Chapter 4 WORTH THE WAIT

By the fourth day, I stopped trying to convince myself everything was fine because it wasn’t. And pretending was starting to feel stupid as hell, like I was lying to the one person who could actually smell the bullshit on me.

Lucifer barely touched me anymore, not in the way that mattered anyway. No lazy hands brushing my waist when we passed in the hallway, no pulling me close just because, no quiet instinctive “mine” that used to exist even in the middle of silence like some invisible tether keeping us locked together.

Now everything felt measured and careful, like he was choosing when to act like my mate. And that was worse than nothing because it made me feel like an option instead of the one thing he couldn’t live without.

I started noticing patterns, and I didn’t mean to, but once you see something you can’t unsee it no matter how hard you try to shove it back in the dark.

He disappeared at night, not every single night but just enough that it became a rhythm...always late, always quiet, always gone long enough for the bed to go cold on his side and leave me staring at the empty space like it was mocking me.

The first time, I told myself I’d imagined it and rolled over and forced my eyes shut. The second time, I stayed awake listening to every creak in the house until my body gave out. The third time, I waited up with my heart hammering so loud I was sure he’d hear it, but he didn’t. Tonight was the fourth, and something in me had finally snapped past the point of excuses.

I lay on my side, eyes half-closed, breathing slow and even like I was dead to the world, even though every nerve in my body was wide awake and screaming. Lucifer moved beside me, careful... too careful... like he was walking on glass and didn’t want to wake the fragile thing he used to hold without thinking.

The mattress dipped, then lifted, and the room went silent. No door creak. No footsteps. Just this sudden heavy absence that sucked all the air out of the space around me. I waited ten seconds, counting them in my head, then I opened my eyes.

The room was empty and the sheets on his side were already cooling fast. My heart started beating faster, not loud and panicked but alert and steady, like my wolf had taken over and was telling me to pay attention because something was seriously off.

I sat up slowly, listening hard to the quiet of the packhouse, but there was nothing. So I slipped out of bed and moved to the window, keeping my steps light on the floorboards. At first I saw nothing... just the yard and the tree line and shadows stretching long under the moonlight.

But then there it was: movement. A figure, tall and broad-shouldered, cutting through the dark. I knew that walk anywhere. It was Lucifer heading straight toward the edge of the property, toward the forest, alone. I watched him go until the trees swallowed him whole.

For a second I almost went back to bed, almost told myself it didn’t matter, it was just Alpha business, I was overthinking like always.

But then something shifted hard in my chest... not fear, not jealousy, but pure raw instinct. The same one that tells you when something is watching you from the dark and you need to move or you’re gonna get caught flat-footed.

I grabbed the nearest hoodie and slipped outside. The cold hit me like a slap, bare feet on the gravel sharp and grounding, waking up every sense I had. I kept my distance... far enough not to be seen, but close enough not to lose him, moving quiet and low like I was hunting instead of following.

He moved fast, like he knew exactly where he was going. No hesitation. No scanning the trees. No caution at all. And that wasn’t patrol. That wasn’t anything normal. The realization made my stomach twist tighter. I followed anyway.

The forest swallowed us both, branches scratching at my arms, leaves crunching under my steps no matter how careful I tried to be. So I slowed my breathing, matched his pace, and stayed downwind. Everything Marcus had drilled into us during those endless training sessions came back like muscle memory.

Lucifer didn’t look back, Not once. And that made it worse because it meant he felt safe, like he had done this enough times that he didn’t even think someone might be trailing him.

We moved deeper than we ever did during normal runs, past the training markers and the old boundary flags, and into a section of forest no one used anymore. The trees got thicker and the air felt heavier, like it was holding its breath right along with me. My chest tightened hard. Why here of all places? And then he stopped so suddenly I almost ran straight into his back.

I dropped behind a thick tree trunk just in time, pressing my back against the bark and forcing myself completely still while my wolf went rigid inside me. Silence stretched out, thick enough to choke on. Then, a second set of footsteps, soft and familiar, hit my ears and my stomach dropped like a stone because someone else was here.

I leaned slightly, just enough to see past the tree. A figure stepped into the clearing...smaller, lighter, and so damn familiar it made my breath catch hard in my throat. Blonde hair, loose and falling over her shoulders, catching the moonlight like it belonged there. It was Serena. She walked straight to him with no hesitation, no surprise, like she’d done this before, like she knew he’d be waiting right there for her.

They stopped close. Too close for anything innocent. And for a second neither of them spoke. The air between them was thick with something I didn’t want to name. Then she reached up and touched his face, not friendly, but intimate, like she had every right to.

And my stomach twisted so hard I had to grip the tree trunk to keep myself upright because the world felt like it was tilting sideways.

Lucifer didn’t pull away. He leaned into it. And in that moment something inside me went very, very still, like my wolf had frozen mid-snarl, waiting to see how bad this was really gonna get.

Serena smiled, soft and knowing, like she had a secret they both shared and she whispered something I could barely catch, but I heard enough. “You’re late.”

Lucifer’s voice came back low and familiar and completely unfamiliar at the same time, the way it wrapped around her name like it had done it a hundred times before.

“Worth the wait.”

I stopped breathing right there because I knew I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be hearing this. I shouldn’t be seeing any of it.

But I couldn’t move. My feet felt nailed to the ground. Serena stepped closer, their bodies almost touching now, and then, he kissed her. Deep and sure, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Everything inside me shattered into a thousand sharp pieces, but I didn’t make a sound.

Not a single damn sound.