"Please," she whispered against his skin, and the word carried so much pain, so much need to forget, to escape, to feel anything except whatever was destroying her from the inside. "Please, just..... help me forget. Just for tonight."
Kade's hands tightened on her waist, but instead of pulling her closer, he held her still. His voice when he spoke was cold, almost business-like, a stark contrast to the heat of the moment.
"No."
Dakota pulled back slightly, confusion and hurt flickering across her features. "What? I can't kill you to have me for a night, right?"
"I said no," Kade repeated, his golden eyes boring into hers with an intensity that made her breath catch. "I'm too expensive for casual encounters. My time, my body, my attention, they don't come cheap, and they certainly don't come free to desperate strangers who don't even know my name."
The words were harsh, deliberately so, designed to snap her out of the desperate spiral she was caught in. But there was something else underneath, a challenge, a test, a way to gauge exactly how far gone she really was.
Dakota stared at him, her chest heaving, her eyes still glassy with unshed tears. "Then name your price," she said, her voice raw but steady. "What do you want? Money? I can....."
"I don't need money," Kade interrupted, his tone almost bored despite the way his wolf was clawing at his control. "I'm not someone who lacks money. I have more resources than I could spend in ten lifetimes."
"Then what?" Dakota demanded, frustration bleeding through her desperation. "What could you possibly want that would make this worth your while?"
Kade studied her for a long moment, taking in the formal dress that marked her as someone important, the way she carried herself despite the breakdown, the scent that told him she was from Silver Ridge Pack, his greatest rival's territory.
"What can you offer me?" he asked softly, dangerously. "What do you have that an Alpha like me might actually want?"
Dakota's expression shifted, something wild and reckless flickering in her eyes. Her hands fisted in his shirt, and when she spoke, her voice carried the kind of mad certainty that came from being so broken that consequences no longer mattered.
"The entire Silver Ridge Pack," she said, the words spilling out with disturbing ease. "I'll offer them to you as slaves. The whole pack, their allegiance, their resources, their territory. All of it. Yours."
Kade went absolutely still, his eyes widening fractionally, the first genuine surprise he'd shown since she'd climbed into his lap.
"You'd betray your entire pack," he said slowly, not quite a question, "for one night of oblivion?"
"I'd burn my entire pack to the ground," Dakota corrected, her smile bitter and broken, "if it meant not having to feel what I'm feeling right now for just a few hours. So yes. Them. Me. Whatever you want. Just make it stop. Make me stop thinking about....."
Her voice broke, and she pressed her forehead against his chest, her body trembling with the effort of holding herself together.
"Make it all stop," she whispered. "Please."
Kade's jaw clenched. His hands moved from her waist to frame her face, tilting it up so she had to meet his eyes. The broken desperation he saw there, the complete and utter disregard for her own pack, her own safety, her own future, told him everything he needed to know about what had driven her to flee.
This woman had been wrecked that she would trade an entire pack's freedom for a few hours of numbness.
And she was his mate.
The realization settled over him with grim finality. He could refuse her, could push her away, and tell her to find oblivion somewhere else. But that would only send her running to someone who wouldn't recognize what she was, who wouldn't protect her, who would use her desperation without care for the broken woman underneath.
At least with him, she'd be safe. At least with him, she'd belong to someone who understood exactly what she was offering and what it meant.
His wolf was already making the decision for him, surging forward with possessive demand that overrode any remaining hesitation. She was asking for this. Begging for it. And he was done pretending he had the strength to deny his mate anything, especially when she was shattering in his arms.
Kade's hands slid from her face back down to her waist, his grip tightening as he made a choice that would change both their lives irrevocably.
"Alright," he said quietly, his voice carrying a dark promise. "You want oblivion? I'll give it to you. But on my terms, Dakota. You follow my lead. And you don't get to regret this in the morning."