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That was it. I had everything I needed. “All right. Here’s the deal, Forrest. I’m giving you twenty-four hours to resign and get the hell out of Lakeview. For good. I don’t care where you go or what you do, but you better not try to work as a cop again. And yes, I’ll be keeping tabs on that.”

Forrest paled. “Lakeview’s my home ? —”

“ And you fucked it up,” I interjected. “Those are the terms. If you don’t agree, then I’ll send all the evidence we have straight to the state police, and you’ll spend the next decade in prison.”

Forrest said nothing, but his deep scowl made it clear he understood that he had no other options.

“One more thing. Your phone.” I held my hand out.

“What? What the hell do you need that for?”

“You think I’m going to let you walk out of here and call Sean? Don’t be stupid.” My dragon flickered behind my eyes. “Hand it over. Unlocked.”

Like a petulant teenager getting in trouble for disrupting class, Forrest unlocked his phone—I noted the passcode—then dropped it in my hand

“Now get out,” I said. “I’ll have guys on you the whole time. You may not see them, but they’ll be there. If you even think about contacting Sean, I’ll know. And you won’t be imprisoned. You’ll be dead.”

“Christ,” Forrest grumbled. He was trying to act tough and irritated, but I could sense the fear pulsing through him.

“I’m done with that psycho. I’m done with all you psychos.

I won’t say shit. Now I’ve gotta get a new fuckin’ phone.

” He stood up so fast, the stool scraped across the hardwood floor.

He wasn’t lying. My dragon sensed nothing but honesty in his words and his fear outweighing his anger. Forrest knew he had gotten himself in too deep, and now he had lost. I watched with my arms crossed over my chest as Forrest turned and bolted out of the bar, with Rome following right behind him.

The clubhouse door slammed behind them. I exhaled with a groan and pinched the bridge of my nose. “What a pain in the ass.”

“Well, looks like we got him,” Hawk said. “That’s Sean’s last connection handled.”

“Now it’s just Sean,” I said. I pocketed Forrest’s phone and stood up. “I need to get back home. I’ll contact Sean tonight.”

“You want me to come over?” Hawk asked.

I shook my head. “No. I’ll speak to him alone.”

A brief expression of relief flickered over Hawk’s face. No one else in the clubhouse noticed it—I didn’t think anyone who hadn’t known him since he was a child would.

But I saw it, and I knew I had made the right decision.

Hawk didn’t want to think about what Sean’s reaction to this would be.

I knew it would be bad, and I didn’t want to subject Hawk to that.

Not if I didn’t have to. I clapped Hawk on the shoulder, squeezed, and made my way home.

I wasn’t going to wait to contact Sean. Just in case Forrest tried anything funny.

When I made it home, the house was quiet.

It was dark outside, and I’d missed dinner, but with my sharp senses I could smell what Harley had cooked: roasted chicken, vegetables, and crusty garlic bread.

She looked up from where she was reading on the couch and noted my expression with a smile.

“There’s leftovers in the oven. How’d it go? ”

I sat down on the couch next to her and leaned heavily into the cushions. Harley set her book aside, scooted close to me and leaned her head onto my shoulder. “That bad?” she asked when I said nothing.

“No, no, it was okay,” I said. Forrest’s phone was like a weight in my pocket. I was dreading contacting my brother, but I knew I had to. I had to do it tonight. “Forrest won’t be a problem anymore.”

She ran her hand over my chest. “You run him out of town? Or worse?”

I exhaled a surprised laugh. “You don’t seem too concerned either way.”

“I’m running out of patience, too.”

I put my arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Ran him out,” I said. I told her everything we had learned—about the girl who had planted the drugs, about Blakely, about Forrest’s dealings with Sean.

“So, he’ll never be a cop again?” Harley asked.

“Not if he knows what’s good for him,” I said in a low growl.

Suddenly, Harley was on top of me, her thighs astride my hips on the couch.

I didn’t know where Dylan and Cassidy were, but I sure hoped they didn’t choose right now to come down the stairs.

I ran my hands up Harley’s thighs, sliding them under her silky pajama shorts to squeeze the soft muscle of her thighs.

“I love it when you get protective,” she said, her cheeks flushing a gorgeous shade of pink.

“Can’t help it,” I said. “It’s all for you.”

“What’s next?” she asked as she raked her fingers through my hair. The gentle pressure felt good, and my dragon nearly purred with pleasure.

“Now I need to provoke Sean,” I said. “Let him know he’s cornered. Push his dragon over the edge, so he challenges me.”

Worry turned the corners of her plush mouth down. “Provoke him? Haven’t you done that enough?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I need him to stop hiding. I need him to lay out the challenge himself.”

She pressed her forehead to mine, then kissed the crease between my eyebrows. “I know that won’t be easy for you.”

My grip on her thighs tightened a little. I felt like I was hanging on to her for dear life—like she was the only thing keeping me grounded. “It won’t.”

“It’s okay to grieve the brother you had once,” she said. “I know you still love him, even if you hate what he’s become.”

I let out a long, slow exhale. When she said it, it sounded so simple, but the emotions were at nonstop war inside me. The grief. The fury. The love. My need for a safe and stable future for my mate, and my clan, versus my dragon’s immature desire to return to an impossible halcyon past.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry you have to do this.”

“How do you do that?” I asked.

She tipped her head to the side. “Do what?”

“Read me so well. No one else can—no one else has ever been able to.”

She smiled, then leaned forward and kissed me gently. “Must be because I’m your mate.”

My dragon rumbled at the reminder, not that we could ever forget. We kissed for a long, sweet moment, then Harley pulled back a little. She set her teeth into her lower lip.

“What is it?” I asked at her nervous expression. “What’s on your mind?”

“It’s a mate thing,” she said. “Something I’ve been thinking about.”

“You can talk to me about anything.” I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, then trailed my fingertips down her neck.

Harley hummed and leaned into the touch. “I want you to claim me.”

My hand stilled. My dragon roared. I knew my eyes were burning gold—he was so, so close to the surface. Hearing those words fall from her lips was the most erotic thing I’d ever heard.

She wants us. My dragon snapped his jaws internally. Our mate. She wants to complete the bond.

I’d never wanted anything so badly. My fangs dropped at the mere thought of it.

But.

“Harley.” I leaned close and pressed my lips to her jaw. I exhaled, then slowly, luxuriously breathed in the warm, musky scent of her skin.

“You should do it tonight,” she whispered. “Take me upstairs.”

Fuck.

My grip tightened on her thighs, then I slid both hands to her waist. “Harley,” I whispered again. It took every ounce of my self-control to respond. “I can’t.”

She stilled. “What? Why?”

I exhaled hard into her skin. My dragon was furious with me, gnawing at me from the inside. This was our fated mate , in our lap, neck bared, asking me to claim her. And yet, I had to say no.

“I thought this was what your dragon wanted,” she said. “The connection’s only one-way now, right? I want to be able to feel you too, Steph.”

I pulled away enough to look into her bright, confused eyes. My rejection had hurt her, and that pissed my dragon off even more than he already was. “It’s too dangerous. We can’t do this, not right before I face Sean for the last time.”

“Why?” she pressed. “Because of the bond? Because if—God forbid—something happened to you, it’d hurt me?” She ran both hands up my arms to my shoulders. “I’d be hurt without the bond, Steph.”

“It’s more than that.”

“I don’t want you to go into this without me,” she said. “I want to have our bond completed. I want to feel what you feel. I want to be there with you in a way. I want to give you strength so you will come back to me.”

“I want that. More than anything.” So did my dragon. He wanted it so much, it was burning my insides.

“Then do it,” she whispered. “Show me you want me.”

God, my dragon was going to kill me. Was this how Sean felt all the time? Barely able to control his dragon’s desires? I wasn’t as weak as he was, so there was no risk of me doing something insane like claiming her right now, but the desire was like a flame ever-burning inside me.

“If something happened to me, it wouldn’t just hurt you,” I explained. “It would cleave through your soul. Leave you broken, forever. It’s not something you can recover from.”

Her eyes widened.

“You’d never be able to take another partner,” I said.

“I wouldn’t want to. I only want you, Steph.”

My dragon preened at that, and I squeezed her waist in acknowledgment.

“I know. I feel the same. But… If I’m killed, Harley, the pain wouldn’t fade.

Not in a year. Not in five years. Not in ten or twenty.

Every day it’d be like it had just happened.

The bond would always, always cry out for me, and it would never get any easier. ”

She said nothing, but I saw understanding begin to build in her gaze.

“It’d be torture,” I said.

She nodded, barely ducking her chin, her eyes still wide with shock.

“I won’t take that risk, Harley. I won’t condemn you to that life.”

Harley slumped forward against me and tucked her face into my neck. “Thank you,” she whispered.

I wrapped my arms tightly around her and ran my hands up and down her back. “What? What are you thanking me for?”