Chapter 235: Home

*Runze’s POV*

The relief of Bael’s call carries me through the rest of the afternoon, but as the quiet hours stretch on, it fails to clear the cold dread sitting heavy at the back of my mind.

Winning the board was one thing. Executives with records to protect could be backed into a corner with facts, legal papers, and authority.

Bael has spent his life navigating boardroom politics. He knows how to strip men like Han and Song of their power before they realize they are caught.

But the media is a completely different beast. Out there, beyond the estate walls, headlines are already spiraling out of control. Rumors are solidifying into public truth, boldly declaring that Bael killed his uncle, Wuchen Ming.

The public doesn’t need proof. They don’t care about internal company audits or regulatory rules. They only need blood. They want a villain at the top of an empire to point their fingers at, and Bael is the ultimate target.

And what frightens me, the thing I keep turning over as I climb the stairs and close the bedroom door behind me, is that I can’t find the way out of it.

If Wuchen Group tries to bury the story, to drown it in a product launch or a charitable announcement, it will look exactly like what it is.

A cover-up.

The story doesn’t die, it goes underground, and underground stories come back louder. The shadow will follow Bael forever, something people can drag back into the light whenever they want to hurt him.

And if they go the other direction, if they try to show the public what Ming actually was, the kind of man who orchestrated an accident to kill his nephew’s pregnant husband... I can already see how that lands too.

The public hears that Bael’s uncle was cruel and calculating and dangerous, then hears that he died in prison shortly afterward. It doesn’t read as context. It reads as confirmation. A powerful man had a reason, and the problem disappeared.

That is all they will take from it—a motive with a body attached, exactly the story they are already telling, only now with evidence pointing the wrong way.

Every direction I look, there is a wall.

I sit on the edge of the bed and then lie back against the pillows, staring up at the ceiling.

Bael said two days.

He said it the way he says things he has already decided, quietly, without asking the room to agree with him. And I believe him, I do, I have watched him work, I know what he is capable of when he has decided something is going to happen.

But I can’t find the exit he must be able to see, and not being able to see it sits in my chest like a stone.

I turn onto my side and pull his pillow toward me. It still carries the faint trace of his scent, something clean and cedar-edged. My limbs feel heavier than they should. The hours of holding myself together downstairs, keeping my face steady for Grandmother and Ling Yue, have cost me something I didn’t realize I was spending.

He told me to rest. He made me promise.

My eyes close before I finish deciding to let them.

***

The first thing I feel is a hand.

Warm and slow, moving through my hair with the kind of unhurried attention that isn’t trying to wake me. Just touching. The way you touch something you came home to.

A thumb traces my cheekbone.

I surface slowly, not startled, just drawn upward through sleep the way something light rises through water.

Then, soft pressure lands against my mouth, a pair of warm lips pressing lightly against mine.

*Bael.*

My eyes snap open.

Bael is leaning over me in the dim room. One hand braced against the mattress, the other curved against my face. Jacket gone, collar open at the throat, tie loosened. He smells like the cold night air and underneath that, something that is simply him.

Before my mind can even catch up to being awake, my body takes over. My hands shoot upward, wrapping tightly around his broad shoulders to trap him in place.

I pull him closer, refusing to let him lift his head, my lips curving against his.

"Welcome home..." I murmur, my voice thick and raspy from sleep. My fingers dig into the fabric of his shirt, and the rest of the sentence slips out before I can stop it: "...my Alpha."

Bael stills instantly. A rare, genuine flash of surprise crosses his dark eyes.

I don’t give him time to think about the words.

I pull his head down, taking his lower lip between mine and deepening the kiss with a sudden, needy heat that catches us both off guard. I part my lips, welcoming him in, my tongue sliding against his in a wet, wild rhythm that shatters the quiet room.

The restraint I maintained all day turns into pure demand.

A low, rough growl rumbles deep in Bael’s chest against my mouth. His hand shifts from my hair to cup the back of my neck, holding my head back against the pillow.

He kisses me back with a fierce hunger, pressing down onto the bed until his weight is solid against my chest. The sound of our breathing grows loud, fast, and wet in the space between us, his mouth taking mine over and over until I am completely breathless.

By the time he slowly breaks the contact, my chest is heaving up and down. My lips feel swollen and hot, resting forehead-to-forehead with him as the room spins around us.

I wrap both arms around his neck, burying my face into his shoulder and pulling him down into a tight hug.

"Good job," I whisper into the side of his neck, my voice shaking slightly. "I’m glad the board went well."

Bael buries his face against my neck, breathing in deeply as if settling his own nerves. His hands rest heavily on my waist, his thumb rubbing through the fabric of my shirt.

"What next?" I ask softly, the worry creeping back through the thick haze of his touch. "What do we do about the media? Were you able to find the mastermind behind... all this?"

Bael presses a firm, lingering kiss against the warm skin just beneath my ear, making a sharp shiver run down my spine.

"Not yet," he murmurs, his deep voice vibrating directly against my collarbone as he pulls back just enough to look down at me. "But I’m close. They won’t be able to hide much longer."

I nod, the knot in my stomach tightening again as I think about the media storm outside our gates. "The two days... can we really—"

"Runze."

The way he says my name does something to my ability to think that I would like to formally object to.

It is neither volume, nor urgency. It’s a quality underneath, like something set down with great care, and it lands directly in the center of my chest and spreads outward from there.

I lift my head. "Mm?"

He looks at me, his eyes dark and focused, the way they get when everything else has ceased to exist for him and there is only the one thing he is looking at.

"Why did you do that?"

I blink. "D–do what?"

Bael doesn’t answer with words. He reaches down, taking my right hand in his. His grip is firm as he slowly guides my palm down his chest, past his belt, and presses it flat against the front of his trousers.

Heat radiates through the fabric, and beneath my fingers is the unmistakable, hard length of his arousal, straining against his clothes.

I freeze completely, the heat rushing into my face so fast my skin burns all the way down to my collarbones.

"B-Bael—"

He leans down, his lips hovering right next to my ear. His breath is warm against the shell of my ear. His voice, when he speaks, is low enough that I feel it more than hear it, sending a shiver through me.

"Now I’m hungry," Bael whispers softly.

Before I can draw a breath to speak, his teeth capture the edge of my ear, biting down with light pressure before taking the sensitive skin between his lips and pulling gently.

A shot of heat goes straight down my spine. My ears have always been ridiculously, embarrassingly sensitive, and the sudden wave of pleasure makes my toes curl tight against the sheets. A high, breathy gasp escapes my throat before I can stop it.

Bael’s hand tightens around my waist, his fingers digging into my hip to pin me securely to the bed as his mouth moves down the sensitive line of my jaw to my throat, his intentions completely clear.

*Oh no.*

As Bael tilts my head back with one hand, his other already undoing the top buttons of my shirt, one simple thought cuts through the heat in my head:

I’ve awakened something in him.

And judging by the look in his eyes, I am about to pay for it.