the blink of an eye, her body bent and snapped, bones cracking, skin shattering into fur, violent and desperate. Before I could move, before I could even reach for her, a massive black wolf with blazing golden eyes crouched before me.

She growled once—a raw, broken sound that gutted me—and then she bolted.

One heartbeat, she had been trembling in my arms, and the next, she was gone—fur and fury darting into the night.

I didn’t move. Not at first. The coats hung crooked, the air still thick with her scent and sex and fear, my shirt hanging in tatters from her claws. Blood slicked my skin, her blood burned in my veins, and still, I stood there with my hands empty.

Any other man would have cursed. Raged. Taken her flight as insult or betrayal.

But not me.

No, I smiled.

A slow, dark curl at the corner of my mouth as I dragged my thumb through the blood there and licked it clean. Still warm. Still hers.

She thought she was finished with me. But all she had done was declare war on my patience—and I had more patience than anyone she would ever meet. I had spent lifetimes waiting in shadows, watching marks who never saw me coming until my blade kissed their throat.

She wasn’t a mark. She was my reina . And her heart? That wasn’t a conquest. That was a crown.

So she panicked. So she had clawed and bit and bolted. Good. Let her fire burn. Let her fangs show. I’d rather have a queen who fought than one who bowed.

But make no mistake: She could bare her teeth, she could run until her paws bled, she could tell herself a thousand lies about what had happened between us.

None of it would change the truth.

The bond was sealed. Her wolf knew it. And so did my heart.

I pressed my palm to the bite she had left on my shoulder, still tasting her moan in my ears, and laughed under my breath.

“Run if you want, mi reina ,” I murmured to the empty hall. “All that means is I get to chase.”

I straightened slowly, forcing the wild hum of the bond down until my chest no longer shook with it. The closet still reeked of sex and blood, coats torn from their hooks, fabric shredded where her claws had found me. A ruin behind me, just like the two of us.

I tugged my shirt back together—not much left of it, the fabric hanging in jagged strips that stuck damp against my skin—but I had worn worse into a ballroom before. My coat would cover most of it.

Her dress lay crumpled near the door where I’d stripped it from her, silk pooling like spilled wine.

I bent, shaking it out carefully, then folded it over my arm as if it weren’t evidence of what we’d done but something I had always meant to keep safe.

Her clutch came next, the invitation slipped half out of it.

My thumb brushed the embossed seal that meant nothing except for the fact that it had been her ticket into this house.

Then I plucked her blade from the floor, gathering anything anyone could trace back to her.

The assassin in me cataloged the scene, wiped away what little trace of her remained, not because I wanted to hide it, but because what had passed between us belonged to us alone.

When I stepped out into the hall, I did not hurry. There was no need.

Penny was fast, faster now that the wolf had taken her skin, but panic made for sloppy trails. Her scent burned a path down the corridor, a mix of wildflowers, copper, and raw terror that should have gutted me. Instead, it sharpened me.

I moved like I had on the job—slow, methodical, every step measured. Not a hunter to a frightened quarry, but a man to the woman who had just split me open and fled before she could see the wreckage she’d left in her wake.

She thought she had escaped. But I had her dress in my arms, her blood in my mouth, her “yes” seared into my bones.

And I did not lose things that belonged to me.

The noise of Vaelora’s hall pressed in as I stepped from the closet, a thousand voices and a dozen kinds of perfume trying to bury the one scent I cared about. Penny’s. It still clung to my skin, my tongue, the air itself.

Her trail burned messy and sharp into the night, wolf scent tangled with panic. She’d shifted mid-flight, paws tearing earth, claws gouging bark. Desperate. Uncontrolled.

I slipped through the servants’ door and into the trees, my stride steady. But then the bond spiked. A white-hot flash of pain, fear threaded through it.

Not me. Not her running. Something else.

I moved faster. Shadows split, voices hissed—too many, too close. Wolves, at least five. The stink of feral magic threaded in, thick as rot.

And then I saw her.

Penny’s black wolf form bristled, back arched, fangs bared at the circle closing in. She was outnumbered, but her growl shook the trees. Even bleeding panic, she was magnificent. My brave, reckless mate.

But wolves didn’t risk the wards in the Crossroads for nothing.

My mind snapped through the possibilities, even as I closed my fingers over the hilt of Penny’s dagger.

Rival pack, angry Blackwell had taken their land?

Or strays Styx had turned away, hungry enough to bleed for payback?

Or worse—someone aiming at Blackwell itself, large enough to be feared, fractured enough to make an easy target.

Whatever the reason, they’d made their first mistake the moment they touched her.

One of the bastards lunged. I was faster.

Steel whispered through the air, the blade flashing once, twice, before his body hit the dirt. Another came from the flank— her claws met his throat before mine could. We moved together without thought, predator and predator, bond snapping hot between us with every strike.

But panic made her sloppy. A spear of wild magic cracked the air and caught her across the ribs. She yelped, staggered, the scent of her blood blooming in the night.

The bond nearly dropped me to my knees.

I was on him before he could strike again, the blade punching clean through his chest, pulling free with a spray of ash and gore. The rest broke. Like the cowards they were, they scattered into the trees, tails tucked.

My chest heaved, the assassin in me cataloging exits, threats, blood patterns. But all I saw was her.

Penny wobbled on her paws, one side matted with her blood. She snarled when I came close, but her legs shook too hard to hold the form. With a shudder that cracked through fur and bone, she shifted back.

Naked and trembling in the dirt, the blood at her side was fresh but no longer flowing, and that was all I cared about. I stripped off my coat and wrapped it around her shoulders before she could think to bare her teeth.

“Easy, mi reina ,” I murmured, tying the front shut with careful fingers. “I’ve got you.”

Her eyes burned, golden glow bleeding back to blue, but she didn’t fight me when I slid an arm beneath her knees and another around her back. She weighed nothing in my arms, a fragile thing for all her fire.

A growl rumbled in her chest, but it was weak. Shifting that close together after being injured, she had to be exhausted.

“You can snarl at me later,” I murmured, the bond thrumming between us. “Right now, let me carry you.”

And I did. Through the trees, across the grass, past the wards that made the air taste like iron. Her head lolled against my shoulder, half-conscious, but she didn’t pull away. Not once.

The kitchen door opened, spilling light across the lawn. Styx stood there, shadows writhing like hounds at her heels, eyes narrowing as they found me with Penny in my arms.

I didn’t flinch. Didn’t bow. I only shifted her higher against my chest, my coat slipping to reveal the drying blood at her side.

Styx’s gaze flicked down, sharp and assessing, then back to me. For a heartbeat, the weight of her stare promised war. But then her shadows eased, and she stepped aside.

Penny stirred, her lashes fluttering against her cheek, and for the barest instant, her eyes found mine. Tired. Wild. But steady.

I bent my head close enough for her to hear me over the bond’s ragged hum. “You’re safe. I will make sure you stay that way.”

And then I carried her inside.

Her pack closed around her instantly—shadows, wings, claws—all posturing, all noise. I didn’t linger. She was breathing, she was healed, and that was all that mattered.

But before the wards shut me out, Styx’s eyes caught mine. Dark, bottomless, knowing.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.

A single nod, sharp as a knife. Permission. Command. Blessing.

And the assassin in me unfurled like a blade drawn clean from its sheath as if she’d just given me an order.

Whoever had dared touch her was still out there. Bleeding, maybe. Hiding, certainly. But not safe.

Not from me.

I rolled my shoulders, scenting the night air. Copper still lingered sharp on the wind. Her blood, yes—but theirs, too. A trail, waiting to be followed.

Penny thought the fight was over, and for her it was.

But my war had just begun.