His Trouble Maker

Chapter 185

Jessica

It wasn’t a dream, wasn’t it?

For no dream could hold me so tightly and surely. I think I’m going to lose my mind.

I can hear Grayson’s heartbeat, as my ears are on his heart and his lips are on my head.

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This man…this alpha, is now mine. I don’t think I have ever felt so happy. I tilt my face up, and his eyes find mine–dark, fierce, the same eyes that once scorned, once condemned, now blazing with something I scarcely dare name. “Are you happy?”

“I am.”

His hand slid lower against my back, guiding me through the circle as the rhythm of the pack rose like thunder. Around us, Alphas raised their cups, celebrating with us.

“No one can steal you from me now, Jess,” he murmured.

I tilted my head, pressing my brow to the hard cut of his jaw. “You’re so possessive, you know that?”

“Possessive?” His lips brushed my hair as he breathed me in. “No, little wolf. I’m territorial.”

I laughed softly against him, tilting my head so my lips ghosted the edge of his throat. “That’s the same, babe.”

“No,” he growled, though his mouth curved faintly against my temple. “Possession is wanting. Territory is war. And you…” His hand pressed firmer against the small of my back, guiding me in a slow turn. “…you are the land I would burn kingdoms for.”

Heat stole my breath, though the night air was cold and sharp. My fingers dared to trace the line of his collar, the edge where skin met fabric. “You say that now,” I whispered, eyes glinting up at him. “But tomorrow you’ll call me trouble again.”

“And you are. Trouble that stalks me, trouble that haunts me. Trouble I would bleed for, again and again.”

Fair.

We both laughed as though aware of how absurd we might sound. Yet if there is ever a night when we are permitted to be foolish, to be reckless, to care nothing for the weight of the world, it is this night.

He spun me then, a swift turn that made my skirts flare and the moonflowers in my hair tremble. When I fell back into his arms, his eyes alight with that cruel, impossible tenderness he never let the world see.

It was perfect. It was everything I had dreamed of. We were so bound, so lost, so utterly caught in that

moment when-

from the woods, high and

15:48 Tue, Sep 16

Chapter 185

“W–what’s that?”

EZ 55 vouchers

never leaving the dark edge of the trees. He gave the smallest nod to Kade, whose chair scraped against stone as he rose, already moving, already scenting the air. The laughter of moments ago was gone, swallowed whole by silence and the sharp bite

closer, carrying with it the stench

spearing into mine, dark as

though he had read the

seized his arm.

“Jess-”

stone, Alphas rushing to Kade’s side. The sound swelled. Shit.

word, law and vow, before he turned,

heart clawing out of my chest. I would have followed, gods, I would have

wrist. A silent shake of his head, grim and final. His eyes told me what his mouth did

I choked. “I can’t

you’ll both die. That’s not

walls–the snarls, the sickening crunch of bone, the howl that split the night like lightning. Grayson’s howl. My entire body lurched toward it, every instinct in me screaming to go, to find him, to fight

My voice cracked, breaking on the

think he doesn’t know

I can hear the wolves. I close my eyes, breathing it in. Grayson is out there fighting, and 1 hate the

my lids. “Where does he

That’s his order for

safe while he bleeds

“I can’t leave him.”

15:48 Tue, Sep 16

Chapter 185

if I let you disobey him. Do

I need to

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and let him drag me out of that place.

torn

me, Jess,” he snarled low, dragging me faster toward the stairwell.