Page 13 of Heal Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #5)

Penny

T he bond tugged at me all night.

No matter how many times I tried to bury myself beneath the blanket, to shut out my wolf’s persistent growls, I couldn’t silence the ache in my chest. A thread stretched taut between us, alive and demanding, pulling at my ribs until every breath felt borrowed.

At the crack of dawn, I gave up pretending I could ignore the truth.

It didn’t matter how many showers I took or how many times I tried to forget that damn coat closet, Gideon was under my skin, in my veins, and maybe…

had buried himself deep in my heart. I hadn’t wanted him there, but somehow, he’d managed to make a home for himself, and I couldn’t make myself let him go.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I was clad in jeans and boots and a heavy sweater, his jacket folded over my arm.

Slipping from my room, I padded past Knox’s door, past the rest of the house still asleep in their beds, and let my wolf lead me where my heart already wanted to go.

Catching his scent at the edges of the wards, I followed the trail and the bond right to his front door.

The house loomed like it had been grown from the earth itself—stone darkened with age, ivy clinging like veins across its walls, spires reaching skyward as if to claw at the heavens.

His wards brushed my skin, cool as moonlight, but they didn’t push me out.

They parted, rippling, as if they knew I belonged.

The front door unlocked under my hand, turning easily, and that’s when I knew.

He was waiting. Of course he was.

He sat on a couch in the half-light, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, a glass of blood untouched on the table beside him.

His eyes found me the moment the door shut, bright and sharp, pinning me in place.

Next to him lay my clutch, my dagger, my ruined dress—all arranged neatly as though they mattered because I mattered. Proof that I was remembered.

I froze, throat tight. “Gideon.”

He rose, every movement slow and deliberate, as though giving me room to run if I wanted it. “ Mi reina .”

The endearment twisted my insides into knots. I clutched his jacket to my chest, my nails digging into the thick fabric. “I came to give you your jacket back. And…”

The words caught in my throat, but I knew he wouldn’t leave me out in the cold.

He tilted his head. “And what, querida ?”

I choked down the last dregs of my fear, and let the truth sing from my lips. “I came to say thank you. For saving me. For not letting them—” My voice cracked, and I swallowed hard. “And… for letting me go when I asked. Even though I think it might’ve killed you to do it.”

His jaw flexed once, but he said nothing. He simply waited, as if the weight of my silence mattered more than filling it.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “For running. For shutting down. I didn’t know what to do, and I…” My chest caved inward. “I was scared. In a lot of ways, I still am.”

He closed the distance in measured steps, stopping just shy of touching, even though his whole body seemed like a taut wire ready to snap. The bond hummed louder, aching between us.

“You think I wasn’t? That I’m not?” His voice was broken glass and gravel. “I could feel your fear like it was my own. But I would never take more than you gave, Penny. Not then. Not now. Not ever.”

The words tore something open in me. I blinked hard, but the tears still slipped free.

“I don’t know every piece of you yet. I don’t know what this will look like tomorrow, or the day after that.

But I want to.” I lifted my chin, forcing myself to meet his gaze.

“I want to know you. And I want you to know me.”

The silence that followed was thick and holy. Then his hand rose, slow and certain, brushing an errant strand of hair from my cheek. His thumb lingered at the corner of my mouth, and my wolf stretched toward him with a satisfied purr.

“You already do, mi reina ,” he murmured. “You’ve known me since the moment the bond sparked to life. The rest? That will come with time, and we have a lot of it.”

I surged forward before I could think better of it, pressing my mouth to his. Maybe it was the steady way he refused to push. Maybe it was the way he let me come to him. Or maybe it was just that look in his eyes, but I couldn’t stop myself from kissing him, touching him.

The bond flared hot, fire and honey spilling through my veins as his hands caught me, dragging me against him like he’d been starving since the second I left. His mouth was rough, desperate, then gentled into something reverent as he slowed, tasting, savoring, coaxing.

My fingers slid into his hair, tugging, needing more. His answering growl vibrated against my lips, a promise and a warning in one.

The glass on the table toppled with a shatter as he swept me up, carrying me as if I weighed nothing, laying me down across the cushions where he’d been brooding.

My wolf preened at the scent of him in the fabric, at the way his body bracketed mine like he’d been built for it.

His jacket slipped from my fingers, forgotten, as his hands mapped every line of me as though he were committing me to memory.

The bond sang, every touch sparking heat low and insistent. My breath hitched as his mouth found the scar at my throat, reverent where it had once been ruin.

“Mine,” he whispered against my skin.

“Yours,” I breathed back, no hesitation left.

His lips trailed lower, slow and worshipful, teeth grazing as his fingers slid beneath my sweater to touch bare skin.

I arched into him, gasping, the bond flooding every nerve with fire and sweetness.

His growl rumbled deep in his chest as his hands spread over my ribs, my waist, his thumbs stroking as if he could memorize me through touch alone.

I pulled him closer, needing the press of his body against mine, needing him. His mouth claimed mine again, hot and hungry, and the kiss broke into breathless laughter when he whispered something filthy in Spanish that my wolf understood, even if my mind didn’t.

The rest blurred into heat and want, into the frantic slide of mouths and hands, until thought dissolved and there was only us—our bond burning bright enough to banish the dark.

And when the night finally claimed us whole, I didn’t fight it.

I chose it.