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“If I get my arms around you, they’ll have to rip them off my body to make me let go again.” His voice was still strained.
My throat swelled.
I released his middle, and he tensed.
But when I ducked under one of his arms, slipping myself between him and the cell’s bars, he groaned.
His fists tightened on the metal.
He pressed his forehead to it so hard, it had to have hurt.
I wrapped my arms around him, and he shook almost violently. “Does that hurt?”
“No.” He had to grind the word out.
“Do you want me to let go, or step away?”
“Never.” The answer was so vehement, I pressed my head to his chest. “You smell so good, it hurts.”
My body trembled slightly too. “You didn’t say goodbye, August.”
“If I’d looked in your eyes and seen anything but hatred, I wouldn’t have managed to make myself leave.” He pulled his head from the metal, and took another deep breath in as he lowered his nose to my hair.
The shaking in his body grew worse.
I tightened my hold on him as much as I dared with all those wounds.
“You called me your mate,” I said.
“You are my mate.”
“We didn’t seal the bond.”
“If the consequence was anything less than your death, we would’ve done it weeks ago. As far as I’m concerned, you’re mine.”
“I can’t be yours if you let yourself die or lose your mind in here, Auggie.”
He took in another deep breath of my scent. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Eli told me your only chance of getting out is to walk away from the thunder for good. You stay and die, or you leave and survive.”
One of his hands slowly released the prison’s bar, and his arm wrapped around my waist. He pulled me closer—and tighter.
He didn’t seem to care about his wounds the way I did.
“I can’t leave them any more than I could leave Brynn as a kid, Fireball. The thunder is full of assholes, but they’re my assholes. My family. I’m relieved not to be leading them anymore, and I don’t agree with everything they believe, but I won’t walk away from them because of that. They’re just as entitled to trust in their traditions as I am to think they’re shit.”
That perspective made me trust him more, as insane as that sounds.
Who didn’t want that kind of loyalty from a guy? From a friend? From a mate?
My political views could be different from his, and he wouldn’t walk away from me for it. I could screw up badly, to the extent of throwing him in prison, and he would still stay loyal.
“They could let you die in here, August.”
“They could. But they won’t.” His second hand finally released the metal bar, and that arm went around me too. His fingers buried in my hair as he pulled me closer. Tighter.
I hugged him back hard, realizing that was what he wanted. “You’re bleeding on me,” I whispered.
