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FunTranscript
00:00I came downstairs to hand my husband divorce papers.
00:05I tripped.
00:09He caught me.
00:17And suddenly, I could hear every filthy thought in his head.
00:21She touched me. God, she touched me.
00:23Two years of keeping my hands off her and she falls into my arms, smell like vanilla in trouble.
00:28Don't pull her closer.
00:30Don't. You'll scare her.
00:31I froze against Damien Blackwood's chest, staring up at the most expressionless face in Manhattan.
00:37His mouth hadn't moved, not even a twitch.
00:39But that voice, low, rough, starving, was unmistakably his.
00:44You okay?
00:45He asked. Flat, polite. The same tone he used with his driver.
00:49I'm fine.
00:51I squeaked, snatching back the folder before he could see the word divorce printed across the front.
00:56And my eyes betrayed me, snagging on the outline of his abs through his half-buttoned shirt.
01:02She's staring at my chest? Is she staring at my chest?
01:06Stay still. Do not flex.
01:09Okay. Flex a little.
01:11I choked on air.
01:14Two years ago, our families arranged this marriage like a corporate muja.
01:18I saw his photo and said yes before my mother finished the sentence.
01:22Then I moved into his penthouse and discovered I'd married a marble statue.
01:27No kissing. No touching.
01:30If our hands brushed over the coffee pot, he recoiled like I carried the plague.
01:35Meanwhile, the tabloids screamed.
01:37CEO Blackwood's midnight rendezvous with mystery blonde.
01:40Damien Blackwood.
01:41Wall Street's coldest husband.
01:43Manhattan's hottest cheetah.
01:45So yes.
01:46Divorce papers.
01:53So yes.
01:55Divorce papers.
01:56A girl has her pride.
01:58Except now my untouchable husband was toweling his damp hair, walking away from me, and his head was screaming.
02:05Kane Foster asked her to drinks again.
02:07I saw the message on her lock screen.
02:08If that smug little analyst puts one hand on my wife, I'll bury him in the Hudson.
02:13Calm down.
02:14No.
02:14She can choose her friends.
02:16She doesn't belong to you.
02:17I chugged a glass of ice water.
02:19It did nothing.
02:20He paused at his study door, his back to me.
02:22There's a gala tonight.
02:23The Blackwood Foundation.
02:25Spouses are expected.
02:26Pass, I said automatically.
02:28I needed to lie down, possibly forever.
02:30He turned, crossed the room, sat beside me on the couch, close enough that I could smell cedar and something
02:35darker underneath.
02:36Something almost wild.
02:37Come with me.
02:39Please.
02:40His face.
02:41A glacier.
02:42Say yes.
02:43Say yes.
02:45Kane will be there.
02:47I am not letting her stand in a room full of men in a backless dress while I smile at
02:51investors.
02:52I'll carry her there if there if I have to.
02:54Why is she hesitating?
02:56Is it him?
02:58Is it...
02:58Fine.
02:59I shot to my feet.
03:01I'll go.
03:03Stop looking at me like that.
03:05Like what?
03:06He asked.
03:07Perfectly blank.
03:08She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
03:11And she's leaving me.
03:13The paper's in her bag.
03:14I saw them three days ago.
03:16Divorce.
03:17She's divorcing me.
03:18And I have eleven hours to change her mind.
03:21My stomach dropped through the floor.
03:24He knew.
03:25He'd known for three days and he'd said nothing.
03:28And inside that beautiful frozen scalp of his, my husband was quietly falling apart.
03:34I should have felt guilty.
03:36Instead, possessed by something reckless, I reached out and pressed my palm flat against
03:41his stomach.
03:42Hard muscle jumped under my hand.
03:44Damon went absolutely still.
03:47His hand snapped over mine, pinning it there.
03:50Sienna.
03:51His voice dropped an octave.
03:52What are you doing?
03:53I'm your wife, I said.
03:55Can't I touch you?
03:56With way more confidence than I felt.
03:58For three full seconds, his mind went completely, terrifyingly silent.
04:02Then, one thought, soft as a confession.
04:05If she finds out what I really am, she'll run.
04:09They always run.
04:16What he really is.
04:18I yanked my hand back like his abs were a stovetop.
04:20Damien's jaw tightened.
04:21Outside nothing.
04:22Inside a wounded howl.
04:23Too fast.
04:24You scared her.
04:25Idiot.
04:26I have calls.
04:27He said.
04:27Standing, armor back in place.
04:29The car comes at seven.
04:30Wear whatever you like.
04:31Wear the green one.
04:32The green one ruins me.
04:35He disappeared into his studio.
04:37I sat there clutching a couch cushion like a life raft, running diagnostics on my own sanity.
04:41Option one, I was having a very specific stroke.
04:44Option two, I had genuinely, inexplicably started hearing my husband's thoughts the moment
04:48I touched him.
04:49I tested it through the door.
04:51Nothing.
04:51Apparently there was a range.
04:53I crept closer to the study, pressed my ear near the wood, and got hit with,
04:57Can't postpone the board meeting again.
04:59Marcus is circling.
05:00If he finds out about the condition before the shareholder vote.
05:02A pause, then helplessly derailed.
05:04Vanilla.
05:06Her shampoo is vanilla.
05:08Folks, you pathetic!
05:09I backed away, cheeks flaming.
05:12Here was the thing nobody knew about my marriage.
05:14I could have lived with platonic.
05:16Honestly, having a six-foot-three work of art wander the penthouse shirtless every morning
05:20was its own kind of compensation package.
05:22What I couldn't live with was the humiliation, the headlines, the pitying looks at brunch.
05:26My mother forwarding me articles with the subject line, sweetheart, blink twice if you need a lawyer.
05:30But cheetahs didn't recoil from their wives like nervous altar boys.
05:35Cheetahs didn't memorize their wives' shampoo.
05:38Something didn't add up.
05:40And now I had a cheat code.
05:47At seven, I came downstairs in the green dress.
05:50Damien, adjusting his cufflicks, looked up and short-circuited.
05:53His face stayed carved from stone.
05:55His brain made a sound I can only describe as a dial tube, followed by...
05:59I'm going to die at this gala.
06:00Cause of death.
06:01My own wife.
06:02The obituary will be embarrassing.
06:04You look adequate.
06:07Adequate?
06:08You look like the reason men start wars.
06:11Adequate.
06:13And opened the car door for me.
06:14And I spent the entire ride watching the most composed man in New York stare out the window
06:20while internally composing what I swear was poetry about my collarbone.
06:25His phone buzzed.
06:26He glanced at it.
06:28His thoughts went sharp and cold as a blade.
06:31Marcus moved the vote up.
06:33He knows.
06:34Somebody told him about the condition.
06:36If I lose control in front of the board.
06:38If it happens in public.
06:41Everything grandfather built goes to that vulture.
06:44Bad news?
06:45I asked innocently.
06:47Nothing important.
06:49His voice was smooth as poured concrete.
06:51If Marcus exposes me, the company is the least of it.
06:54They'll come for her too.
06:55They'll use her.
06:56I should have let her divorce me a year ago.
06:58I should let her go now.
06:59I can't.
06:59God help me, I can't.
07:00One more month.
07:01Just give me one more month of her.
07:02I looked at my husband.
07:03At his perfect profile.
07:05The streetlight sliding across it.
07:06And felt the divorce papers in my bag turn to lead.
07:09What condition?
07:10What could a billionaire with a face like that possibly be hiding that was worse than the
07:14tabloids already printed?
07:16The car stopped.
07:17He came around and offered me his hand.
07:20And when I took it, warmth shot up my arm and his eyes did the thing again.
07:24A flash of gold, like an animal's eyes, catching headlights.
07:28Stay close to me tonight.
07:29He said quietly.
07:31It didn't sound like a request.
07:32It sounded like a warning.
07:37I'm sorry.
07:39The gala never happened.
07:41At least not for me.
07:43Because at 9am the next morning, my mother called while I was still tangled in my blankets.
07:51Alone, in my separate life.
07:57Sweetheart, the photos from last night are everywhere.
08:01You two looked radiant.
08:03So when am I getting grandchildren?
08:06Mom.
08:08I'm just saying.
08:09A man who looks at you like that?
08:11Like what?
08:12He looks at me like I'm a quarterly report.
08:15Honey.
08:16He looked at you like a starving man looks at a steak.
08:20The post ran it with the caption, Ice King Melts.
08:23I've had it framed.
08:27I hung up on her, which is our family's love language, and stared at the ceiling.
08:31The truth was, the gala had rattled me.
08:34Every time another man so much as greeted me, Damien's thoughts went from chamber music to war drums.
08:39When Kane Foster, the new star analyst at Blackwood Capital, all dimbles and zero boundaries, kissed my hand hello.
08:46My husband smiled politely while his brain produced a detailed, itemized plan for relocating Kane to the company's office in
08:54Antarctica.
08:54We don't have an office in Antarctica, his own mind countered.
08:58We'll open one, he replied to himself.
09:01And yet at the end of the night, he'd walked me to my bedroom door, said,
09:05Good night, Sienna.
09:06And retreated to his own room like a knight honoring some vow I'd never asked for.
09:11Don't look at her lips.
09:12Door.
09:13Close the door.
09:14Two years of discipline, don't you dare!
09:17The man was a fortress, and I was beginning to suspect I'd been the one who built the walls.
09:21I just couldn't remember how.
09:23I was beginning to suspect I'd been the one who built the walls.
09:26So today, I was going to his office.
09:28Officially, to discuss investments, a word I planned to say while holding a folder.
09:32Unofficially, to stake my claim, test my range, and figure out what condition and what Marcus and what they always
09:38run meant
09:38before I signed away the strangest, most promising marriage in Manhattan.
09:43I picked my most devastating skirt for research purposes.
09:47Blackwood Capital's lobby was a cathedral of glass and ego.
09:51The receptionist's eyes went wide.
09:52Mrs. Blackwood!
09:53And I sailed toward the private elevator like I owned it, which, technically, in the event of a divorce settlement,
09:59I partially would.
10:00The elevator climbed.
10:03Somewhere around the 40th floor, the radio in my head crackered to life, which meant my husband was close.
10:09Third coffee today, and it tastes wrong.
10:11Bitter.
10:13Metallic.
10:13Why is it so hot in here?
10:15Focus.
10:16The Hendrix merger.
10:17His thoughts staggered, blurred, like a record skipping.
10:23Something's wrong.
10:24My skin is burning.
10:27It's three weeks early, it can't be happening now, not here.
10:33The elevator doors opened on the executive floor.
10:36His assistant, a nervous young man named William, materiised in front of me like a goalkeeper.
10:41Mrs. Blackwood.
10:43What a, what an unexpected.
10:45Mr. Blackwood is extremely indisposed.
10:47I mean, occupied.
10:49I'll wait inside.
10:50I said, stepping left.
10:52He stepped left.
10:54The lounge has excellent pastries, is...
10:56William.
10:59He gave strict orders, no one enters, especially...
11:02Especially me.
11:02Through the heavy office door, I heard a woman's voice, syrup sweet.
11:06Mr. Blackwood, you're burning up.
11:08Let me help you out of that shirt.
11:11And then my husband's thoughts hit me like a freight train, ragged and desperate.
11:17Get her away from me.
11:18Her hands.
11:20Wrong.
11:20Wrong, wrong.
11:21Everything's wrong.
11:22Coffee.
11:23Someone put something in the coffee.
11:25I can't hold it back.
11:26Sienna, Sienna.
11:28I need Sienna.
11:31No, she can't see me like this.
11:34She can never see me like this.
11:36I shoved past William and threw open the door.
11:42My husband was on his knees.
11:44Damien Blackwood, the Ice King.
11:46The man who hadn't touched me in two years.
11:48Nailed in the wreckage of his own office.
11:50Shirt torn open.
11:51Chest heaving.
11:52Gripping the edge of his desk so hard the mahogany had cracked under his fingers.
11:56His eyes found mine across the room.
11:58They were gold.
12:00Molten.
12:00Inhuman.
12:01Wolf bright gold.
12:02Sienna.
12:04Run.
12:05His thoughts hit me at the same instant, deafening.
12:08Mate.
12:08Mate.
12:09She's here.
12:10She's here.
12:11No.
12:12Get her out.
12:12If I touch her now, I'll never let her go.
12:15I did not run.
12:16The syrup-voiced intern, Lacey, according to her badge, stood frozen with a coffee cup in
12:21her hand and zero plausible explanations on her face.
12:25He spilled his drink.
12:26I was only trying to help out, I said.
12:28Mrs. Blackwood, I really think out.
12:30I didn't recognize my own voice.
12:32Neither did she.
12:33She fled, heels clattering, and William hauled the door shut behind her with the expression
12:36of a man updating his resume in real time.
12:39I crossed the room slowly, the way you approach something wild.
12:43Up close, Damien was furnace hot, sweat at his temples, every muscle locked, the veins
12:48in his forearms stood out like cables, and I stared.
12:51Were those fangs pressing against his lower lip?
12:54Don't come closer.
12:55Come closer.
12:56Please.
12:57Her sense is the only thing that doesn't hurt.
13:01You are the worst liar, on the inside.
13:04His gold eyes flickered with confusion.
13:06But he was too far gone to chase it.
13:09I knelt in front of him.
13:11Reached out.
13:13The second my palm touched his jaw, he shoved a full-body tremor and turned his face into
13:18my hand, like a dying man finding water.
13:21Drugged.
13:22The coffee.
13:23Wolfbath and silver nitrate.
13:25Has to be forced to shift early.
13:26Marcus.
13:27Marcus did this.
13:32He wants me to turn in front of the cameras at the board meeting.
13:36The strategy dissolved into something rarer.
13:39She's touching me.
13:40She's not running.
13:41Why isn't she running?
13:42She's so soft.
13:43Two years.
13:44Two years I've slept one wall away from her and...
13:47Damien, I said carefully.
13:49What are you?
13:53His human eye colour fought back through the gold, grey storming through.
13:56When he spoke, it was barely a whisper.
13:58You already know what I am.
13:59You've known for thirty seconds.
14:01And you're still here.
14:03Why are you still here?
14:05Because I'm your wife.
14:07Apparently in sickness and in health covers whatever this is.
14:11A sound escaped him that was half laugh, half groan.
14:14Then his head snapped toward the window, nostrils flaring and his whole body coiled.
14:19It's coming.
14:20The shift.
14:21Thirty seconds.
14:23Get her out.
14:23Get her out.
14:24Sienna!
14:24He's my shoulders and his hands were shaking.
14:27Listen to me.
14:28There's a black card in my desk.
14:29Take it.
14:30Take the car.
14:30Go to the penthouse and lock the steel door in the wine cellar from the inside.
14:33The wine cellar has a steel door?
14:35It's not a wine cellar.
14:38Out.
14:39Sienna.
14:40Out!
14:44Please.
14:47One's cracked.
14:49He doubled over with a snarl that no human throat could make.
14:53And silver black fur rippled up his forearms like spilled ink.
14:57His last human thought reached me, anguished and crystal clear.
15:01Don't let her see the monster.
15:03Anything but that.
15:04She'll look at me the way she did, the way everyone...
15:06And then my husband was gone.
15:08In his place, filling half the office, stood an enormous black wolf with my husband's storm grey eyes, staring at
15:14me in absolute terror.
15:18Here is what they don't tell you about discovering your husband as a werewolf.
15:22The paperwork doesn't cover it.
15:23There's no clause.
15:24I checked our pre-new later.
15:26Nothing.
15:26The wolf, Damien, backed away from me.
15:30Until he hit the bookshelf.
15:31Knocking down a framed photo of our wedding day.
15:34He was enormous.
15:35Shoulders level with my libs.
15:37Fur so black it ate the light.
15:39A creature built to be feared.
15:42He was trying to make himself smaller.
15:45Don't scream.
15:46Please don't scream.
15:47His thoughts still came through.
15:49Rougher now.
15:51Simpler.
15:51Like a voice through deep water.
15:53Window.
15:54I'll go through the window.
15:56Forty floors.
15:57I'll survive it.
15:58Probably worth it.
16:00If you jump out that window...
16:01I said,
16:03I am divorcing you.
16:04The wolf froze mid-slink.
16:07That's right.
16:08I pointed at him with all the authority of a woman who had completely lost control of her life.
16:14I know about the papers.
16:16You know about the papers.
16:18And I am telling you, the only thing that gets signed today is your apology for hiding.
16:28Two hundred pounds of this from your own wife for two years.
16:33I gestured at all of him.
16:34She's scolding me.
16:35I'm a nine hundred year old bloodline apex predator and she's scolding me.
16:39A pause.
16:40Why do I like it?
16:41I sat down on the ruined carpet right in the middle of the wreckage and pad the floor next to
16:44me.
16:45He didn't move for a long moment.
16:47Then, slowly, one massive paw at a time, with the dignity of a CEO and the guilt of a dog
16:53who ate the couch,
16:54my husband crossed the office and lay down beside me, leaving six careful inches between us.
16:59I closed the gap.
17:00I buried my hand in the fur of his neck and the sound he made, a low, broken rumble, vibrated
17:06through my whole body.
17:07Two years.
17:08Two years I dreamed about her hands.
17:11Came the thought, almost too quiet to catch.
17:14I said, my throat suddenly tight.
17:17Okay.
17:18Talk.
17:19Well, think.
17:21Loudly.
17:22Start with who drugged you.
17:27Start with who drugged you.
17:28And in the strange grammar of a wolf's mind, images, scents, flashes, he showed me.
17:34The bitter coffee.
17:35His cousin Marcus's smile at last month's board dinner, too wide.
17:39An old law of their world.
17:41A shifter exposed before humans, full fits everything.
17:44His seat, his territory, his pack's protection.
17:48Marcus didn't need to beat Damien in a vote.
17:49He just needed him to turn into a monster on camera, three days from now, at the shareholder meeting under
17:55the full moon.
17:56And the condition?
17:57I asked.
17:58You keep thinking about a condition.
18:00The wolf's ears flattened.
18:02The images that came next were older.
18:04A girl, years ago, before me.
18:06Gold eyes glimpsed in the dark.
18:08A scream.
18:09The word monster echoing down a marble hallway.
18:11And a boy of seventeen learning to build walls no one would ever climb again.
18:15They always run.
18:16He thought.
18:17I'm sitting in the splash zone of a literal werewolf.
18:21I said.
18:22In a skirt that cost more than William's salary.
18:25Do I look like I'm running?
18:30Grey wolf eyes studded me sidelined.
18:33No.
18:34He admitted.
18:35You look adequate.
18:36I knew that was a compliment.
18:38A sound came out of the wolf that I realized, with wonder, was laughter.
18:42And there, on the floor of a destroyed corner office, leaning against my husband's heartbeat,
18:47I made a decision that was probably insane.
18:49I wasn't signing anything.
18:51Not until I'd dealt with Marcus.
18:53The tabloids.
18:54The intern with the convenient coffee.
18:56And the small matter of falling for my own husband two years late.
19:00My phone buzzed.
19:02Then again.
19:03Then six more times.
19:05Kane Foster, the boundary and views analyst.
19:08Mrs. Blackwood, you left the gala early.
19:10Everything okay?
19:11I have something special for you.
19:12Trust me.
19:12You'll love it.
19:13It'll fix your marriage problem.
19:14The wolf read it over my shoulder.
19:16The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
19:19Antarctica.
19:20We open the office Monday.
19:21My husband thought, with terrifying calm.
19:28By the next morning, Damien was human again, suited again, and pretending none of it had
19:33happened.
19:34Except now, every time he passed me in the kitchen.
19:37She stayed.
19:38She stayed.
19:39She stayed.
19:41I was on my way to deal with Kane and his something special, when a girl ambushed me
19:45outside the building.
19:47Mrs. Blackwood.
19:48Two minutes, please.
19:49Lacey.
19:50The coffee intern.
19:51The audacity of her, standing on the sidewalk in a trench coat with the haunted expression
19:56of a Victorian ghost.
19:58You have negative minutes.
19:59You drugged my husband.
20:01I know.
20:02I mean, I didn't know what it was.
20:03A man gave me the vial and the words just...
20:07She squeezed her eyes shut, took a breath, and then her whole demometer changed, like an
20:12actor stepping into the light.
20:13Her chin lifted.
20:15Her voice turned poisonous.
20:16You think marrying Damien makes you somebody?
20:18He's never even touched you.
20:19The whole city knows.
20:20Be smart, sign the divorce, and clear the way for a woman who can actually...
20:25A bolt of lightning came out of the cloudless sky and struck her.
20:34I'm going to repeat that because I needed a moment too.
20:37A bolt of lightning, out of a clear blue sky, struck the Tidewatt girl, leaving her smoking
20:42gently, hair standing in all directions, otherwise unharmed.
20:45I asked the sky, do terrible people actually get smeated now?
20:49Because I have a list.
20:52It's the contract, okay?
20:54I'm cursed.
20:55Last year I made a deal.
20:56A witch, a bar in Brooklyn.
20:58I was very drunk and very broke.
21:00I signed something called a narrative service agreement.
21:02Now I'm contractually obligated to play the other woman in three marriages or I forfeit my
21:06soul.
21:07Branded terms, apparently.
21:08Every time I go off script, that happens.
21:10The drugging wasn't in my script.
21:11Marcus Blackwood blackmailed me into that part.
21:13He knows about my contract.
21:14I'm sorry.
21:15I'm so sorry.
21:17Your husband fired me, slapped 12 NDAs on me, and honestly?
21:22Fair.
21:23I stared at her.
21:24Smoke curled off her shoulders.
21:27Somewhere in my purse, my divorce papers sat unsigned.
21:30My husband was a wolf, and now witches were real and ran predatory gig ectomus schemes.
21:35How many scenes do you have left?
21:37Her eyes went huge and wept.
21:39Three.
21:40Just three scenes and I'm free.
21:42But they all require him.
21:44Or someone with his scent.
21:45And he'll literally throw me off the building.
21:48And I can't blame him.
21:50She grabbed my hands.
21:52You smell like him.
21:54Wait.
21:57You smell like him.
21:59Wait.
22:00That's weird.
22:01What I mean is, the contract just needs the scent and the lines.
22:04It can't tell the difference.
22:05You could play his part.
22:07Three little scenes, and I'm out of your marriage forever.
22:10I swear on my smoking trench coat.
22:12You want me to roleplay as my own husband?
22:15While you seduce me?
22:17When you say it like that, it sounds insane.
22:19It is insane.
22:20Mrs. Blackwood?
22:22She bowed so low, her singed hair flopped over.
22:25Please.
22:25You're married to a werewolf.
22:27Your bar for insane should be adjustable.
22:29She had me there.
22:31I sighed.
22:33Pulled out a card from my family's private clinic.
22:35Get the burns looked at first, and watched her glitch it like a holy relic.
22:40Against every instinct of self-preservation, I said.
22:43Fine.
22:44Three scenes.
22:45But we do them where my husband will never see.
22:48Because if he catches me being seduced by the woman who drugged him,
22:52No contract in any realm will save either of us.
22:55Lacey beamed through the stud.
22:57You won't regret this.
22:58Narrate a voice somewhere in the universe.
23:00She would regret this immediately.
23:02That night, Marcus Blackwood's name lit up Damien's phone at dinner.
23:07I watched my husband answer with perfect courtesy,
23:10and underneath it, one thought, cold as a blade leaving its shoes.
23:13Full moon in two days, cousin.
23:15Let's see which of us is the monster.
23:20The Blackwood Foundation's pre-vote reception was a glittering circus.
23:24Two hundred shareholders, a string quartet, and enough champagne to float a yacht.
23:27I walked in scanning for threats, and found the biggest one immediately.
23:30My mother, in red, telling a senator's wife about my wedding.
23:34She seized my arm.
23:36There you are.
23:37Why didn't you arrive with Damien?
23:38He's been here half an hour, looking like a man whose wife is missing.
23:42It's wonderful for the photos.
23:43Across the ballroom, Damien stood surrounded by syphircants, nodding at intervals.
23:48The moment I entered, his head turned before he could have seen me before anyone could have.
23:53And his thoughts brushed against mine, like a hand at the small of my back.
23:58Vanilla.
23:59There she is.
24:01Now I can breathe.
24:02I was not going to survive this marriage.
24:05The divorce wouldn't kill me.
24:06Staying would.
24:07Mom, I need to...
24:08Black stockings?
24:10What?
24:10You heard me.
24:11Two years, no grandchildren.
24:13I did the math, sweetheart.
24:14The problem is strategy.
24:15Your grandmother always said, a man is a fortress, and a fortress falls to patience, siege, or black stockings.
24:19You sipped her champagne.
24:20We don't have time for patience.
24:22He's not a fortress, Mom.
24:23He's a werewolf with a tragic backstory and a homicidal cousin.
24:27Shy.
24:28Shy.
24:29She looked across the room at my husband.
24:36She looked across the room at my husband.
24:38Six foot three of bespoke menace, who chose that exact moment to glare at a waiter standing too close to
24:43me.
24:43Yes.
24:44A timid little lamb.
24:46Stockings, Sienna.
24:46She drifted off toward the senator.
24:48I made it three steps toward the dessert table before someone barreled into me.
24:51Lazy.
24:52In Catingstaff disguise.
24:53Eyes wild.
24:53Mrs. Blackwood.
24:54Scene one is triggering now.
24:55I can feel it.
24:56It's like a sneeze.
24:57I can't hold it.
24:58The contract picked tonight.
24:59The garden.
24:59Five minutes, please.
25:01Here?
25:02He's here.
25:03His sense of smell is here.
25:05Do you know what a wolf's hearing range?
25:06It's the garden or the lightning.
25:08And I am not getting struck twice in one week.
25:12I have a palm.
25:13Which is how I ended up in the hotel's back garden, under a trellis of fairy lights, preparing to impersonate
25:19my own husband.
25:20While his actual voice drifted from the ballroom, giving a toast about integrity and family legacy.
25:26Lazy shook out her arms like a boxer.
25:28Okay, the contract will feed me lines.
25:29Just respond as him.
25:30Be cold.
25:31Be devastating.
25:32You've lived with him two years.
25:33Channel it.
25:33Cold.
25:34Devastating.
25:35Got it.
25:35Her posture changed.
25:37The script took her.
25:38She swayed toward me.
25:40Voice honeyed.
25:41Mr. Blackwood.
25:45Mr. Blackwood.
25:47You shouldn't keep meeting like this.
25:49If your wife finds out.
25:51I said, in my deepest register.
25:53My wife is the most beautiful woman in Manhattan, and you smell like a coffee crime.
25:57Stay on script.
25:59Lazy hished through her teeth, then melted back into character, clutching my lap at her.
26:02I know you feel it too.
26:03Leave her.
26:04Tell me you'll leave her.
26:05Every cell in my body objected.
26:07The contract apparently required audible dialogue, so I gritted out.
26:10Sure.
26:11Whatever you say.
26:12Say you like me.
26:15I like you.
26:17With the warmth of a tax notice.
26:19Was that so hard?
26:20Lazy whispered, off script, eyes shining.
26:23One down.
26:24Two to go.
26:25You're a natural.
26:25You sounded just like the garden lights flickered.
26:27Every bird went silent at once.
26:29And from the ballroom doors behind me, a voice, his real one, velvet over steel.
26:35Sienna.
26:35I looked up.
26:37Damien stood at the top of the garden steps, champagne fluting hand, face perfectly calm.
26:41His eyes were gold.
26:50Lazy vanished.
26:51I want it noted for the record.
26:53The woman who begged me for help evaporated like steam, leaving me alone in a fairy-lit garden
26:59with a jealous apex predator in black tie.
27:02Damien descended the steps, slowly, behind him.
27:05The party glittered on, oblivious.
27:07His thoughts arrived before he did, and they were not calm at all.
27:11I like you.
27:12She said I like you.
27:14To the woman who poisoned me.
27:15In the dark.
27:16In the garden.
27:17In that dress.
27:19Is my wife being seduced by my would-be assassin?
27:21Is this happening?
27:22Is this my life?
27:24This can't be happening.
27:28Honey, I said brightly.
27:30Great toast.
27:31Very moving.
27:32The part about integrity.
27:35What?
27:35He said.
27:36Are you doing out here?
27:38Networking.
27:39With Lacey Monroe.
27:40His voice could have frosted the champagne.
27:42Who drugged me.
27:44Funny story.
27:48You told her you'd leave me.
27:50The gold in his eyes flared, and underneath the controlled fury, his thoughts cracked open.
27:55Wrong.
27:55First the divorce papers.
27:57Now this.
27:58She's leaving, and I can't even be angry.
28:00I have no right.
28:01I gave her two years of closed doors, but not for her.
28:04Not for the woman who-
28:05She's cursed.
28:06He blinked.
28:07It's a witch contract.
28:08Brooklyn bar.
28:09Narrative service agreement.
28:11It's a whole predatory gig economies thing.
28:13She has to act out homewrecker scenes, or she gets struck by lightning.
28:17Actual lighting, Damien.
28:19It was honestly a little cathartic.
28:21Marcus found out about her contract, and blackmailed her into dosing your coffee.
28:24She's a victim with great line delivery.
28:29I was playing you, so she could finish her scenes and get out of our lives forever.
28:34Silence above us.
28:35The fairy lights buzzed.
28:37Witches.
28:38He finally thought, with the weariness of a man adding a line item to a long list.
28:43Of course.
28:44Marcus always did like using other people's hands.
28:47Wait.
28:48Our lives?
28:53He'd caught it.
28:55Of course he'd caught it.
28:56The man could hear a heartbeat across a ballroom.
28:59Slep of the tongue.
29:00I said.
29:01He stepped closer.
29:02You said our lives.
29:03The garden suddenly felt very small.
29:05You carry divorce papers in your bag, Sienna.
29:08Three weeks now.
29:09The folders worn at the corner from how often you take it out.
29:12But you don't sign it.
29:14You came to my office in your most dangerous skirt.
29:19You sat with the wolf.
29:21You're out here doing favors for cursed strangers.
29:23To protect a marriage you claim you want to end.
29:28Say it.
29:29His mind begged, even as his face stayed composed.
29:32Please.
29:33I've been reading every signal, and I can't trust my own hope anymore.
29:38Just say it out loud.
29:40And I almost did.
29:42The words were right there.
29:43I...
29:44Then a cheerful voice shattered the garden.
29:47Mrs. Blackwood!
29:51There you are.
29:53I've been looking everywhere.
29:54Kane Foster jogged down the steps, dimples blazing, holding a gift box with a ribbon on it,
29:59radiating the survival instincts of a golden retriever in traffic.
30:04Kane...
30:04I said.
30:04...threw a smile.
30:05This is really not...
30:06It'll only take a second.
30:07He thrust the box at me, beaming directly in front of my husband.
30:10Remember at the office party, when you'd had the wine, and you said your husband was a total did in
30:14the bedroom?
30:15The fairy lights flickered again.
30:16So I designed something!
30:17Kane barreled on, a dead man narrating his own funeral.
30:31He finally registered the six-foot-three silence beside me, looked up, met a pair of molten gold eyes.
30:38Damien smiled.
30:39It was the single most frightening thing I had ever seen.
30:44And I had watched this man turn into a wolf.
30:47A dud.
30:48My husband repeated softly.
30:51Tonight.
30:53We're settling this.
31:11Kane fled.
31:13Smart man.
31:14Wrong continent, but smart man.
31:16Which left me alone in the garden, holding a ribbon box of incriminating lingerie, with a husband whose composure was
31:22a paper screen over a forest fire.
31:24Damien, I began.
31:25Context is important.
31:27You told your co-worker.
31:29He said, taking the box from my hands and setting it on a stone bench, with unsettling gentleness.
31:35That I'm a dud.
31:36I'd had wine, it was months ago.
31:39And in my defense, you hadn't touched me in two years.
31:42What was I supposed to tell people?
31:44That my husband is a perfect gentleman, with the self-control of a marble saint?
31:50Nobody believes that, Damien.
31:52It's not a real personality.
31:54A dud.
31:56Eyes never leaving mine, and his thoughts had gone from thunder to something darker and warmer.
32:02Two years of cold showers.
32:04Two years of sleeping one wall away, listening to her heartbeat through the drywall like a lovesick teenager.
32:10And she thinks...
32:12Wait, you can hear my heartbeat through the...
32:14He went very still.
32:15What did you say?
32:16Oh, no.
32:18He stepped closer.
32:19What did you just say, Sienna?
32:20Head tilting.
32:21That wolf tilt.
32:22I didn't say that out loud.
32:24Oh, no.
32:29Oh, no.
32:31You implied it.
32:32I tried.
32:33With your face.
32:34You have a very loud face.
32:36I have the least loud face on the eastern suborda.
32:39It's my entire brand.
32:40His eyes narrowed.
32:42I watched the deduction assemble itself behind them with terrifying speed.
32:45The same mind that ate hostile takeovers for breakfast.
32:50The office?
32:51She answered things I never said.
32:53The garden just now.
32:55She reacted before I spoke.
32:58She looks at me when I think about her.
33:01Every single time for the past three days since...
33:05Since she fell into my arms.
33:08Damien?
33:10Can you hear me right now?
33:11His mouth hadn't moved.
33:13We stared at each other in the fairy-lit dark in his heart.
33:16I could see it in his throat.
33:18It was pounding.
33:21Yes.
33:22I whispered.
33:23The fortress of his face came down all at once.
33:25Not anger.
33:26Not the horror I braced for.
33:28Something almost unbearable.
33:29Wonder.
33:30Do you know what that means?
33:31Sienna.
33:32Do you know what it means when a human starts hearing a wolf's mind?
33:36That your security clearance situation is a disaster.
33:39It's the bond.
33:40He took my face in both hands.
33:43Careful.
33:43Reverent.
33:44Like I was made of something that might dissolve.
33:47The mate bond.
33:47It only opens in one direction.
33:50First.
33:50From the wolf to his fated mate.
33:52I thought.
33:53A disbelieving laugh broke out of him.
33:56Two years I thought the marriage was a cage.
33:58I trapped you in.
33:59An arrangement.
34:00I never let myself check.
34:02Never let myself hope.
34:04Because if I courted you.
34:05And you ran.
34:07They always run.
34:08I quoted softly.
34:09You heard that too.
34:16His thumbs brushed my cheekbones.
34:19She heard everything.
34:20The poetry about her collisbone.
34:22Oh god.
34:23The collarbone poetry.
34:25It was a good poem.
34:26I said.
34:27Strong imagery.
34:28I'm gonna throw myself off the trellis.
34:30You're going to do no such thing.
34:32I grabbed his lapels.
34:33You're going to explain.
34:34Why?
34:35If I'm your fated cosmic destiny wife.
34:38You spent two years treating me like I was radioactive.
34:41Because I've heard your thoughts?
34:43Damien Blackwood.
34:44I know what you wanted.
34:46So why?
34:46The wonder in his face flickered.
34:48Guilt moved in behind it.
34:50Old and worn.
34:51Like furniture he'd lived with a long time.
34:54Because of the contract.
34:55He said quietly.
34:56Sienna.
34:57Haven't you ever read our prenup?
34:59All of it.
35:00Clause 47.
35:02Nobody reads Clause 47 of anything.
35:06Your side added it.
35:07Before the wedding.
35:09I assumed you knew.
35:11I assumed it was yours.
35:13Clause 47.
35:15At the bride's request.
35:17The garden tilted.
35:19I said slowly.
35:20Damien, I never requested that.
35:22His face went white.
35:23And then.
35:24Both of us.
35:24The same heartbeat.
35:25The same dawning horror.
35:27We said one name together.
35:29Marcus.
35:34We read Clause 47 in his study at one in the morning.
35:38Both of us still in formal wear.
35:40The prenup spread across his desk like a crime scene.
35:44There it was.
35:45Page 31.
35:46Cold legal language dressed as my wish.
35:48Without physical intimacy.
35:50In perpetuity.
35:51At the bride's request.
35:52Initialed by the lawyers.
35:53Hundred page document.
35:55During a chaotic week of merger negotiations.
35:57And wedding planning.
35:59When both families had teams of attorneys.
36:02Passing drafts like hot potatoes.
36:04Marcus handled the final consolidation of documents.
36:08Damien said.
36:09His voice was flat in the way that meant the wolf was very close to the surface.
36:14As family counsel.
36:16He stood at our wedding, Sienna.
36:18He toasted us.
36:19I thought about it.
36:20Really thought about it.
36:22And the whole rotten architecture came into view.
36:24He couldn't stop the marriage.
36:26I said slowly.
36:27The merger was too valuable.
36:28The families wanted it.
36:30So he made sure it would fail.
37:00A bonded wolf is stronger.
37:01Contract laws was my boundary.
37:03And he would have rather lost me entirely than cross it.
37:05And then the tabloids.
37:09The headlines were very specific.
37:12Fabricated.
37:13All of it.
37:14I had legal traced the source last year.
37:16Shell companies.
37:17He pulled up a folder.
37:19Turned the screen toward me.
37:20The trail of payments ended at a familiar name.
37:23He couldn't make me cheat.
37:24So he printed it.
37:25He needed you to file.
37:27The bond severs clearly if the human walks away of her own will.
37:31No bond.
37:32No claim.
37:33And a divorced, scandal-soaked, unbonded alpha loses the family vote.
37:37And when the divorce was taking too long, he moved to the endgame.
37:42The wolf's bane forced me to turn at the shareholder meeting, under the full moon, in front of 200 cameras.
37:48Which is tomorrow night?
37:49Which is tomorrow night?
37:54Which is tomorrow night?
37:55Which is tomorrow night?
37:57The clock ticked.
37:59Somewhere below us, Manhattan, glittered.
38:01Full of people who didn't know that the city's most boring marriage was actually a two-year siege.
38:07Okay.
38:08I said, and stood up, and started pacing.
38:10Because that is what my mother does when she is about to ruin someone's life.
38:14And I am her daughter.
38:15He's built everything on three pillars.
38:17The claws?
38:18We just found it.
38:19That's evidence of fraud.
38:22The tabloids?
38:23You've got the payment trail.
38:24And the public shift.
38:25I stopped.
38:26He'll dose you again.
38:27He has to.
38:30He can't count on the full moon alone, can he?
38:33No.
38:34I have decades of control.
38:36He needs the wolf's bane.
38:38Damien's eyes lifted to mine, gold flickering at the edges.
38:41And his thoughts came through, no longer hidden.
38:44Offered up freely now, like an open palm.
38:46She's pacing my study at 1am.
38:49Planning a counter-coup in a ball gown.
38:52I have never wanted anyone so much in my entire life.
38:57Focus, I said.
38:58My face on fire.
39:00I'm extremely focused.
39:02I continued.
39:03Lacey?
39:04He blackmailed her once.
39:05He'll use her again.
39:08But she owes me two more scenes and her soul.
39:10And she'd flip on him for a sandwich.
39:12Kane.
39:13I paused.
39:14Kane has cameras in everything.
39:15We need eyes on the catering line tomorrow.
39:18You want to run a counter-intelligence operation.
39:21My husband said slowly.
39:22Using a cursed homewrecker and a lingerie analyst.
39:26I want to win, Damien.
39:28He lifted my hand and pressed his lips to my knuckles.
39:31The first kiss of our entire marriage.
39:34Two years late, soft as a vow.
39:37My mate.
39:38My Luna.
39:40Tomorrow we take back the company.
39:42But Sienna.
39:43About Clause 47.
39:45Yes?
39:45I'm having it strucken.
39:51The morning of the full moon, my war council convened in the penthouse kitchen.
39:56One alpha werewolf making espresso.
39:58One cursed homewrecker eating all our croissants.
40:00One lingerie analyst with a pelican case of surveillance gear.
40:04And me, the only unemployed mind reader in the room.
40:07Okay, so first...
40:09Kane said, raising a hand.
40:10Am I forgiven?
40:10Because the Antarctica memo was on my desk this morning and I just want to say, I checked.
40:15We don't have an office in...
40:16We will.
40:17Said Damien.
40:18Without turning around.
40:19He's forgiven.
40:20I said, probationally.
40:21Kane, the cameras.
40:23Right.
40:23He popped the case.
40:25Button cams.
40:25Pen cams.
40:26One camera that looks like a croissant.
40:28Lacey, that's a camera.
40:29Lacey put it down.
40:30Chewing slowly.
40:32The catering kitchen is covered.
40:35Kane went on.
40:36If anyone goes near Mr. Blackwood's water glass tonight, we'll have it in 4K.
40:41And Marcus contacted me at 6am.
40:42Burner number.
40:43Wants me on the waitstaff again.
40:44Same vial, double the dose.
40:45It's in my coat.
40:46She slid a small dark bottle across the marble.
40:48He also itemized my blackmail.
40:50Which, rude.
40:51So yes, I'm flipping.
40:53I'd flip for free.
40:54I'd flip for these croissants.
40:55Damien picked up the vial and his nostrils flared.
40:58Wolf's face.
40:59Silver nitrate.
41:00And something else.
41:02Stronger.
41:02He's not trying to embarrass me anymore.
41:04A dose like this could kill.
41:08His thoughts went optic.
41:10Out loud, mildly.
41:11Lacey, you'll wear a wire.
41:13Sir, I'm cursed, not stupid.
41:15I've been wearing a wire.
41:17I record everything since the Brooklyn Bar incident.
41:20I have Marcus on tape from the first dosing.
41:22Make him drink it before the board meeting or your contract details go public.
41:27Time statched.
41:28The kitchen went quiet.
41:29Damien looked at me.
41:30I looked at him.
41:31We have him.
41:32His mind said.
41:33We have him.
41:34I said out loud.
41:35And Cain glanced between us, deeply unsettled.
41:38They do that, Lacey told him.
41:40Married telepathy.
41:41Don't think about anything embarrassing.
41:43Why would you say that?
41:44Now it's all I can-
41:46Okay.
41:47I said.
41:47Tonight.
41:48The shareholder meeting starts at eight.
41:50Moonrise is 8.40.
41:52Lacey takes the vial assignment, dumps its swaps in colored water, and stays wired.
41:57Cain runs cameras.
41:58Marcus thinks his plan is live, so he'll have prepared his big moment, the moment he's planning
42:03to expose a transformed wolf to 200 witnesses.
42:07Except-
42:07Except there'll be no wolf.
42:09Cain said.
42:10Oh no.
42:10I said.
42:11There'll be a wolf.
42:12Everyone looked at me, including my husband, whose eyebrows did a thing I'd never seen before.
42:16Marcus's whole play depends on the world finding out what Damien is against his will.
42:20Exposure as a weapon.
42:22But weapons only work if you're afraid of them.
42:24I turn to Damien.
42:25What happens, under pack law, if a wolf reveals himself?
42:31Freely.
42:33On his own terms?
42:34Then it isn't exposure.
42:35Came his thought.
42:36Slow and stunned.
42:37Years turning.
42:38It's a claiming.
42:40Territory declared in the open.
42:42It hasn't been done in a century.
42:44The old families would have to acknowledge it.
42:46And Marcus's leverage turns to ash.
42:48But Sienna, the human world.
42:50The board.
42:51The cameras.
42:52There's no walking it back.
42:54Everyone will know what I am.
42:56What our children-
42:57He stopped himself.
42:58Ears actually going red.
43:01Presumptuous.
43:03Presumptuous.
43:04Children.
43:04Plural.
43:05We'll circle back.
43:06I said.
43:07And his blush deepened.
43:08And lacy-mouthed, wow, it came.
43:11I took my husband's hand across the marble island.
43:15You spent your whole life hiding.
43:17Because one person screamed.
43:18And then you spent two years one wall away from me because a piece of paper told you I
43:22didn't want you.
43:23Hiding hasn't protected you, Damien.
43:25It just made you easy to hunt.
43:27I squeezed.
43:28So tonight, we stop hiding.
43:31All of it.
43:33The wolf.
43:34The marriage.
43:35Everything.
43:36Let Marcus light his match and find out.
43:38The house is already on fire.
43:40For a long moment, he just looked at me.
43:42Then he lifted my hand and kissed it.
43:45And his thoughts arrived steady and bright as moonrise.
43:48Forget the boardroom.
43:49I'd follow this woman into the sun.
43:53Eight o'clock, the alpha of Blackwood said.
43:55Wear the green dress.
43:59The shareholder meeting smelled like money and ambition.
44:02Two hundred of New York's sharpest people arranged in a glass atrium, with the full moon
44:07rising over the skyline, like a stage light somebody had queued on purpose.
44:10Marcus Blackwood worked the room in a steel-gray suit, silver tie-pin.
44:14Smile wide as a bear trap.
44:17When he reached us, he kissed my hand.
44:22Sienna.
44:23Radiant as ever.
44:24His eyes flicked to Damien.
44:26Cousin.
44:26Big night.
44:27Feeling well?
44:28You look...
44:29Warm.
44:29He's checking for symptoms.
44:31Damien's mind noted, even as he smiled blandly.
44:33He thinks the dose is in me.
44:35Lacey swapped it ninety minutes ago.
44:36Steady.
44:36Never better.
44:37Damien said.
44:38Wonderful.
44:38Marcus checked his watch.
44:40Not for the time.
44:41I realized.
44:42For the moon.
44:43Then I'll see you on stage.
44:44I've prepared a little surprise for the shareholders.
44:46A presentation about transparency and leadership.
44:49He glided away.
44:51Across the room, Lacey, in catering black, gave me a thumbs up with a tray of canapes.
44:56Somewhere above us, one of Kane's croissants was filming everything.
45:00At 8.30, Damien took the stage.
45:03At 8.038, Marcus made his move.
45:06Before the vote.
45:07Marcus said smoothly, stepping to the second microphone.
45:10I believe the shareholders deserve the whole truth.
45:13About this company's leadership.
45:15He clicked a remote.
45:16The screen behind them bloomed with grainy security footage.
45:22A destroyed office.
45:24A blurred, dark shape.
45:25A shattered desk.
45:26Three nights ago, in the CEO's office.
45:29I have enhanced footage.
45:30I have testimony.
45:31The man asking for your votes tonight has been hiding something from every person in this room.
45:36And I suspect...
45:38He glanced at his watch again.
45:39At the moon swelling over the sky, waiting for a transformation that wasn't coming.
45:43The truth is about to make itself very visible.
45:45Murmurs.
45:47Cameras rising.
45:49Two hundred faces turning to my husband, waiting for him to deny it.
45:52Damien looked out at them.
45:54Then he found me in the front row.
45:55Last chance to run?
45:57He thought at me, with a smile in it.
46:00They always run.
46:01I mothed back and shook my head, and sat down deliberately in my chair like a woman settling in for
46:06her favorite show.
46:06Marcus is right.
46:08Damien said.
46:09The room went dead silent.
46:10I have been hiding something.
46:12From my shareholders.
46:14From my city.
46:16From my own wife.
46:17For two years.
46:19Because I was taught that what I am is a thing to be ashamed of.
46:25My cousin is counting on that shame tonight.
46:28He unbuttoned his cuffs, calm as a man at his own kitchen table.
46:33He drugged my coffee three days ago, to force this truth out of me on his schedule.
46:38We have the footage.
46:40The chemist report.
46:42And a recording of him arranging a second lethal dose for tonight.
46:46My attorneys are handling copies to the SEC and the board.
46:49As I speak, you'll find it riveting.
46:52Marcus's smile died.
46:53At the back of the room, two security officers quietly repositioned themselves by the exits.
47:00Lacey waggled her phone at him cheerfully.
47:02But he's right about one thing.
47:04Damien continued.
47:05You deserve transparency and leadership.
47:07So here it is.
47:08Freely given.
47:09On my terms.
47:10He looked up at the full moon through the glass.
47:13My family has guarded this city's harbors.
47:15Since before it had streetlights.
47:17We've signed its charters, funded its hospitals, kept certain things out of its nights that
47:23you've never had to learn the names of.
47:27We are wolves.
47:31Said Damien Blackwood, Alpha of Manhattan, to 200 shareholders and every camera in New York.
47:37We always have been.
47:38And then my husband, in a bespoke suit, on a Bloomberg televised stage, let his eye turn
47:43gold.
47:44The atrium detonated.
47:45Gasps, flashes, a champagne glass shattering.
47:48I knew it!
47:48One elderly board member sang loudly to no one.
47:51Marcus stood frozen at his microphone, watching a century of leverage evaporate.
47:55His weapon detonated by its own target.
47:57Damien raised one hand, and the room, impossibly, hushed.
48:01The vote is still on the agenda.
48:03But first, my cousin appears to need an escort out.
48:07Gentlemen?
48:08As security closed in, Marcus wrenched free, and his composure finally cracked into something
48:14ugly.
48:14He spun toward the front row, toward me.
48:17You think this saves you?
48:18He slurked.
48:19The old families will never accept a human Luna!
48:22A bolt of lightning hit him through the open skylight.
48:25The entire room turned to stare at Lazy, who lowered her canapé tray and shrugged.
48:28That one wasn't me.
48:29Sometimes the universe just gets it.
48:34They led Marcus out, smoking gently, alive, lawyered, and finished.
48:39The vote, held 40 minutes late in a state of collective shock, came back 91% in Damien's
48:45favour, which proved what I'd always suspected about shareholders.
48:49They can forgive anything that makes the stock go up, and our CEO is an immortal blood-lined
48:54guardian wolf, had sent it up 11 points in after-hours trading.
48:58I found my mother by the bar, watching the chaos with deep satisfaction.
49:03Mom, you're taking this well.
49:05Sweetheart.
49:05She sipped her martini.
49:07Your great-grandmother used to leave a saucer of milk out for the harbor wolves every new
49:11moon.
49:12Did you think I picked your husband off a spreadsheet?
49:14She patted my cheek.
49:16Strong bloodline?
49:17Excellent bones.
49:19Grandchildren by spring.
49:20Mom!
49:22I escaped to the terrace, where the man of the hour stood alone in the moonlight.
49:28Jacket gone.
49:29Sleeves rolled.
49:31The city glittering below him like spilled treasure.
49:34He didn't turn around.
49:36He didn't need to.
49:37Vanilla.
49:37His mind said, warm.
49:39There she is.
49:40You did it.
49:41I said, joining him at the rail.
49:43You're out.
49:44You're free.
49:45And you're tregging.
49:46Wolf Street is the number one hashtag in 11 countries.
49:49Kane says the croissant footage is, quote, cinema.
49:52We did it.
49:54He turned to me.
49:58And the moonlight loved him, silvering his edges.
50:01The gold sat openly in his eyes now.
50:03No flitch.
50:04No hiding.
50:05Sienna.
50:06There's one thing left I haven't told you.
50:08Damien.
50:09If you have a second tail, I swear.
50:11Wolves don't.
50:12It's one tail.
50:13And it's dignified.
50:14He caught himself, exhaled, and took both my hands.
50:19The bond.
50:20The reason you hear me.
50:21His thumbs traced over my knuckles.
50:23It opened the night.
50:25You fell into my arms, because that was the night you walked downstairs carrying the papers.
50:29The day you actually decided to leave.
50:31I went still.
50:33The bond doesn't wake on schedule.
50:36It wakes at the breaking point, when the wolf is about to lose his mate forever.
50:41It opens one last door.
50:42A final mercy.
50:44So she can hear the truth before she goes.
50:47His voice roughened.
50:49Every word you heard.
50:50Every thought.
50:51That was the bond pleading my case.
50:53Because I was too much a coward to do it myself.
50:56You were never invading my mind.
50:58Sienna.
50:59My soul was yelling for you.
51:01The terrace blurred.
51:02I blinked hard.
51:03And there's a second half.
51:05It's one directional only until the mate chooses.
51:08Freely.
51:09Word spoken.
51:10Knowing everything.
51:11If you say them, the door opens both ways.
51:15I'd hear you too, for the rest of our lives.
51:17And if you don't...
51:18His jaw work?
51:19If you don't, the bond closes at the next new moon, and you go free, with my name, half
51:24of everything, and no wolf shadowing your life.
51:27I'd let you go, Sienna.
51:32It would end me, but I'd do it smiling.
51:34The wind moved between us, below.
51:37Eleven million people went about their nights.
51:40The next new moon.
51:41How long do I have to decide?
51:44His face stayed brave.
51:46His thoughts didn't even try.
51:48Twelve days.
51:49Twelve days and then a lifetime of one wall between us forever.
51:52In every house I'll ever...
51:53Because I want to make sure.
51:54I continued, stepping closer.
51:57That you understand what you'd be agreeing to.
51:59You'd hear everything, Damien.
52:01Every petty thought.
52:03Every time I think your meetings are boring.
52:06Every single thing I notice about your forearms.
52:08The collarbone poetry goes both ways.
52:11And mine doesn't even rhyme.
52:12Sienna.
52:13His voice cracked open.
52:14Hope poured through the gap like daylight.
52:16I dragged divorce papers around for three weeks and couldn't sign them.
52:19I said, I sat down next to the wolf.
52:22I ran a countercoup in a ball gown.
52:23Damien Blackwood.
52:24I chose you two years ago off one photograph.
52:27And then I chose you again every single day this week, knowing everything.
52:31Fangs and ferocity and claws 47 and all.
52:34I took his face in my hands, his pulse hammering under my palms.
52:39So hear me, freely spoken.
52:41I am your wife.
52:42I am your mate.
52:44I'm choosing this.
52:45I love you.
52:47The world rang like a struck bell.
52:51It wasn't sound, what opened.
52:53It was a door.
52:54I'd been living next to my entire life without knowing.
52:57And through it came two years, all at once.
52:59Every closed door midnight.
53:01Every cold shower.
53:02Every guarded glance over coffee.
53:05The whole vast, patient, ferocious architecture of his love,
53:09flooding into me until I couldn't breathe.
53:11And then, arriving in my mind in his voice,
53:14the very first thought my husband ever sent to me on purpose.
53:17Finally.
53:18Now.
53:19About that dud rumor.
53:24He carried me home over the threshold of the penthouse like we were newlyweds,
53:29which, in every way that mattered, we were.
53:31Two years married, twelve hours bonded, zero walls left.
53:36I can walk, I pointed out.
53:39I'm aware.
53:40He didn't put me down.
53:42Two years I watched other men hold doors for you.
53:44I'm collecting.
53:46The bond, it turned out, was a terrible roommate and the best thing that ever happened to me.
53:51All evening it had carried traffic in both directions.
53:54His pride, ferocious and glowing.
53:57When the old family's acknowledgements started arriving at Moonset, one by one.
54:03A hundred year protocol honoring the wolf who'd claimed his territory in the open.
54:13My helpless laughter when Lisey texted to announce her contract had dissolved at midnight.
54:17Apparently true mate Bond, consummated in honesty,
54:20triggered some forced Mayara clause in the witch's paperwork.
54:22Followed immediately by her asking if she could be my assistant.
54:24I mean, I already know all your secrets and I have excellent taste in scenes.
54:27I'd said yes.
54:28I'm a softie.
54:29It's documented.
54:31Kane had sent one message.
54:32A photo of his lingerie gift box on our doorstep with the caption.
54:36No pressure, but if it works, I want a testimonial for the website.
54:50Damien had drafted and deleted four separate responses.
54:53Each of which I heard him construct in his head.
54:56Each more legally threatening than the last.
54:59Now the penthouse was quiet.
55:01Moonlight came through the tall windows and lay across the floor in long silver bars.
55:05He set me down at last in the doorway of his bedroom.
55:08Our bedroom.
55:09As of a conversation in the elevator that had consisted entirely of eye contact.
55:13Sienna.
55:14This man I'd married as Eranist.
55:16And I felt him gather himself.
55:18I need to say it out loud once.
55:20Not in the bond.
55:21Out here.
55:22Where it counts.
55:24Okay.
55:25Two years I waited because...
55:28I thought a piece of paper was your wish.
55:31I'd have waited 20 more.
55:33So this only goes the speed you choose.
55:36Tonight, next month, next year.
55:38The bond doesn't get a vote.
55:40The moon doesn't get a vote.
55:41I don't get a vote.
55:45Only you.
55:47Always only you.
55:54Do you understand?
55:57And the bond carried underneath of it the part he couldn't say.
56:00A 17-year-old learning word monster.
56:02Two years of closed doors he thought were kindness.
56:04A man who would rather hold himself to ash ever once make me feel small.
56:08I reached up and undid his top button.
56:12Damien Blackwood.
56:14I have been trying to get this shirt off you.
56:16Since chapter one of our marriage.
56:20I choose tonight.
56:21I choose you.
56:23Enthusiastically.
56:24On the record.
56:25In perpetuity.
56:26And you can tell the lawyers I said so.
56:29The laugh that broke out of him was nothing like the boardroom.
56:32It was young and unguarded and mine.
56:35He kissed me.
56:37Really kissed me.
56:38The first true kiss of our marriage...
56:47Two years and one revolution late.
56:50And the bond lit up like the skyline.
56:53Both directions.
56:54No walls.
56:55His joy and mine ringing against each other until I couldn't tell whose was whose.
57:02I love you.
57:03And thought again.
57:04The words overlapping like echoes.
57:07My wife.
57:07My mate.
57:08My Luna.
57:10Much later.
57:11Much, much later.
57:12I lay listening to the heartbeat I'd once been separated from by a wall of drywall and a fraudulent clause.
57:18His fingers tracing lousy lines along my shoulder.
57:21The moon setting somewhere over the harbour his family had guarded for three hundred years.
57:27For the record, the rumour is dead.
57:30I'm issuing a formal retraction.
57:32Front page.
57:33Three hundred rounds.
57:35Don't push it!
57:37His chest rumbled under my cheek with quiet laughter.
57:40And through the open door of the bond, soft as a vow,
57:44came the last thought I heard before I fell asleep in my husband's arms for the first time.
57:49She stayed.
57:50She stayed.
57:51She stayed.
57:52She stayed.