Jessica’s POV
“They’re trying to kill you quietly.”
Jude’s voice cuts through the steam, low and urgent.
I freeze mid-breath, the warm water of the bath splashing softly around me.
Every nerve screams, a hot, sharp hum under my skin.
My pulse races.
My hands tighten around the edges of the tub.
“Who?” I whisper, my voice trembling.
The steam mixes with the tremor in my body.
My heat flares hotter, sharp and insistent.
My wolf whines in the back of my mind, restless and uneasy.
“Assassins.
Inside the palace,” Charles says, stepping into the doorway.
His eyes are dark, heavy, and cold.
The kind of cold that eats the air out of the room.
He doesn’t close the door.
He doesn’t have to.
His presence fills every corner.
My body reacts before my mind can even tell it to stop.
I swallow, trying to gather my courage.
“Inside…?
Here?” My voice is tight.
My throat burns.
My heat pulses low, insistent.
My wolf hisses in warning.
Charles doesn’t answer with words.
He moves closer, and the air shifts.
The space between us is charged.
I feel the power in him like a physical weight pressing against my chest.
His jaw tightens as he scans the room.
Every muscle is taut, controlled, deadly.
I shiver—not entirely from fear.
“Get out,” he says finally, his voice clipped.
“Now.”
“What?” I sputter.
“I—No.
I’m… I can’t—”
“You’re staying,” Jude interrupts softly, from the side.
His calmness slices through my panic.
“You’ll see it.
You have to.”
I look at them both.
My pulse hammers in my ears.
My heat spikes uncontrollably.
My wolf surges, restless and sharp, whispering in growls that I am not ready.
That I should run.
That I should hide.
Charles steps fully into the room now.
The air feels thicker.
My knees tremble.
“They’ll die before they touch you,” he says, low and dangerous.
“And you’ll see what darkness looks like.”
I swallow again.
My hands shake.
My body aches with the early waves of heat, growing stronger by the second.
My mind races faster than I can process.
Fear, desire, adrenaline—they mix together, raw and impossible to separate.
My skin prickles, my blood thrums.
“Then show me,” I whisper, voice barely audible over the quick beat of my heart.
“Show me what you mean.”
Charles tilts his head, that low, hard look in his eyes settling on me.
“Stay behind me.” His words are sharp.
Protective.
Possessive.
I do, even though my instincts beg me to move.
My heat pulses hotter as I feel him behind me, close enough that I can feel the hard line of his body, the heat radiating like fire.
I clench my fists at my sides, struggling against the pull of his dominance, my wolf stirring in warning and anticipation.
“Move,” Charles snaps suddenly, and the sound of boots on the marble floor echoes like a thunderclap.
Figures in dark clothing slip silently through the shadows—too fast, too quiet, too precise.
I try to stay still, holding my breath, feeling every inch of the room around us.
The water sloshes in the tub as my body tenses.
My wolf growls.
My heat coils, sharp and insistent.
Charles moves first.
He’s a blur of motion, all controlled power.
One strike, one snap of his arms, and one of the shadows crumples, silent but for the soft thud.
Another move.
He spins, arms cutting through the air, precise and lethal.
Every movement speaks of domination, of power that doesn’t need to be shouted.
I feel it all.
Every heartbeat.
Every rush of energy.
Every wave of dark fire that surges from him.
Jude moves to my side, holding me steady.
His calmness is a contrast, his presence soothing and alert at once.
“Watch,” he says.
“Learn.”
My heart flares again, sharper, wilder, as I take Charles in motion.
His control.
His force.
His darkness.
I want to step closer, to touch, to feel the energy, but I don’t dare.
My body betrays me anyway.
My thighs clench, my back arches instinctively, and my wolf hisses in warning at the delicious pain of being restrained and helpless.
Charles reacts instantly, fast, brutal, efficient.
There’s no hesitation.
No mercy.
Just movement and dominance.
My heart hammers, my blood thrums, my heat spikes higher.
I feel dizzy, entranced, terrified, turned on, alive.
When it’s over, Charles stands in the center of the room, dark, rigid, unshaken.
The air smells like smoke and power.
My pulse is still racing.
My body aches from adrenaline, from heat, from tension.
My wolf is thrumming in my chest like a second heartbeat.
“You saw it,” Jude says quietly.
“That’s your darkness too.
One day you’ll control it.”
I look at him, but my eyes are drawn back to Charles.
He’s watching me now.
My heat pulses low, dangerous, wet.
My wolf hisses and whines.
My chest aches, my thighs twitch, my body begging for release I can’t give.
My mind screams.
Desire and fear collide inside me.
I hate it.
I hate that I want it.
“You’re alive,” Charles says, his voice low and dangerous.
“And you’re watching.
Remember this.”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“I… I see it.”
Jude steps back.
“We need to clean this up before anyone else tries anything.”
I try to take a step forward.
My body won’t obey.
My knees wobble.
My heart races.
My heat coils, tight and cruel.
My chest lifts.
My arms feel heavy, my restraint bands biting into my wrists as if reminding me I am still mine only to them.
Charles’s hand lands on the small of my back again.
Not pressing, not moving me, just steady.
Possessive.
“Not yet,” he says.
“Not until you can stand alone.”
I look at him.
My wolf snarls inside me, wanting, aching, warning me.
My body betrays me, trembling in the aftermath of heat and terror and desire.
I realize, as my breath catches, as my knees threaten to buckle, as my chest heaves against his arm, that this is only the beginning.
And before I can take another breath, a shadow detaches itself from the hallway, moving toward us again—silent, careful, unseen.
Only this time, it doesn’t hesitate.