13

Her expression went flat. “All right. But I don’t want the bank account. I can work or—”

“This is how things will be.” His voice came out harsher than he intended, but he wanted her to leave before he begged her to stay. “I’ve made my decision.”

She left without saying goodbye.

Max stared at the sprawling forest. He controlled everything he could see, but he’d never been able to control himself around Lizette—not since he touched her that first time in the forest. He should have known tonight would be no different. His fate was sealed in that clearing five years ago. So was hers.

She just didn’t know it yet.

“I took no vow.” She raised that between them like a shield tonight. No matter. He was Alpha. Even a single link in the chain was enough to bind them together. He’d claimed her, all right. Her hot little body knew that well enough.

He’d have her vow, too. His cocked twitched. Hell, he’d hear her moan it in his ear while he buried his teeth in her neck and pounded her hot passage.

Assuming she didn’t gut him first.

She was a wolf, but she’d bristled and hissed like a cat when he called her his wife tonight. He used the human word for their bond because he thought it might make more sense to her—might make her realize the seriousness and permanence of their relationship.

Strike one.

He also tried to kick off their reunion by keeping some distance between them. Maybe with the formality of the Alpha’s authority in the room, she wouldn’t feel intimidated by him as a man.

Strike two, asshole.

His final mistake was putting his hands on her. The second he touched her skin, he lost his tenuous grip on his wolf. That was part of his and Lizette’s problem. With the lux catena incomplete, his wolf was restless…unsettled. Dangerous. They were tied, but only by the slenderest of threads.

And he had no clue how to fix it.

He’d sent her away from the Lodge five years ago because he owed it to her. But he’d forgotten where Lizette came from, and what she endured in her past.

He’d thought to give her a taste of freedom, but his plan exploded in his face. She thought he’d rejected her, and now had a razor wire fence around her heart.

Max pushed away from the window and crossed to his desk, studying the map his grandfather commissioned over two centuries ago. Max and his father before him had revised it over the years as conflicts shifted pack borders and the humans added more states. The New York territory was one of the oldest and strongest in the country, but enemies were always a threat.

And with the pack’s greatest treasure back in the Lodge, the threat had gone from abstract to very real.

He didn’t know if the trespassers who crossed his border were dangerous or just stupid, but their timing was a troubling coincidence. He wasn’t taking any chances with Lizette’s safety, even if it meant holding her against her will.

He stared at the map. She had spent five years running from him. Despite all the ugliness between them, he never lost hope that one day she might decide to stop running and accept their bond.

He knew better now. Not only did she not accept it—she believed she could break ties with him completely.

She was wrong, and he didn’t know how to tell her without crushing her all over again.

There was only one man in the world for her for the rest of her life. No matter how far she ran, she could never escape this fate.

Until she accepted it, she was vulnerable—even more so because she didn’t know it. They both were. His position as Alpha gave him the money and manpower to keep her safe, but only to a point. He could assign her guards. He could turn the Lodge into a fortress. He could set the fucking world on fire. But he couldn’t protect her from everything.

But external threats were only half the problem.

She was so thin he’d felt her hip bones through her jeans. He knew she worked too many hours at that college. He also knew she sometimes took the bus because her headaches made her too sick to drive. He had intended to tell her all these things tonight.

Instead, the moment their eyes met across the room, his cock pounded with need. He stared at her full lips, parted when she gasped in anger, all the while the scent of her desire curling around him like chains wrapped in flowers and honey.

His wolf stirred then, urging him to tear off her clothes and make her his, to cover her with his scent so every male who got within a foot of her knew she belonged to him. He wanted to shred her sweater and those jeans that hugged her ass, shove her to her hands and knees, and fuck her until the only word on her lips was his name.

But then she narrowed her eyes and called him on his bullshit. And his control snapped, sending all things he needed to tell her flying out the window.

A groan clawed its way up from his chest and echoed around the empty study. The best hunters were patient. They stalked their prey, waiting for the perfect time to make a move. But he was out of time. If he didn’t find a way to cement their bond—and soon—he might never get the chance.

Because lives depended on it.

Lizette’s life depended on it.