Page 105 of The Fated Hunter Wolf
The healer rubbed a salve onto Astrid’s forehead. “I’ll take care of her for the next twenty-four hours. She needs quiet and rest, but when I’m done with her, she’ll be good as new.” The healer, a middle-aged woman who, judging from the lines on herface, had seen many wounded shifters, tilted her head. “She’s safe with me.”
“Come.” Eve led me back to the group with Logan and Rhys. “When I arrived with the prisoners, Vex had already started stirring up the different packs. Told them the Council had been infiltrated, that Logan was compromised. I walked in on him trying to seize the floor from Alpha Thorne.”
Logan’s mouth curved. “He didn’t get far.”
Eve turned to him, something fierce and fond in her eyes. “Someone needs to keep the peace and civility in a place like this. You made sure of that.”
He reached for her hand and drew her close, kissing her deeply as shifters started tidying up the mess.
When Logan finally broke the kiss, his expression changed—alpha again, but softer around the edges. He turned to me. “It couldn’t have happened without you, Sable. None of this.” Heads turned, most of them given shifter hearing.
I froze, unsure what to do with that kind of attention. Compliments were a currency I didn’t trade in. But he raised his hand—palm open, fingers curled slightly, waiting.
For a heartbeat, I didn’t move. Then, I placed my hand against his, and our fists closed together. His grip was warm.
“You are, and will always be, Orion,” he said.
Something in my chest tightened. The words hit deeper than they should have—Logan claiming me as one of his own.
When we let go, I felt Rhys step closer behind me. His heat pressed against my back, his scent curling in the air. His hand slid around my waist—not possessive, just there.
Bart cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’d say this was a big day. And now that the Council has been unexpectedly dismissed, we have a free day. I’m making sure the Orion delegation is put up in the best hotel our pack runs, so you can rest up before we hit thetown tonight.” He raised his hand to high-five Logan, and Logan offered the high-five right back.
“A little rest sounds like a great idea,” Rhys whispered in my ear, but when I turned and looked at him, I knew that we’d be doing anything but rest. He wove his fingers through mine, and I suddenly wondered how we were going to make it to any hotel.
My body was on fire for him, for my mate. My fated mate.
It was time to seal our bond.
The hallway was too quiet—justthe sound of my pulse refusing to calm.
Rhys stopped at our door and turned. The movement was slow, as if he wasn’t sure whether to touch me or fall apart trying not to.
His gaze found mine, and whatever words he’d been holding back broke under their own weight. “Sable,” he said, then swallowed.
I didn’t remember leaning in first. Only that one moment I could breathe, and the next, his mouth was on mine.
The kiss wasn’t soft. It wassure.It found the walls I’d built and pulled until they collapsed. What mattered was his body pressed into mine, warm through the thin barrier of my clothes, the cool wall against my back. It was a relief not to think about control or danger or bloodlines. Instead, I thought about the taste of him, the heat between us, the way the bond had become almost a living thing encircling us.
He kissed like he fought—focused, relentless, a rhythm that burned and steadied at once. My hands found his shoulders, tracing the lines of strength there, memorizing what survival felt like.
When he finally pulled back, both of us were breathing like we’d outrun something. His forehead rested against mine.
“Rhys,” I breathed heavily against him, “get the door open.”
“Door,” he whispered, voice rough. “I should—yeah—door.”
He fumbled for the keycard, still close enough that each movement brushed against me. His fingers missed the slot twice.
“Rhys,” I murmured, my lips still tingling. “Open this fucking door.”
“Trying,” he said through clenched teeth, though his mouth was already finding mine again. “I just can’t bear to stop feeling you against me.”
The lock finally whirred. The door swung open, and momentum carried us through. We stumbled, caught between laughter and hunger, his hands bracing us against the nearest wall before it could close again.
The hotel room was all glass and city lights, Dallas sprawling beneath us like a carpet of stars someone had spilled across the ground. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed the skyline in sharp relief—buildings lit up against the night, cars moving far below in rivers of red and white. The kind of view that cost more per night than most people made in a month.
I caught the faint scent of rain through the glass, the city beyond lit up and looking unreal. Rhys’s eyes caught the light—full with a feral shimmer that made my pulse trip.
