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I realized he had no idea what I looked like, and I searched through the bond to see if it bothered him, but if it did, it wasn’t enough for me to feel it. “It’s brown. On the dark side—almost black I guess, but when I stand in the sun you can tell it’s not.”
He let out a soft hum and dragged his thumb along the corner of my eye. “Omega orange,” he breathed out.
They were brown most of the time, and when I whispered that, he kissed me again. “I don’t mind,” I confessed when he pulled back. “I mean, I do. I hate that he did this shit to me. I hate that—” I stopped because it wasn’t fair to lay all that on him right now when he had so much weight on his shoulders.
“If I ever find him,” Kor said after a beat, moving his hand to cup my throat right where my pulse was still beating hard, “I’m going to kill him. I need you to understand that I am going to kill him.”
I thought I should probably feel something because that man was my father—but there was nothing left inside me except quiet resignation. It was hard to call him a father when he so willingly sacrificed me for nothing. What could he have hoped to gain by turning me into an Omega? The only thing I really wanted to know was if that was always the plan—and if it was, why? Why do this?
I was still weak. Hell, I might not even survive the first moon, so why?
“Find out everything he knows first,” I finally said.
Kor’s grin was toothy and sharp as he nipped my jaw, then pushed to sit. “Can you tell what time it is?”
I groaned, glancing around, but there weren’t any clocks, and I hadn’t had a phone in months. “No idea.”
Kor rubbed at his eyes, then shuffled to the edge of the bed and stood. He was gorgeous clothed, but he was ethereal as he stood there naked and sweat-slick and more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. He had scars on him, which surprised me, but I supposed even a Wolf would take away evidence of a war after spending so long on the front lines.
I wanted to trace my fingers over them and ask him for the stories, but that was more the historian in me than anything. “Why don’t you shower,” I told him as I climbed out of the bed. My legs were a little wobbly, but I made it to the dresser and found clothes we could both change into. The jogging shorts would be big on me, but they cinched at the waist. There was some hope that Kor’s second-in-command would find something suitable for me to wear. “I can get coffee going.”
Kor groaned, and he found me with ease, dragging me into another kiss. “I haven’t had real coffee since I got here. I might fall in love with you just for that.”
The words startled me, and he pulled back when he must have felt it.
“Misha?” he asked carefully.
I shook my head, then cleared my throat. “Sorry, I just… kind of assumed that’s what the bond was.”
He blinked rapidly, his eyes settling several inches to my right. “You thought it was love?”
I shrugged and felt almost humiliated for how little I knew. “I, uh… No one explained it. And this feeling…” I rubbed at my sternum, and he sensed the movement because he touched my elbow, then followed the line of my arm to my wrist before pulling my hand toward him.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said quietly. “I’ve never bonded, and the only time I ever spent with humans was trying to cut them down.”
I bowed my head and took a breath. “I know.”
He tugged me a little harder, but I didn’t budge to close the distance between us yet. It wasn’t his fault, but I felt lost. “Like you said last night, Wolves are a lot like humans. Bonding offers connection and protection. We bond with our mates so we always know they’re safe. We bond with our pack so we can sense one another if we’re ever lost. We bond with parents and siblings in much the same way. But it can’t create something that doesn’t exist. Mating doesn’t always work out.”
It felt exactly like something humans would do if they had the biological capability to suss out a partner through scent and feel. We’d find some way to corrupt it, to ruin it. To force abuse victims to stay with their abusers, children to stay with neglectful parents. It was like a fucked-up social system without the case workers.
“I can feel that,” he said gently, and I looked up at him. For a moment, it felt like he could see me, then his hand lifted as he searched for where I had shifted—just inches back without even realizing it. I let my fingers meet his, and he let out a small breath. “This feeling between us isn’t meaningless, and it’s not here to manipulate either one of us. I wanted you from the moment I met you—as fucked up as I was. And that feeling has only gotten stronger since we got here.” He rubbed his thumb over my knuckles, then I sensed a spike of urgency in the bond, and I knew the rest of this would have to wait. “I want to know you better. I want to hear the long tales about Wolves in history, and what foods you hate, and what your first kiss was like.”
“And if you don’t like me when all that’s done?” I asked.
He reached for my face, finding my chin with two fingers, and he tilted my head up to meet his mouth. “I have faith. I fought and won a war, Misha. I was tortured for months, lost my sight, and now I’m the Head Alpha of a rebellion with a beautiful mate.”
I didn’t insult him by telling him he had no idea if I was beautiful or not, because he found out in his own way, and I had to trust that the same way he trusted the fate who brought us together. I had always been too pragmatic for that kind of thing, but the hope in his eyes allowed me to soften some.
“We have time,” I finally said.
It might have been a lie, but in the moment, he let me get away with it.
Chapter Sixteen
KOR
“It’s fine when it happens. The only thing you can do is get back up again.”
