Chapter 16: Separation Anxiety
The cool metal of the door seeped into her back, a stark contrast to the fire he’d just stoked in her veins. For a few ragged breaths, there was only the sound of their slowing heartbeats, the smell of sex thick in the sterile air.
Ronan pulled back, his hands coming up to cradle her face. His thumbs brushed her cheeks, wiping away tears she hadn’t realized she’d shed. The fury was gone from his eyes, replaced by a weary, devastated tenderness. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, the words raw. “I’m so sorry I brought you into this.”
She shook her head, leaning into his touch. “There was no ‘into.’ I was already in it the second you disappeared.” Her voice was hoarse. “I’d choose this. The heat, the fear, all of it. Over never finding you again.”
A sharp knock at the door made them both flinch. Xavier’s voice, strained but controlled, filtered through the steel. “Ronan. We need to talk. Without the… theatrics.”
Ronan rested his forehead against hers, closing his eyes for a second. When he opened them, the alpha was back in place, pragmatic and hardened. “Get cleaned up,” he said softly to her. Then, louder: “Give us a minute.”
He helped her to the small adjoining bathroom, his touch impossibly gentle now. He ran a cloth under warm water and handed it to her, his eyes avoiding the mess he’d made of her, the evidence of her need dripping down her thighs. He looked… ashamed.
She cleaned up quickly, pulling on a fresh set of clothes left on a shelf—simple grey cotton shorts and a tank top. They were bland, anonymous. When she emerged, he was waiting by the door, his own shirt changed, his posture that of a soldier reporting for duty.
Xavier and Elara were in the main lab area, standing apart from each other. The earlier fury had condensed into a tense, brittle calm. Xavier looked at his son, really looked, his gaze lingering on the too-sharp angles of Ronan’s face, the feral awareness in his eyes that no eighteen-year-old should possess.
“We want to help,” Xavier began, his voice careful. “But to do that, we need to understand what we’re dealing with. What you are dealing with. Physiologically.”
Ronan’s jaw tightened. “You have years of data. From Romania.”
“Data on the transformation, on the initial antigenic shock,” Elara said, stepping forward. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her. She glanced at Aria, her expression a complex map of maternal concern and deep discomfort. “We don’t have data on a stabilized… condition. On the bond. On the cycles.” She forced the words out, her cultivated elegance cracking around the edges. “If we are to find who did this, and mitigate the damage, we need a baseline. Now.”
“What does that mean?” Aria asked, her voice small.
Xavier gestured to a bank of intimidating machinery behind a glass partition. “Non-invasive scans. Metabolic panels. A tissue sample. Sequencing. It will take a few hours.” His eyes flicked to Ronan. “You must be separated from the… stimulus. For the readings to be clear of synaptic interference from the bond.”
“No.” The word left Ronan’s lips like a bullet.
“It’s not a suggestion.” Xavier’s tone brooked no argument, the CEO overriding the father. “If we are to weaponize our resources against Kalis, we must know exactly what he has stolen. What his endgame might be. Your biology is the battlefield, son. We need the map.”
Ronan was trembling with the effort to stand still. Aria felt it—a pulling deep in her gut, a phantom cord stretching taut. The dull ember of the heat, momentarily sated, flickered in warning.
“And Aria?” Ronan gritted out.
Elara spoke before Xavier could. “She will be made comfortable. Somewhere safe. I’ll stay with her.” She met Aria’s gaze, and for the first time, Aria saw a genuine, if horrified, attempt at empathy. “It won’t be… pleasant. I understand that. But it’s necessary.”
Ronan looked at Aria, a silent question in his eyes. Trust me.
She gave a tiny, shaky nod. What choice did they have?
The separation was a physical amputation.
Ronan was led into the glass-walled chamber. The door sealed with a hiss and a heavy thud of magnetic locks. Through the transparent wall, Aria watched as technicians—faces masked, eyes averted—directed him to a reclined chair. Straps of thick, padded nylon were fastened across his chest, his wrists, his ankles. He didn’t fight them. He stared straight at Aria, his blue eyes burning.
Elara’s hand, surprisingly firm, guided Aria by the elbow. “Come, dear. This will be difficult to watch.”
They left the lab, walked down silent, plush corridors. Each step away from him felt like walking into a thinning atmosphere. The pressure in Aria’s head increased. A whine started, low and constant, in the back of her mind. Feyre.
He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone.
I know, Aria thought back, her mental voice strained. Be quiet.
Elara led her to a bedroom. It was not a guest room. The walls were a deep navy, the furniture sturdy oak, shelves laden with trophies for sailing and debate, books on astrophysics and vintage motorcycle repair. A framed poster of a band Ronan had loved two lifetimes ago was tacked to the wall. The bed was large, covered in rumpled dark silk sheets that still smelled faintly, impossibly, of the boy he’d been—clean cotton, soap, and sunshine.
“This is his room,” Aria whispered, the reality of it hitting her. This was where he’d slept, dreamed, been human.
“Was,” Elara corrected gently, hovering near the doorway. “We… kept it as he left it. A foolish hope.” She wrung her hands. “I’ll have water brought. Cool cloths. Is there anything else…? For the discomfort?”
Aria almost laughed. Discomfort. The heat was a slow, deep throb now, a bass note of need that vibrated in her bones. The absence of his scent, his touch, his presence, was an amplifier. She sat on the edge of the bed, the silk cool against her thighs. “No. Thank you.”
Elara lingered, her elegant face a portrait of helpless compassion. She understood the theory, the biology. The cold, clinical facts of hormonal torrents and primal drives. But facing the living, breathing reality of it—a girl trembling on her son’s bed, her skin flushing, her breaths coming short—was clearly shattering her worldview. “It will pass,” she said, the words hollow even to her own ears. “The cycle has a duration. If what we surmise is correct, the peak should… subside in a few hours.”
Aria just nodded, pulling her knees to her chest. Elara, after a moment of agonized silence, retreated, closing the door with a soft click.
The second the latch engaged, the careful control Aria had maintained shattered.
It wasn’t a wave. It was a slow, rising flood. A deep, cramping ache settled in her lower belly, coiling tight. Her skin felt two sizes too small, hypersensitive. The brush of the tank top against her nipples was agony, a delicious, torturous friction. She whimpered, rubbing her thighs together. The movement sparked a flash of wet heat between her legs.
Need him. Need him. Need him.
The thought was not her own. It was Feyre, a desperate, pleading chant that merged with the pounding of her blood. Aria fell back onto the bed, into the scent of him. It was a ghost, a taunt. She buried her face in his pillow, inhaling deeply, but the faint, old smell only highlighted the profound, devastating lack of him.
She rolled onto her stomach, pressing her hips into the mattress. The pressure was a blunt, useless imitation. A frustrated sob tore from her throat. Her hand slid down, under the waistband of the shorts, her fingers seeking the desperate, slick heat.
She was soaked. Her folds were swollen, sensitive to the lightest touch. She circled her clit, a sharp, jolting pleasure that made her back arch. But it was wrong. It was her own touch, small and human and utterly insufficient. It was a feather against a wildfire.
“Ronan,” she moaned into the pillow, her hips moving against her hand. She pushed two fingers inside herself, curling them, seeking the deep, full stretch only he could provide. Her body clenched around the emptiness. It wasn’t enough. It was maddening.
She imagined him here. In this room. On this bed. Pinning her down with his weight. His mouth on her neck, his teeth scraping her claiming mark. His cock, thick and relentless, splitting her open.
“Fuck me,” she begged the empty room, her voice a broken thing. “Please, just fuck me. I need it. I need your cock. I need you to fill me up.”
Her fingers worked faster, a pathetic rhythm. The pleasure built, a tight coil, but it was a distant, tinny thing. It lacked the crushing weight, the brutal possession, the completion of his knot. She came with a choked cry, her body convulsing around her fingers, but it was a shallow, flickering release. The moment it passed, the need returned, hungrier, sharper, a serrated edge.
The fever spiked. Sweat beaded on her skin, soaking the tank top. She tore the clothes off, thrashing on the silk sheets, her body a live wire of unsatisfied craving. The room was too hot, too cold. She was shaking. Feyre was howling now, a sound of pure, desolate panic that reverberated inside her skull.
Time lost meaning. There was only the cycle of aching emptiness, the frantic, failed attempt to mimic his touch, the shuddering pseudo-release that brought no relief, and the inevitable, escalating climb back into torment.
She heard a door open. Footsteps. A cool hand on her burning forehead.
“Aria.” Elara’s voice, soft with worry.
Aria flinched away, curling into a naked ball. “Don’t touch me,” she rasped. “It hurts.”
Elara drew back. Aria could see her through a haze of tears and fever—standing there, immaculate in her linen trousers and silk blouse, a vessel of ordered, human calm facing a storm of biology she could only intellectually comprehend. She held a damp cloth, a glass of water.
“The tests are taking longer than anticipated,” Elara said, her voice carefully neutral. “There are… complexities.”
Aria didn’t care. The world had shrunk to the cage of her own skin. She pressed her face into the mattress, a low, continuous moan leaking from her lips.
“He’s fighting the sedation they needed for the deep tissue sample,” Elara continued, as if talking might help. “His vitals are… extraordinary. His cellular regeneration is unlike anything in our databases.” She was babbling, filling the horrific silence with science because she had no comfort to offer. “He’s asking for you. Constantly.”
At that, Aria stilled. She turned her head, her green eyes glassy. “He’s in pain?”
“No. Not physical pain.” Elara’s composure finally fractured, a hairline crack of sheer maternal distress. “He’s… agitated. They have him monitored on audio. He’s just repeating your name. Over and over.”
A fresh wave of slickness coated Aria’s inner thighs. The idea of him, bound and desperate, calling for her, was a vile, potent aphrodisiac that made the ache clench like a fist. She rolled onto her back, legs falling open, her hand moving between them again, shameless, driven.
Elara’s breath hitched. She looked away, but she didn’t leave. She set the water and cloth on the nightstand and stood, a silent, stoic sentinel at the foot of the bed, bearing witness to the unspeakable reality of her son’s world. Her face was pale, her lips pressed into a thin line. She understood now, in her gut, what the data could never show. This wasn’t a kink or an act. It was a fundamental, terrifying need.
Aria’s movements became more frantic, her breaths sobbing gasps. “I can’t… I can’t do it without him. It’s not working.” She was crying in earnest now, tears mixing with sweat on the sheets. “It feels like I’m dying.”
Elara Vale, billionaire socialite, heir to a dynasty, took a deep, shuddering breath. She walked to the closet, opened it, and after a moment of searching, pulled out an old, worn fleece blanket. She brought it to the bed.
“This was his,” she said quietly, her voice thick. “He slept with it until he was fifteen. It will smell more… strongly of him. Of before.”
She laid the blanket over Aria’s trembling legs, not touching her.
Aria clutched it, buried her face in the synthetic fabric. It was there—the ghost of his childhood sweat, his skin, a fainter, sweeter version of his scent. It was a lifeline to a simpler past. It didn’t quell the heat, but it gave the agony a focus. She wrapped her legs around it, humping against the soft pile, the friction a desperate, crude substitute.
“He’s coming back,” Elara said, the words a promise she was willing into truth. “He will come back to you.”
Down in the sterile lab, Ronan Vale strained against the straps. The sedative they’d pumped into his vein felt like sludge in his blood, but it couldn’t touch the rage, the sheer panic echoing down the bond. He could feel her. A distant scream of pure need, a psychic feedback loop of anguish that made River snarl and rage against the confines of his mind.
Aria. Aria. Aria.
He chanted it, a mantra against the whirring scanners, the cold probes. On the monitors, his heart rate was a runaway train, his brain activity lighting up like a supernova in the regions associated with bonding, protectiveness, predatory focus.
Xavier watched the data stream, his face ashen. “My god,” he whispered to the lead technician. “The bond… it’s not psychological. It’s a physical tether. Look at the bioluminescent markers. They’re reacting to her distress state from over two hundred meters away, through multiple floors.”
“The sample is extracted, sir,” the technician said, holding a small vial of dark, shimmering blood that seemed to move with a life of its own.
“Run it. Compare it to the Brasov samples. Find every divergence,” Xavier ordered. His eyes went to his son, writhing and growling on the table, a creature of myth strapped down in a room of science. The understanding he’d sought was here, in terrifying, living color. And the cost of obtaining it was written in the silent scream on his son’s face, and in the agonized writhing of the girl upstairs clinging to a child’s blanket.
He keyed the intercom. “Elara. It’s done. Bring her down.”
In the bedroom, Elara’s phone vibrated. She read the message, her shoulders slumping in relief. “It’s over,” she said to Aria. “They’re bringing him up.”
The words cut through the fever haze. Aria went still, the blanket falling from her grasp. Every nerve ending focused on the door. The need didn’t lessen. It became a poised, starving thing.
Footsteps in the hall. Heavy, hurried.
The door burst open.
Ronan stood there, his clothes disheveled, his hair wild. His eyes were pure, undiluted alpha, blazing with a possessiveness that shook the walls. He smelled of antiseptic and his own furious sweat. His gaze locked on Aria—naked, glistening with sweat, her scent of desperate arousal flooding the room.
Elara slipped past him without a word, pulling the door shut behind her.
He was across the room in two strides. He didn’t speak. He grabbed her hips, flipped her onto her stomach with a raw, animalistic growl, and mounted her from behind. There was no preamble, no gentleness, no thought. He shoved his cock into her sodden, welcoming cunt in one brutal, bottoming thrust.
Aria screamed, a sound of pure, shattered relief. The fullness was a shock, a glorious, painful remedy. He was hers. He was here. He was in her.
He fucked her with a frantic, driving rhythm, his hands gripping her hips hard enough to bruise, his body covering hers. “Mine,” he grunted into the sweat-damp hair at her neck with each drive of his hips. “My girl. My fuckin’ mate. Never again. Do you hear me? Never fucking again.”
She couldn’t speak. She could only push back against him, meeting every punishing stroke, her orgasm rising instantly, a tidal wave held back by a dam that had now shattered. This was what she needed. The crushing weight. The brutal claim. The searing, perfect stretch.
“Come for me,” he snarled, his pace becoming erratic, desperate. “Soak my cock. Show me what I own.”
She obeyed. The climax tore through her, violent and total, wracking her body with convulsions that milked his length. He roared, his own release slamming into her, a hot, claiming flood that seemed to sear her insides. He pushed deep, holding himself there as his knot began to swell, locking them together, a biological guarantee of his presence.
He collapsed over her, his breath scorching her shoulder. The knot held them fast, a relentless, full ache that soothed the screaming void inside her. The fever broke. The trembling ceased. A profound, heavy calm descended, woven from exhaustion and absolute satiation.
Slowly, he shifted, rolling them to their sides without breaking the tie, his arms wrapping around
A profound, heavy calm descended, woven from exhaustion and absolute satiation.
Slowly, he shifted, rolling them to their sides without breaking the tie, his arms wrapping around her to pull her back against his chest. They lay tangled in the ruin of his childhood sheets, his breath gradually slowing against her neck. The frantic, screaming need was gone. In its place was a deep, liquid warmth and a fatigue that reached into her bones.
“I could feel you,” he murmured, his voice rough and shattered. “Up here. It was like listening to you burn alive from another continent.”
She laced her fingers with his where they rested on her stomach. “Your mom gave me your old blanket. It smelled like you. Like before.” She paused. “It didn’t help. Not really.”
“Nothing would.” He nuzzled the mark on her shoulder, a quiet apology. “I’m never doing that again. They can take their tests and shove them.”
The knot had begun to soften, the insistent pressure easing into a dull, pleasant throb. The connection remained, a steady hum in her veins that felt like a live wire finally grounded. She could feel River’s contented rumble echoing through Ronan, a mirror to Feyre’s sleepy purr in her own mind.
A soft knock sounded at the door. It wasn’t the aggressive rap from before. This was hesitant.
Ronan’s body went rigid against hers. “Go away.”
“It’s Jude.” His brother’s voice was muffled through the wood. “And I have pizza. Also, the preliminary results are kind of insane. You should probably hear them.”
Aria’s stomach growled loudly in the quiet room. Ronan let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Is it pepperoni?”
“Do I look like a monster? Of course it’s pepperoni.” A pause. “Are you guys, uh… decent? Bio-mechanically speaking?”
Ronan glanced down at their still-joined bodies. “We’re clothed enough. Give us a second.” He carefully disengaged, a slow, intimate separation that left Aria feeling hollowed out and sore in the best way. He found her tank top and shorts, helping her into them with a tenderness that contrasted violently with his earlier fury. He pulled on his own jeans, leaving his chest bare.
“Come in.”
Jude shouldered the door open, balancing two large pizza boxes and a tablet. He took in the scene—the disheveled bed, their flushed faces, the general aura of spent desperation—without a flicker of surprise. He’d seen worse. He dropped the boxes on the desk and flopped into Ronan’s old gaming chair, spinning once.
“You look like hell, Ro. No offense.” He popped a lid open, the smell of grease and cheese flooding the room. “Aria, you look… marginally better. Eat.”
They ate sitting on the floor, backs against the bed, passing greasy paper plates. The simple, ridiculous normalcy of pizza in the midst of the surreal nightmare was a balm. For a few minutes, there was only the sound of chewing.
Jude wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and picked up the tablet. “Okay. So. Dad’s lab geeks are basically having a collective religious experience. Your blood is… not blood. Not entirely.” He tapped the screen. “It’s a carrier for something else. Microscopic, symbiotic organisms that rewrite host DNA on contact. That’s the ‘bite.’ It’s not a virus. It’s more like a forced evolution.”
Ronan stared at a slice of pizza. “So I’m not a skinwalker. I’m a farm for super-bacteria.”
“Pretty much. And they’re social. The ones in you and the ones in Aria are communicating. That’s the bond. It’s a physical network. When you were separated, the signal… scrambled. It caused a cascading stress response in both systems. Hence the…” He gestured vaguely at the bed.
“The agony,” Aria finished softly.
“Yeah. That.” Jude scrolled. “The sample from Brasov? It’s degraded. Inert. Whatever they stole, it’s dying without a living host. They can sequence it, but replicating the active, stable symbiosis?” He shook his head. “Our guys think it’s impossible without a living source to culture from. They need a fresh sample.”
Ronan went very still. “They need me.”
“Or Aria,” Jude said, his voice dropping. “But you’re the original template. You’re the prize. Kalis doesn’t want to make monsters, Ronan. He wants to make them controllable. Patentable. An army with an off-switch he holds. Your blood is the key to both the formula and the kill-switch.”
The pizza turned to ash in Aria’s mouth. She set her plate down. “So they’re not done. They’re coming for him. Again.”
“They never stopped,” Ronan said, his voice low and dangerous. He looked at Jude. “The shell company. The trail. Does it lead to a person?”
Jude nodded, his face grim. “It fans out. But there’s one consistent consultant on the payroll, a biochemist named Dr. Aris Thorne. He vanished from a think-tank in Switzerland six months before you were bitten. Dad remembers him. Brilliant, unstable, obsessed with transcendence through biological hybridity. He gave a lecture once about the ‘obsolete human form.’ Dad said it was fascinating and deranged.”
“Where is he now?”
“That’s the thing. He’s a ghost. But the money to fund that Brasov operation? It didn’t just come from Kalis.” Jude leaned forward. “It was filtered through a donor fund for Mom’s museum foundation. A fund Celeste administers.”
The air left the room. Ronan slowly put his plate down. “Celeste.”
“She doesn’t know,” Jude said quickly. “The transfer was buried under six layers of grants for ‘art preservation.’ She signs the allocations in bulk. But the path is there. Someone used her authority, her access, to move the money that built the lab that took you.”
Ronan stood up, pacing the length of the worn navy rug. His bare feet were silent. “Someone in this house. Someone with access to the foundation records, to the family schedules, to the security protocols for the Romania trip.”
“Aria said the Alpha who bit her smelled like money and ink,” Jude said quietly. “Celeste smells like Chanel No. 5 and printer toner from the corporate office. She handles more paperwork than anyone.”
“It’s not her.” Ronan’s denial was immediate, forceful. But it was laced with a thread of doubt, a horrible, creeping coldness. He stopped pacing, staring at the trophy on his shelf for a debating championship they’d won together. “It can’t be.”
Aria thought of Celeste in the lab doorway, her posture sagging, the genuine shock on her face. But she also remembered the cool assessment in her eyes. The heir to a billion-dollar empire, trained to see assets and liabilities.
“We need to talk to her,” Aria said. “Before your parents do. If she’s being set up, she deserves to know. If she’s not…” She didn’t finish.
Ronan’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. He snatched it up. It was a secure message from Xavier. Results conclusive. Threat assessed. Family meeting in the main study. Now. All of you.
He showed the screen to Jude, who let out a low whistle. “The tribunal is in session.”
Ronan pulled a black t-shirt over his head. He held a hand out to Aria, pulling her to her feet. His grip was firm, grounding. The calm from moments before was crystallizing into something hard and focused. The heat was done. The battle was just beginning.
“Stay close,” he said again, but the meaning had changed. The danger was no longer just outside. It was in the walls, in the blood, in the trust they’d taken for granted. He looked at Jude. “You have my back?”
“Always,” Jude said, pushing himself out of the chair. “Even if we’re walking into a room full of knives.”
They moved into the hall, the smell of pepperoni fading behind them, replaced by the sterile lemon-polish scent of the mansion. The silence felt watchful. The portraits lining the corridor seemed to gaze down with new judgment.
As they approached the study, the door was already ajar. They heard Xavier’s voice, tight with controlled fury.
“—a breach of the most fundamental trust. The implications are not merely corporate, they are familial.”
Ronan pushed the door open.
Xavier and Elara stood by the fireplace. Celeste was seated in a wingback chair, her face pale but composed, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She looked up as they entered, her gaze landing on Ronan. There was no guilt there. Only a profound, weary confusion.
“We’ve traced the financial leak,” Xavier said without preamble, his eyes on Celeste. “It originated from your donor management portal, Celeste. Fifty million euros, routed to a black account that financed the Brasov facility.”
Celeste didn’t flinch. “I don’t know anything about that. I authorize hundreds of transactions a month. The foundation’s audits are clean.”
“This was hidden within a clean transaction,” Elara said, her voice strained. “It required intimate knowledge of our systems. Of our patterns.”
“And you think that knowledge is mine alone?” Celeste’s voice remained calm, but a spark of anger lit in her eyes. She looked at Ronan, a direct appeal. “You know me. You know what I’ve done to protect you, to keep you safe these past two years. Why would I undo all of that now?”
Ronan studied her. He saw the sister who’d smuggled him books, who’d covered for him with their parents, who’d looked at him not with disgust but with a fierce, grieving loyalty. The doubt in him wavered.
“Dr. Aris Thorne,” Jude said from the doorway. “Name mean anything to you?”
Celeste’s brow furrowed. “Thorne… Yes. He consulted on a bio-art installation for the foundation’s gala three years ago. ‘The Mortality of Flesh.’ It was controversial. I had to handle the press. He was intense. I didn’t like him. We never used him again.”
“His signature is on the procurement manifests for the Brasov lab equipment,” Xavier stated. “And your foundation paid him.”
“Then my systems were compromised,” Celeste said, her composure finally cracking. She stood up. “I am not a traitor. I am your daughter. His sister.” She pointed a shaking finger at Ronan. “He is my brother.”
Aria watched the play of emotions on every face. The certainty in Xavier, the torn heartbreak in Elara, the defensive fury in Celeste, the agonized conflict in Ronan. The evidence was a clean, damning line. But instinct, the deep-seated bond of a lifetime, fought against it.
Ronan took a step forward. “Celeste. Look at me.”
She met his gaze, her eyes glistening.
“Did you do it?” His question was simple, stripped bare.
“No.” Her answer was immediate, ironclad.
He believed her. She could see the difference. Her shoulders slumped in a fraction of relief. “But someone did,” he continued. “Someone used you. Your access. Which means they’re close. They’ve been watching. They know our routines, our weaknesses.” He turned to Xavier. “Locking me in a lab and tearing her apart upstairs didn’t help. It gave them exactly what they wanted: chaos, division, a pack turned on itself.”
Xavier’s jaw worked. “What do you propose?”
“We stop reacting. We set a trap.” Ronan’s blue eyes were like chips of arctic ice. “They want a fresh sample. Let’s give them one.” He looked at Aria, a silent question passing between them. She gave a slight, tight nod. “We leak a location. Somewhere isolated. We make it look like I’m vulnerable, separated from the family. We let them come for me.”
“That’s suicide,” Elara breathed.
“It’s the only play,” Jude countered, his mind already racing alongside his brother’s. “We control the terrain. We plant the bait. We’ll be ready.”
“And the bait is you,” Xavier said, scrutinizing his son.
Ronan’s smile was sharp, a flash of the predator within. “And Aria. Where I go, she goes. The bond is the vulnerability they’ll bank on. They’ll think they can use her against me.” He reached back, his hand finding Aria’s, pulling her to his side. “They have no idea she’s the trigger.”
The room was silent, the plan hanging in the air, monstrous and brilliant. Celeste wiped a discreet tear from her cheek, her professional mask reassembling. “I can fabricate the financial trail. Make it look like I’m panicking, moving funds to cover my tracks, inadvertently leading them to your location.”
Ronan nodded. “Do it.”
Xavier Vale looked at his children—the heir, the strategist, and the weapon—standing together. The family business had just changed irrevocably. “We will need security. Extreme discretion.”
“We’ll use my people,” Ronan said. “Not yours. People Jude and I vet. People who know what I am and aren’t afraid of it.”
The dismissal was clear. Ronan was taking command. Xavier, for the first time, didn’t argue. He just nodded, ceding the battlefield to the son he no longer recognized.
As they left the study to begin their grim preparations, Aria felt the ghost of the heat’s ache, a memory in her muscles. It had been a torture, a vulnerability. But it was also a forge. It had shown her the depth of the tether, the unbearable cost of its severance.
Now, that same tether would be their weapon. Ronan squeezed her hand.
“You ready for this?” he asked, his voice low.
She thought of the cool tile of the penthouse bathroom, the frantic joining in the moving car, the desperate, screaming emptiness in his childhood bed. Every brutal, beautiful step had led here.
“They took you once,” she said, matching his pace down the hall. “They’re not taking anything else.”