Rise of the Dark Alpha

~ SASHA ~

The fire popped, startling her out of the doze she'd fallen into.

Zev's weight was a welcome blanket, his face buried in her neck, the stubble on his jaw rasping against her skin when he turned his head to look at her.

She turned her head and stared at each other, nose to nose. She lifted a hand to push back the hair that had fallen over his eyes.

She didn't have words.

She'd always loved him—since she was so young. Always felt like he loved her—until recent years, when the voices of others started echoing in her head, arguing with that. But her instincts… the deepest part of her had always known, always believed that she held his heart just as tightly as he held hers.

But this?

Holding him there, joined, as close as two people could possibly be, it was as if they'd broken through some kind of barrier. She was drifting, untethered—yet tied to him. Connected. While the rest of her life fell away, he was there, solid and strong, to center her.

She kept combing his hair back even when it no longer fell over his eyes, just to be touching him. She was afraid to speak, afraid all the love she felt would just come tumbling out. So she stared her love, and stroked her love, and prayed he recognized it for what it was.

Zev held her eyes and didn't waver, searching her gaze. Then he kissed her, softly, tenderly, leaving his lips against hers. He had one hand at her back, the other over her head. He covered her with his body and she didn't want him to leave.

"Is it like that for everyone?" she whispered eventually, fearing she was feeling something the Chimera thought was normal.

He shook his head. "I've heard that it can be. But… no," he whispered, his fingers playing in her hair. "

She cupped his face, let her fingernails scrape on the stubble of his cheek. "I feel like there's this… this ocean of love in my chest and I want to just sink into it and never come out."

He nodded. "Me too."

Sasha blew out a breath. "I don't want to go back, Zev. I don't want to go anywhere. I want to just be here with you and never do anything but be with you again."

Zev sighed. "Sash, we can't—"

"I know. I'm not asking. I'm just saying… it's what I want, Zev. I wish we could leave the rest of the world—any world—behind and just… be."

He nodded, then leaned into to kiss her, slow and deep and that ocean in her heart somehow, impossibly, got wider. Deeper.

They clung to each other and Sasha prayed she wouldn't cry because it would worry him. But the truth was, she felt like everything she'd been through in the past five years had just become worth it.

Worth it to be here with him.

Worth it to have him.

Worth it to give herself to him, and to take him.

Zev frowned. "Your scent just changed. What is it?"

She cupped his jaw and kissed him softly. "I was just thinking that you're worth it. That's all. It's all worth it, Zev, to have gotten here. You're worth it. To me."

A tiny noise broke in his throat and he rolled, pulling her onto her side so she used his arm as a pillow, pulling her into his chest, curling his arms around her and holding her tightly.

"I'm not, Sash," he whispered in her ear. "But you are."

She shook her head, but she wasn't going to argue. Words would only ever fail to accurately express what she was feeling. So she had to show him.

He didn't believe her yet, but she'd show him. She was determined.

Because he was worth it.

*****

~ ZEV ~

They dozed on the fur for at least an hour, but eventually as the fire fell and the cavern grew colder, the pain in Zev's side pushed him to the bed. With hushed words and gentle nudges, he woke Sasha. But she was blinking and bleary eyed, so he picked her up and carried her to the bed.

"I can walk," she mumbled, frowning even as she rested her head on his shoulder.

"I'd rather carry you," he said huskily, laying her gently in the rumpled furs, then hurrying around to the other side to get in with her.

As soon as he slid between the cool furs, she rolled to lay her head against his shoulder, her arm over his chest, curling into his side.

His heart squeezed at the simple gesture that said exactly what he felt: that there was too much room in this world. Too much space. That they needed to be closer, always closer.

He opened his mouth to tell her that, but her breathing had already evened out, slowed. She was already asleep.

So Zev rolled slowly to face her. Her hand rested on his neck, her forehead against his shoulder. He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her hair and took a deep breath, his head spinning with weariness and everything that had happened.

A rumble started then, deep in his core, a warning about the storm to come. But he pushed it away.

They had much to face. Much to navigate. But they'd been given these days, and he was going to make the most of them. He'd found his mate. Impossibly, perfectly, he'd found her and brought her home, and they'd survived.

No matter what might come in future, they would face it together. They were no longer two separate people, but a pair. A unit. And he would go to his grave to keep her safe.

Flashes of the fight with Xar flickered in his head—that moment when the Tiger had leaped for her and the ice-cold spear that had entered his chest when that knife had flashed in the old man's hand. But he kissed her hair again, and held her tighter, breathing in her scent and remembering: She was alive, and safe, and—most importantly—his.

No Chimera would ever try to take her again. He could relax. He could finally relax.

And for the first time in the almost seven years since he'd met her, he finally did.