Ivy POV
Two weeks of nights blur together.
Rurik heals and Ivy watches it happen. The wounds close faster than they should. His color returns. His strength comes back. But every evening when the sun goes down, he comes to find her like he's compelled to do it.
They don't talk about what he is anymore. They talk about everything else.
He tells her about being seventeen and watching his father die. About taking control of a pack that was falling apart. About learning to be cold so his people would feel safe. About seventeen years of never being just a man.
She listens the way she listens to her clients. But it's different with him because she's not pretending to understand. She actually does. She knows what it's like to build walls so high that nobody can touch you. She knows what it's like to sacrifice yourself for other people. She knows what it's like to disappear.
One night he asks her about her family.
"My dad died when I was young," she tells him. They're sitting on her couch and the city lights are bleeding through her windows. "My mom raised me alone. She was always afraid of something but she never told me what."
"Do you remember him?" Rurik asks.
"Not really. Just feelings. He made me feel safe. After he died, nothing felt safe anymore."
Rurik reaches over and takes her hand. He's been more physical with her as his wounds heal. Small touches. Intentional ones. Like he's testing how close he can get before something breaks.
"You're safe now," he says.
She wants to believe him. She wants to believe that this apartment with a werewolf is somehow safer than anything else in her life.
By day fourteen, he's barely injured anymore.
By day fourteen, she knows he's going to leave.
She can see it in how he watches her. Like he's memorizing her face. Like he's trying to hold onto something he's going to have to let go of.
The night it happens, she finds him on her balcony at 3 AM.
He's standing at the edge looking out at the city. His body is rigid. His hands are clenched. She can hear him breathing like he's just run a marathon.
"Rurik?"
He doesn't turn around.
"I killed someone today," he says quietly. "Pack business. A wolf who was selling information to our enemies. It was necessary. Strategic. The right decision."
She comes to stand next to him but doesn't touch him.
"But it doesn't feel right," she says. It's not a question.
"It never feels right. That's what Alpha means. Making decisions that destroy people and then going to sleep knowing you did the only thing you could do."
He finally looks at her and his eyes are hollow.
"I came here after it happened. I was covered in blood and rage and I just needed to see you. I needed to know that something clean still existed in my world."
Ivy reaches out and takes his hand. His palm is warm and his fingers close around hers like she's the only real thing anchoring him to earth.
"You're worth saving," she tells him.
He makes a sound like she just broke something inside him. He reaches out and pulls her close and then he's kissing her like he's drowning and she's air. Like she's the only thing that matters. Like he's been waiting seventeen years for this moment.
The kiss is desperate and hungry and filled with everything he won't say out loud. It tastes like goodbye.
When he pulls away, his eyes are terrified.
"You can't love me," he says.
"Too late."
"I'm serious, Ivy. If you love me, it will destroy you. You'll be bonded to someone dangerous. Someone who kills without hesitation. Someone the entire supernatural world wants dead. You'll be a target."
"So don't leave," she says.
"I have to. My pack needs me. The wounds are healed. I have to go back."
"Then take me with you."
"I can't protect you there. You'll be alone with wolves who see you as a threat. You'll be in danger every second of every day."
Ivy reaches up and touches his face. He closes his eyes like the feeling of her hand is too much.
"I'm already in danger," she says. "Danger is loving you. Danger is letting you walk out that door. I'm not scared of your pack. I'm scared of you leaving and me never seeing you again."
His eyes snap open and they're wild. His entire body is shaking.
"Don't ask me to stay," he whispers. "I don't know if I can say no to you."
"Then don't. Don't say no. Just stay."
He kisses her again and this time it's softer. Sadder. It tastes like a decision he's already made.
When he pulls back he's already pulling away from her emotionally. She can feel it happening.
"I'm sorry," he says.
"For what?"
"For this. For making you love me. For showing you what it feels like to matter to someone and then taking it away."
He steps back and she reaches for him but he's already moving toward her bedroom. She follows him, her heart already breaking because she knows what's coming.
He grabs his jacket. The one he wore when he came back to her door. The one he's been wearing for two weeks.
"Rurik, don't."
"I have to."
"You said you can't stay away from me. You said your wolf won't let you."
"I lied," he says and it's the cruelest thing he's ever said to her. "My wolf will do whatever I tell it to do. I'm the Alpha. I control everything including this."
He moves to her door.
"Please," Ivy says and she hates how broken her voice sounds.
He stops. His hand is on the doorknob and his entire body is tense like it's taking everything he has not to turn around.
"I'm going to go back to my pack and I'm going to be the Alpha they need. I'm going to pretend these two weeks didn't happen. I'm going to burn this out of my system because the alternative is destroying you."
He opens the door.
"Don't follow me," he says. "Don't try to find me. Don't wait for me. Find someone human. Find someone who can give you a normal life."
"I don't want normal," she whispers.
But he's already gone.
She hears his footsteps in the hallway. She hears the elevator door opening. She hears the sound of him leaving and knows with absolute certainty that he's not coming back.
Not tonight.
Not ever.
Ivy stands in her apartment and feels the walls closing in again. The same walls she's been hiding behind for twenty-six years. The same walls she built to keep herself safe from caring about anyone.
She got two weeks.
Two weeks of feeling alive. Two weeks of mattering to someone. Two weeks of being seen.
And now she's invisible again.
Worse than invisible. She's broken.
She goes to her couch and she doesn't cry. She doesn't scream. She just sits in the dark and feels the weight of what it means to love someone you can't have.
By morning she's decided something.
If he won't come to her, then she's going to find him.
She's going to find his pack in the Cascade Mountains. She's going to walk into a world that wants her dead. She's going to find Rurik Thorne and she's going to make him choose.
Her or his Alpha responsibility.
Love or duty.
Because she just spent two weeks learning what it feels like to matter and she's not going back to disappearing.
Not ever again.