Seraphine blinked at him, then burst out laughing, a real, husky, disbelieving laugh that shook her shoulders, her chest rising and falling as the sound filled the space between them.

"That’s hilarious," she said, shaking her head slowly, still smiling through the lingering heat in her cheeks, her gaze dropping to his mouth. "Because I spent weeks begging you to do exactly that, Voren. Weeks. And every single time you chose his side."

"You made it so much harder for me." Seraphine tilted her head, eyes tracing his lips, his throat, the broad chest she wanted to press herself against, imagining his heartbeat under her palms. "Why now? What changed?"

Voren turned fully toward her, that slow, heated half-smile spreading across his face.

"Are you seriously asking me that?" His voice dropped lower, rougher, laced with heat and years of pent-up hunger. He leaned in closer, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin, his eyes dark with desire as they lingered on her lips. "You really don’t know why I kept fighting you all that time, Sera? Why I couldn’t let you win so easily?"

He let out a long breath, and something in the sound of it carried a lot of weight, heavy with years of bottled-up emotion that made her chest tighten just hearing it.

"There were always men around you. Always. Every fucking time I looked up, there was somebody new, somebody who seemed totally comfortable around you, who knew exactly how to make you laugh, who got to stand close enough to breathe in your scent while I was stuck on the outside looking in like a damn fool."

He began to mention them from the back of his head, his voice rough with old jealousy that still simmered underneath.

"Leon, Augustine, Corvine, and those other ones from the Bohemian Groove. How can I tell if there was more? Oh, even Damon. I envied how you could move on without a single guilt in your heart. That my love meant nothing to you. Everything we had, everything we shared, even if we were just kids, was nothing to you."

His voice got a little quieter, dropping into that gravelly tone that sent warmth pooling between her thighs. "So, I decided to make things hard for you."

Seraphine stared at him, her heart pounding as memories flooded back, mixing with the heat of his presence right there beside her. "So, your whole campaign against me," she said slowly, her voice breathy, "all those times you made things harder, all those moves that felt so personal—"

"Was jealousy." He didn’t even blink, his dark eyes locked on hers with raw honesty. "Mostly."

Seraphine laughed again, but this one had a sharper edge to it, husky and laced with disbelief as she leaned a little closer, feeling the magnetic pull between their bodies. "Mostly."

"There was also the moon festival," Voren recounted, his voice getting a little more serious, though not cold, his hand drifting unconsciously nearer to her on the bed. "The things people were saying about you after, seemed believable because of how you treated me, which has been clarified now."

"But I want you to know that every time I tried to hurt you, though, every time I pushed back hard, the second we were actually in the same space, something felt different. I couldn’t explain it. You weren’t what they said, and though I couldn’t find traces of that bubbly girl I fell for, you were never what they said."

"goddess, Sera, even when I was fighting you, all I wanted was to pull you against me and kiss the anger right out of both of us."

Seraphine laughed, her skin tingling under his gaze. "The men around me," she said carefully, her voice soft and intimate, like a caress. "They weren’t... it wasn’t like that at all. None of them ever touched me the way you did. None of them made my body burn like you do."

"I know that now." Voren looked at her, his eyes darkening with a mix of relief, pride, and fresh hunger. "But back then, it hurt badly, seeing the woman I couldn’t move on from, moving on so freely, especially when you introduced Leon as your man. I almost killed him, but I knew somehow that you two were just faking it. Still, the thought of his hands anywhere near you made me want to rip the world apart."

Pain sat deep in his eyes, raw and vulnerable in a way that made her want to climb into his lap and soothe every ache. "Then I saw your wolf. Sera—" He stopped. Like the memory alone needed a second to get through, his breath catching as he remembered the power and beauty of her shifted form.

"Marsha and Bloodfang did a great job breaking some walls, and even before then, I had already made up my mind about Santiago before you decided to go after him yourself."

Seraphine went very still, her pulse racing at the protective growl underlying his words, imagining him claiming her in every sense. "You had?"

"I was going to send cold-blooded assassins." His voice was matter of fact about it, no drama, just straight honesty that made her feel safe and desired all at once. "Quietly. Handle it from a distance." His eyes moved to hers, intense and burning. "Because I knew he wouldn’t stop. And no one threatens what’s mine."

Seraphine breathed in slow and let it out, holding all of it in her chest for a long moment—the regret, the love, the simmering heat between them that made her nipples tighten.

They’d both been wrong. Not equally, not in a clean way, but there was enough blame spread across both sides that she couldn’t stand on some high ground and throw stones without a few landing back on her.

She could see that clearly now, and it only made her want him more, this complicated, jealous, fiercely loving man.

But what she couldn’t stop feeling, what kept pressing at the back of her shoulders like a hand that wouldn’t let go, was the one thing she hadn’t said out loud yet.

"Voren." She said his name carefully, like she was setting it down gently instead of throwing it out there, her voice husky with emotion. "The Alpha code."