His Trouble Maker

7

Chapter 187

JESSICA

“Are you sure you didn’t see anything?”

“No.”

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Grayson is suspicious. I can see it in his eyes when he found us in that cell after the Triad left. I know I’m supposed to tell him everything but how can I do that when he’s the one lying to me?

“Jess.”

I forced my hands steady on the bandage, keeping my gaze low. “I said no. You gonna ask me a third time, Alpha, or actually let me patch you up?”

A muscle ticked in his cheek. He didn’t believe me. He never would. Around us, others murmured–no casualties, they said. Lucky. Blessed. I heard the claim, but the forest still hummed with a different voice: the Triads‘ echo, patient and hungry.

My wolf growled low in my chest.

Grayson didn’t ask again. He just stared at me–tired eyes, jaw tight, and I realized, all at once, how damn wounded he looked. A slow exhale left him, and he released my wrist only to slide his hand to my waist. “Fine,” he said, voice rough but quieter now. “If you say no, I’ll believe you.”

Before I could react, he pulled me in, guiding me until I straddled his lap, the bandages forgotten. His arms wrapped tight around me, one hand spread firm across my spine, the other caging my hip as though he could fuse me into him.

“Grayson-” I started, but his mouth was already brushing my temple, his voice breaking softer.

“You scare me half to death every time you’re not in my sight. Do you know that? I fight, I bleed, I tear rogues apart–but it’s this,” his grip tightened, breath shuddering against my hair, “the thought of losing you, that ruins me.”

I realized I wasn’t just holding him… he was holding me. Broken, desperate, and impossibly alive.

Slowly, carefully, I cupped his jaw in my palms, tilting his head until our foreheads pressed together. “I’m… I’m sorry if I scared you again.”

always fail at protecting you,

the edge of pain in them. Is that how he always felt? That no matter what he did, it was never

line of

him. He buried his face in my neck, letting out a rough, uneven breath. “I… I just…” His hands gripped my hips,

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Chapter 187

comes to keeping

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couldn’t stand it. I leaned in and kissed him, hard, shutting his mouth with everything I wanted to say–the fears, the rage, the ache of knowing how much he carried. His lips parted instantly, groaning low, trembling, hands clenching my hips like I was the only thing keeping him from falling

against him, tugging gently at his hair, letting him feel the sharp insistence of me. “You protect me.

“Understood?”

low and ragged, licking his lips, eyes dark and

everyone was wounded, I knew we had

at least someone’s happy,” Kade called,

groaned, heat crawling up my neck, cheeks

in me. Before I could even blink, he scooped

curled around his neck, pulse hammering, every nerve

to wriggle free,” he muttered, half

felt good to make him carry me. “You sure you don’t want to keep bleeding on me a while longer?” I teased, not really

His mouth ghosted the shell of my ear. “Get used to me carrying you. Tonight I’ll carry you out

I dared, soft

twice as binding. He set me down not in the middle of the chaos, but by Kade and the others–by safety–and his hands lingered on my

would bring the questions that might ruin us both

through the darkness. I thought he was taking me to our bed, but then he turned, not toward our chambers. The steps grew unfamiliar, the torches fewer, the air

answer was a rough kiss to my

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Chapter 187

are you taking me?”

“You’ll see, baby.”

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