CH2 On the Edge of Control

Kieran Voss (POV)

Sienna crossed the floor toward Callum fast.

Callum took her hand like it was nothing.

She didn't pull away. She only turned her head and said something to him. Too far off for me to catch. I just saw Callum bend his head and laugh, then lead her inside.

Their backs, side by side, familiar in a way that stung.

Inside my chest, Varg forced out a low growl.

I dropped my eyes. My knuckles tightened, degree by degree.

The feel of her falling into my arms was still too vivid. Her waist, her warmth, lily of the valley threaded with fresh snow — and in the instant the fated resonance detonated, it had come close to tearing through ten years of restraint.

Then, a second later, she pushed me away and ran to another man.

Callum, of all people.

My half-brother. Same father. Half the same blood.

Varg was getting worse, pacing my mind, urging me over and over to go after her, take her back.

I shut my eyes and held it down.

I'd endured ten years.

A little longer wouldn't kill me.

Only tonight, watching Callum lead her away, ten years felt long enough to drive me mad.

The snow drifting in through the window dragged memory back ten years.

I was nineteen that year.

Exiled by the Voss. The men Ravenmoor sent to hunt me down hadn't given up.

A knife had gone into my left ribs, a bullet into my shoulder, blood tracking me the whole way into the snow.

When I couldn't stay upright any longer, the only shelter left was a stable near the old Marlowe estate.

Snow came down hard that night.

By the time I got my back against the wooden wall and sat, I'd lost nearly all feeling.

That was when the door pushed open.

"Who's there?" A girl's voice, bright and crisp, completely wrong for a night like that.

I couldn't lift my head. All I saw was a pair of snow-dusted ankle boots stopping in front of me.

She crouched down.

Blonde hair spilled from under her hat brim, the tip of her nose red with cold. She froze at the sight of all that blood, her face going white — but she didn't run.

She reached out instead and checked whether I was breathing.

"Still alive." She sounded relieved, then leaned in closer. "Can you hear me?"

I didn't have the strength to answer.

She frowned and muttered, "Fine. Breathing's enough."

She was back before long with a bowl of hot soup.

Too hot.

The first mouthful went down and I choked, coughing up blood.

Her hand jerked, and then she complained sweetly, "You're so much trouble."

I couldn't speak. I only managed to get my eyes open and look at her.

She glared right back. "Don't glare at me, I'm doing this for you."

She had no idea that the moment she came near, every sound in the world cut out at once.

Resonance like nothing I'd known blew open from the deepest part of my chest.

Lily of the valley, fresh snow — the scent poured into every breath, drowning the reek of blood and the pain of the knife and the bullet.

The pain hadn't gone anywhere, but it felt pushed a layer further off.

Something took hold of a body that had already gone numb, and even my collapsing consciousness started to clear.

Varg slammed the same answer against my mind, over and over: Fated Mate.

I'd never felt anything like it.

I spent what strength I had left forcing my eyes open.

I needed to see her clearly. Remember her. Even if I died there in the next breath, I had to know what the girl who saved me looked like.

Lamplight fell across her face.

Soft blonde hair against her cheek, skin white as the snow.

Head bent, she carefully wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth, a small crease between her brows. No disgust in those eyes, no fear. Clean, like she'd never met anything cruel in this world.

Too bright.

Too pure.

Like a shaft of moonlight dropping without warning into that endless snow.

I stared at her and all but forgot I was wounded.

Then she reached up, unclasped a crescent-shaped silver pendant from her neck, and pressed it straight into my palm.

"Here. Take it."

The instant silver met skin, the burn shot through me.

I closed my fist around it anyway.

She really didn't seem to notice. She explained it earnestly: "It was my mother's. It keeps you safe."

My voice came out so hoarse it was barely sound. "And you're giving it to me?"

"You're half dead. You need it more than I do." Perfectly matter-of-fact. She tucked the blanket tighter around me.

"Just rest. I'll go get another blanket."

Then she turned and ran out into the snow.

Watching her go, the fog in my head cleared. The men hunting me were still close. I couldn't stay here. I couldn't pull her into this.

I braced against the wall and stood, wounds tearing open again, and took the pendant out of the stable into the woods beyond the estate.

Not long after, Sienna came running back with a thick blanket.

She pushed the stable door open, found it empty, and stopped short.

Then she went back out, tramping through the snow.

"Hello?"

"Are you still here?" In all that empty, snow-filled night, hers was the only voice.

I stood in the dark, opened my mouth, and in the end said nothing.

She circled the area with the blanket in her arms.

At last she just stood there in the snow for a long time before turning back toward the house.

I watched until that figure was gone. Only then did I leave, carrying what she'd given me.

That leaving lasted ten years.

The pendant went with me to the Northlands, to London, to Edinburgh.

It went with me from my worst days, step by step, to where I stand now.

Silver burns wolves. I wore it against my skin regardless. Day after day, until my left ribs carried a scar that will never fade.

I never took it off.

It was the only thing she left me in ten years.

Eventually I made it back to Seattle.

And she was no longer the girl from that snowy night.

She'd founded Moonlit Silver. They called her the Queen of Silver. I watched her appear at launches, at galas.

I waited until I'd earned the right to stand before her openly.

Then I learned she was Callum's fiancée.

The woman I'd waited ten years for was going to marry my brother.

That was the first time fate struck me as vicious enough to laugh at.

Today she finally felt the resonance between us herself. When she stared at me, shocked, I even felt a low, contemptible flicker of satisfaction.

Finally, I wasn't the only one who knew what we were.

Finally, she felt the pull too.

The satisfaction lasted a few seconds. Then she looked at me and said, "The wedding goes ahead as planned."

Everything I'd held down all evening surged again.

Jealousy. The black restlessness. The need to take her away from Callum completely.

Ugly enough that I didn't want to look at it too closely myself.

She knows now. So why is she still marrying him?

My phone buzzed.

I dragged myself back and answered. "Go ahead."

Elias went straight to it. "The Voss board is starting to give. Per the plan, we handle the last three seats next week?"

"Sooner."

A beat on the other end. "How much sooner?"

"Tonight." I pushed open the study door. The internal Voss roster was already on the desk. Most of the men who'd signed off on my exile ten years ago were still in the same chairs.

They think I came back to be recognized by Voss again.

Wrong.

I don't need their recognition. I want every name on that exile order out of the seat he's sitting in.

"Ravenmoor may move on this," Elias said. "Callum's mother especially."

"Let her."

"Understood."

I turned a page of the roster, then said, "Pull every subsidiary clause in the Voss–Marlowe betrothal agreement."

"The betrothal?"

My eyes cooled. "Is there a problem?"

Elias paused. "No. I'll see to it now."

The words had barely left him when the faintest click of metal came from beyond the door.

I looked up. "Come out."

Two seconds of silence in the corridor.

But I'd already caught it — lily of the valley and fresh snow, pushed down under suppressant and still impossible to cover.

"Sienna."

Varg lifted his head in my mind at the same instant.

She came around the corner, a coat thrown loose over a thin sweater. "How did you know it was me?"

"Scent."

She bent her head and sniffed her collar, frowning. "I used suppressant spray."

"Doesn't work."

She glared up at me, plainly unconvinced.

I ended the call and looked at her. "How much did you hear?"

"Not much." And she turned to leave.

I caught her wrist.

The moment we touched, the resonance blew open.

Her whole body locked. She looked up, anger flaring instantly. "Let go."

I didn't. I held her eyes. "This marriage you insist on — is it for Callum, or for the betrothal?"

Her expression stalled, just for an instant.

That instant was enough.

The fire that had been packed in my chest all night eased slightly.

Not for Callum.

Good.

A contemptible thing to be glad about, and I couldn't help it at all.

I kept looking at her. "What does the betrothal give you?"

Sienna went cold again fast, one corner of her mouth curving in something like scorn. "None of your business."

Four words, and the small satisfaction burned straight into something far more possessive.

Ten years of control snapped.

I took her chin and made her lift her face.

Rage lit her eyes. "Kieran!"

"Tell me." I leaned in, voice gone rough. "Why does it have to be this marriage?"

"I said. None of your business."

Varg surged.

Cedar and fir rolled over her, out of my control, and the resonance broke her suppressant apart. Lily of the valley and fresh snow seeped out, winding into my breath.

She was still glaring, but her breathing had already gone uneven.

I wasn't doing any better.

Varg wouldn't settle. The scent at her throat was close enough to cost me the last of my control. My thumb brushed her chin, and then my hand traced slowly down the side of her face toward her neck.

Close enough that nothing was left between us but breath.

And then my palm seared.

I let go at once.

The silver chain at her throat had slipped out of her collar, a crescent ornament swaying gently under the light.

My breath stopped.

That crescent wasn't identical to the pendant she'd pushed into my hand ten years ago. Its curve ran the opposite way. Set side by side, they'd close into a single full moon, as if they were always meant to.

I stood frozen while that snowy night ten years ago came slamming back.

In that lapse, Sienna wrenched free.

Crack.

A clean, hard slap landed across my face.

I didn't dodge.

Her chest rose and fell hard. Her eyes still held the damp heat the resonance had pulled out of her, her cheeks still faintly flushed, but she was completely clear-headed now.

"Kieran Voss!"

She glared at me through her teeth.

I said nothing. I only drank in the sight of her — furious, thrown, the corners of her eyes red.

And then, behind me, Callum's voice.

"Sienna?"