Page 69 of A Wolf of War
Not that they could match him in training anyway. Except Arlo.
That absence gnawed at him. It was a gap in the unit that couldn’t be patched no matter how tightly he pulled the rest together. Without him, every move felt just a little less sharp, every plan slower to lock into place. It was proving harder to ignore by the day. Even so, Milo understood that Arlo was needed elsewhere. The show had to go on. War would wait for no one.
Something flickered on the feed, familiar enough to snag Milo’s attention. His eyes cut to the right-most screen, chair swiveling as he locked onto the image.
Therehe was.
“A cannoli? Yo, is he serious?” Titan scoffed from behind him, abandoning whatever half-assed work he’d been pretending to do in favor of crowding Milo’s shoulder.
Sure enough, Jenner strolled out of a bakery—one owned by the weasels’ grandmother’s cousin’s great-granddaughter, or something equally convoluted. Unlike Milo, Jenner had fairly humble origins, and had clawed his way to the top of the city.
Their circles were small. Everyone knew everyone, and the bloodlines twisted tight. At the top, things stayed stable enough, but the lower rungs were always gnawing at each other, packs snapping at each other for territory and rank.
They’d all grown up in that same mess, which made tracking Jenner easier in theory. In practice, it just meant the bastard knew how to slip through the cracks better than most.
“Should we make a move? Bag him?” Titan’s voice buzzed with eagerness, the kind of reckless energy only inexperience bred.
Milo didn’t take his eyes off the feed. “No. We’re here for intel, nothing more. We lay low, we watch, we collect. The end.”
One wrong move now and it would end in blood on all sides.
He dragged a hand down his face, exhaling slow. It was going to be a long night, made longer with Titanvibrating in his seat, itching for action he wasn’t ready for. Milo’s patience was stretched thin.
And beneath it, another sense pulled at him.
His mate.
She’d be at home, slipping into bed by now, drawing the blankets over her body. The image hit him hard, clawing at his composure.
He ground his teeth, jaw tight. The month was only half-spent, the moon climbing toward her peak, and already he could feel the beast pacing inside him. Hungry. Restless. Possessive. He had high hopes that she’d let him knot her this time, that their union would be completed and she’d belong to him entirely.
It amazed him sometimes, that everything he felt for her now, all this burning, unrelenting need, was only a shadow of what it would be once they were fully mated. If this was only the fraction, he couldn’t imagine the intensity waiting for him on the other side. Milo couldn’t fathom how far he’d be willing to go, how much blood he’d spill in her name, once their bond was sealed tight.
But it wasn’t just the bond. It wasn’t just instinct, or the beast clawing in his chest.
It was her.
Willow, with her stubbornnessand wary eyes. The way she softened when she thought no one was looking, how she pressed kisses into the kittens’ fur with a tenderness that made his heart ache. He remembered crouching on the floor beside her, both of them laughing as one of the little terrors tried to climb his arm like a tree. She’d looked up at him then, cheeks flushed from laughing too hard, and something inside him had shifted permanently.
He loved her because she was fire and steel, because she was stubborn enough to stand toe-to-toe with him, because she still carried gentleness in a world that had done its best to strip it from her.
And he knew once she was his in truth, there would be nothing in this world or the next that could take her from him.
***
The house wasquiet when they returned, Titan peeling off to his own quarters with a muttered good night. The mission had yielded little in the way of results, but Milo didn’t care anymore. Not once he crossed the threshold of his room.
Willow was there.
In his bed.
She was curled on her side, the blankets tangled around her legs, hair spilling across his pillow. The kittens were tucked into the crook of her knees, their small bodies rising and falling with the rhythm of her sleep.
For a long moment, he just stood in the doorway, silent. His chest clenched so hard it almost hurt. He’d envisioned this, dreamed of it, craved it, but he hadn’t expected it to hit him like this.
Not lust, though that was always there, simmering under his skin whenever she was near. This was something heavier. The sight of her in his space, on his sheets, her scent already woven into the air…
It undid him.
