Guilded Moon: A Sapphic Fantasy Romance (QueerWolf Book 3), page 21
I would have followed her anywhere, off this mountain, into battle, into hell itself. But tonight, I felt the pull between us like a physical thing as her heels echoed against the stone floors. The mating bond tugged at my chest, insistent and undeniable, my wolf recognizing her as my Alpha even after all these years.
The hallway was narrow and rough-hewn, the kind of passage you didn't find unless you'd lived here long enough to memorize its twists. I hadn't been down this route before, but I didn't pay attention to the unfamiliar corridors, the way the walls seemed to close in around us.
I didn't look at where we were going. I didn't need to.
I just kept my eyes on her. On the fluid pull of muscle beneath her shirt, the confident way she moved through her territory, the long silver strands of her hair swinging like a metronome keeping time to a song I was afraid I'd forgotten how to dance to.
But I wanted to learn again. Wanted to remember the rhythm of her heartbeat against mine, the way she used to whisper about her day in the dark, sharing triumphs and fears and sometimes nothing at all. I even missed the way her stomach would rumble late at night. She'd always been a fan of midnight snacks, dragging me out to hunt rabbits at 1 AM just because she was restless and hungry.
The memory brought a smile to my face, the first real one I could remember in days. Those hunting trips had been some of our happiest times, just the two of us under the stars, working as a team, coming home exhausted and laughing and alive.
My feet moved of their own accord, each step pulling the invisible thread between us tighter until I thought it might snap. I didn't care who we passed in the tunnels, couldn't hear anything over the sound of my own heartbeat. Couldn't feel anything except her drawing me forward like gravity.
When she turned into a hallway I recognized, I knew where we were going.
Her door was already open. She didn't wait for me to catch up, didn't speak as she crossed the threshold and shed her coat in a practiced sweep. The garment hit the floor with a soft whisper, and I could smell her scent more clearly now, pine and leather and something uniquely her that made my wolf scream with need, made my skin itch to be this close and not touching her.
She moved through the room like she was preparing for battle, or trying desperately not to feel anything at all.
I paused in the doorway. The space looked the same as when I'd left it that morning, but something had shifted. What had once seemed cold and impersonal now felt like armor, protection against a world that had hurt her too many times.
Functional. Sharp. Impenetrable.
Just like her.
I understood now why she'd kept it this way. Not because she didn't want comfort, but because comfort was a luxury she couldn't afford. Because letting down her guard, even in her own space, felt too dangerous.
She undid the last strap across her chest without looking at me, her fingers sure and silent. The harness hit the table with a soft, final thud. The sound seemed too loud in the quiet room, like a period at the end of a sentence neither of us had wanted to finish.
I crossed the room without meaning to, every step a question I didn't know how to ask. The air between us crackled with tension, thick enough to taste. I could smell her arousal mixing with my own, could hear the slight hitch in her breathing that told me she was as affected as I was.
"You didn't look at me," I said, voice low but steady. The words came out rougher than I'd intended, carrying more hurt than I wanted to reveal. "You just stared at the trees."
I watched her in the firelight, noting the way her shoulders tensed, the careful way she avoided my gaze. The silence stretched until the words burned too hot behind my teeth.
"Alexis, look at me."
The command in my voice surprised us both. She stilled, every muscle going taut.
It was too much for my wolf, seeing her mate distressed and unable to comfort her. I stepped forward, just one step. "Not once since the war room."
She dropped her belt and set the knife aside. Her movements were deliberately calm, but I could see the tremor in her hands. Her voice was quiet. "Because it hurts."
My throat tightened. The admission hit me like a physical blow. "Hurts how?"
Alexis turned then, slowly, like the weight of the answer took effort to carry. Her eyes were all gold: no storm, no hesitation, just truth and the wolf.
And pain. So much pain that I had to fight the urge to reach for her.
"Because I don't know how to want you and still lead. Still be a mother. Be an Alpha. Be everything I have become."
The words hit harder than I expected, knocking the air from my lungs. I could see the conflict in her eyes, duty warring with desire, responsibility fighting against need.
The thread between us pulled taut, threatening to snap under the pressure. I swallowed, hard, trying to steady myself. "You think I want to make this harder for you?"
"No," she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I think you already do. Without meaning to."
Her voice cracked just slightly, and the sound broke something open in my chest. I stepped closer.
"Then stop pretending it doesn't matter."
Alexis didn't move. Didn't blink. But her breath changed. Sharp, shallow, the kind you took before biting down on something that hurt.
The kind you took before cleaning a wound.
"You think I haven't tried?" she said, voice low but shaking with rage. Her hands clenched at her sides, and I could see the war happening behind her eyes. "You think I don't lie awake every night wanting to crawl back to you, into your arms, and forget all of it?"
Her hand gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles went white. The wood creaked under the pressure, and I wondered if it might snap. "I buried myself in this mountain, Lydia. In war and missions and death because I didn't know how to live in a world where I had to watch you play house while I rotted in rage and want."
I flinched as if she'd slapped me. "That's not fair. I would have gone with you if you'd asked."
"No," she snapped. Her eyes blazed with fury and hurt. "It's not. It's not fair that I had to become this. That I had to be the monster so you could be the sanctuary Alpha. That you got a pack. A home."
The last word landed like a slap, and I froze. Not because I disagreed with her assessment, but because for the first time, I could see it from her perspective. While I'd been building something beautiful from the ashes, she'd been drowning in blood and silence, convincing herself it was necessary.
I'd been creating life while she'd been dealing death. I'd found purpose in healing, while she'd lost herself in vengeance.
"I didn't ask for any of it," I said, voice rising. The unfairness of her accusation lit a fire in my chest. "You left. You didn't give me a choice. You disappeared, and I—I had nothing but a handful of broken wolves and a mating scar that wouldn't heal."
"You had freedom," she spat. The word came out like a curse.
I laughed bitterly. The sound echoed off the stone walls, harsh and broken. "Freedom? I had nightmares. I had silence. I had to keep breathing every day, knowing I wasn't enough for you to stay. Wondering where you were, if you were safe, if they'd captured you or killed you. I didn't even know if you carried Maya to term or if that had been taken from me too. I had to live with that question like a broken rib—a constant pain that hurt when I breathed. Always."
That stopped her cold. I could see the moment my words hit home, the way her anger crumbled into something rawer, more vulnerable.
I stepped closer, fury and pain flooding my chest so fast I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. My wolf was rising, twenty years of suppressed hurt and rage finally breaking free. "You say I played house like it was some easy choice. I built Mayfield from the ashes of my life. I raised pups whose mothers were lost to grief or, worse, whose names you don't even know. I kept hope alive when you were too far gone to care about anything but vengeance."
"I cared," she said, voice breaking now. Tears she'd been holding back for twenty years finally spilled over. "I cared so much I couldn't breathe."
"Then why didn't you come back?" I yelled. The words tore from my throat like they were ripping me apart. "Why didn't you come home?!"
"Because I couldn't look you in the eye and explain why I chose revenge over us." Her fists were trembling, her whole body shaking with the force of her confession. "Because I knew you'd never forgive me for what I became."
Silence cracked between us like a fault line, jagged and deep. The air in the room felt thin, charged with electricity that made my skin prickle.
My voice dropped, aching and raw. "I would've followed you. You never asked. I would have killed him for you, would have torn him apart with my bare hands instead of building sanctuaries if you had only asked."
Her gold eyes found mine. Haunted. Hollow. But something else too… hope, maybe, or the ghost of it.
"I never asked because I wanted you to stop me."
The confession hit me like a physical blow. All these years, I'd thought she'd chosen violence over love, revenge over us. But maybe she'd been hoping I'd give her a reason to choose differently.
I stepped in, so close the heat between our bodies felt like a brand. Close enough to see the gold flecks in her eyes, to smell the salt of her tears mixing with her natural scent. "You think I wouldn't have burned the whole world down for you?"
"I didn't want you to burn," she whispered. Her voice broke on the words. "I wanted you to be safe. I just needed you to stop me from burning…"
I hadn't known. All this time, I'd thought she'd wanted the fire, had chosen it over everything else. But maybe she'd only wanted a reason not to fall into it. Maybe she'd been waiting for me to pull her back from the edge.
"Well," I said, my voice catching, "look how well that worked."
Neither of us moved. The pain between us was a living thing, pulsing and snarling, wrapping around every inch of air like it wanted to devour us both. But underneath that, beneath the wounds and the ash, was something else.
The truth.
The mating bond had never really broken. It had frayed, stretched thin, bled from neglect, but it was still there. Still connecting us across twenty years of silence and hurt.
Alexis's voice was barely audible. "I don't know how to be what you need."
"You don't have to," I said. I reached up slowly, giving her time to pull away, and when she didn't, I cupped her face in my hands. "Just be here. With me. Right now. What I need is you. Not the perfect Alpha, not the fearless warrior. Just you. That's all you ever needed to be."
She stared at me. At the tears I hadn't realized were falling. At the ache I hadn't meant to show. At twenty years of love that had never stopped burning, even when we'd tried to smother it.
Then, finally, finally… she stepped forward. And she looked at me. Really looked. And didn't look away.
Her eyes didn't leave mine. Not when I stepped closer. Not when I reached up, cupped her jaw, and ran my thumb across the place her cheek hollowed with restraint. Not even when I traced the scar that ran from her temple to her jaw, a subtle, almost unseen mark I didn't recognize, earned in battles I hadn't been there to witness.
Not even when I said, barely more than breath, “Stop burning.”
Alexis didn't answer.
She kissed me.
It wasn't soft. It wasn't tender. It was the kiss of a wolf who had starved herself out of punishment and shame, who was now tasting something she wasn't sure she deserved. Her mouth crashed into mine, teeth dragging across my bottom lip, hands already buried in my shirt like she needed to feel skin, or she'd vanish.
I didn't hesitate. I kissed her back like I'd been waiting since the day she left. Because I had.
The taste of her was exactly as I remembered from the first night at Ghost Pack and completely different from those nights years ago: familiar comfort mixed with new edges, sweetness tempered by years of bitterness. She kissed like she was trying to make up for decades of silence in a single moment.
My back hit the wall before I even realized we'd moved. Her hands were on my hips, then under my shirt, and I moaned as her fingers skimmed the scar on my ribs. The one she hadn't been there to see stitched, earned defending pups she'd never met. Her touch was reverent, tracing the raised skin like she was reading the story of my survival.
She growled against my mouth, the sound low and possessive. Her body was trembling, but her hands were sure: pulling, stripping, claiming what had always been hers. "I hated the thought of someone else touching you," she said, voice breaking apart as her mouth found my neck. Her teeth scraped against my pulse point, and I could feel her breathing me in like she was trying to memorize my scent. "Even when I tried to stop caring… I couldn't."
I yanked her shirt over her head, desperate to feel her bare against me. Her skin was marked with new scars. A map of battles fought without me, of years spent in violence while I'd been building peace. "You don't get to talk like this and then disappear again, you know."
Her breath hitched, but her hands didn't stop moving over my ribs, my spine, like she was piecing me together from memory. Every touch was careful, reverent, like she was afraid I might disappear if she wasn't gentle enough. "I'm not leaving," she whispered. "Not tonight."
I tangled my fingers in her hair and pulled her face back to mine, just close enough for her to see it, really see it. Close enough for her to see the truth in my eyes, the love that had never wavered despite everything. "Not ever."
She growled, and I pulled her hair harder until she tilted her head just a fraction. Not submission, but trust.
The difference was everything.
"There was never anyone else," I said, voice steady despite the heat between us. Despite the way her proximity was making it hard to think, hard to breathe. "Not once. Not even when I wanted to forget you. You, your body, your touch… they were in my dreams every night. I touched myself to the memory of you and only you, all this time."
Alexis stilled completely. Her pupils flared wide, wolf rising to the surface, and I knew she could smell the truth in my arousal, could hear the honesty in my voice.
"I needed you too much to pretend someone else could ever take your place."
Her lips parted, but nothing came out. She looked stunned, like she'd never considered that I might have been as faithful as she'd been, as lonely as she'd been. So I kissed her instead, slow, certain, the kind of kiss you only give to someone you never stopped loving. Someone who never really left you, no matter how far they ran.
"I'm still yours," I breathed against her mouth. The words were a promise, a claim, a surrender all at once. "If you want me."
Her answer wasn't words. It was her hands on my hips. Her teeth at my throat. Her body pressed into mine like it was the only language we'd ever truly spoken.
Clothes fell to the floor piece by piece, each barrier removed with desperate efficiency. Twenty years of separation condensed into frantic touches, urgent kisses, the need to feel skin against skin overwhelming everything else.
She pushed me down to the too small bed and followed, settling between my thighs, her body heavy and real and home. The weight of her was perfect, familiar and new all at once. I reached for her, dug my fingers into her hips, pulled her down until our mouths met again.
This kiss was different. Slower. More certain. Still full of hunger, but with reverence curled inside it. Like she was remembering every inch of me, like I'd haunted her dreams the way she'd haunted mine.
Her lips trailed down my chest. Her mouth was hot and urgent, half-shifted fangs scraping against my collarbone before her tongue soothed the sting. Every kiss felt like a brand, marking me as hers after too many empty years of belonging to no one. Her fingers tangled with mine, holding me steady as she mapped my body with her mouth, relearning every curve and hollow like she was afraid she'd forgotten something vital.
She paused at my breast, looking up at me with those gold eyes that held so much suppressed hunger. "I used to dream about this," she whispered, her breath hot against my skin. "About having you under me again. About making you come apart the way only I could."
Before I could respond, her mouth closed over my nipple and I arched off the blankets with a sharp cry. Her tongue was wicked, circling and flicking until I was gasping her name, my hands fisted in her hair. She gave the same attention to my other breast, sucking and biting until I was writhing beneath her, already so close to the edge I could barely think.
"Alexis, please—"
"Not yet," she growled against my skin. “So many fucking nights I've been starving for you. I'm not rushing this."
Her mouth continued its journey south, kissing and licking down my ribs, my stomach, pausing to bite gently at my hip bone. The sensation shot straight to my core, and I could smell my own arousal mixing with hers, thick and intoxicating in the small room.
She settled between my thighs, and the first touch of her tongue against my center made me sob with relief. She was gentle at first, almost reverent, licking broad strokes that had me trembling. But as my hips started to move against her mouth, she grew bolder, more demanding.
"God, you taste exactly the same," she moaned against me, the vibration making me cry out. "I've been craving. Nothing else compares.”
Her tongue found my clit and I shattered, coming so hard I saw stars. But she didn't stop, didn't give me time to recover. She slid two fingers inside me while her mouth continued its assault, and I was climbing again before the first orgasm had fully faded.
"That's it," she whispered, her voice rough with desire. "I want to watch you fall apart. Want to see you come on my fingers like you used to."
The words combined with the perfect curl of her fingers inside me sent me over the edge again, and this time I screamed her name loud enough that anyone in the tunnels would know exactly what we were doing. I didn't care. Let them hear.
Let them know she was mine, and I was hers.
When the tremors finally stopped, she crawled back up my body, her face slick with my arousal. I pulled her down for a kiss, tasting myself on her tongue, and the intimacy of it made my heart clench.
