I wanted to look away, give myself some space to think of a response. Instead, all I could see was my life before Declan. Six brothers and sisters, all of us laughing and playing out in the yard. We would trip over each other in the house and play so rough outside that Mom kept a hospital’s amount of Band-Aids on hand.
The property had been a farmhouse out on the edge of town, backing onto dry California hills and industrial farms in the distance. Every year or so, Dad would get it into his head to use the land for its intended purpose, and he would drag my older siblings into the venture. We would plant seeds in the ground and watch them sprout, spending hours cleaning them of pests and covering them with shade cloth.
The garden would inevitably be overrun by weeds or disease, and Dad would get distracted by some other project until he remembered we lived on a farm again.
My mother had been the most powerful alpha in the country. She had been on her way to reestablishing the long-dormant Emperor Wolf throne. With that title, she would have had as much power as the strongest mage house. She would have been able to make actual differences in the lives of every werewolf in the hemisphere.
“No, Declan didn’t raise me from infancy. I had a family.” I forced the words out, swallowing around the emotion that choked me. “They were killed when I was sixteen, almost seventeen. I ran away to Los Santos, and Declan found me. He saw my potential.”
Cade’s face was white, his blue eyes the brightest thing in the room. They were pools of water from a fae spring, ready to draw me in and drown me.
I saw a flash of empathy in his gaze. Then he shook his head, as though willing away whatever feeling had arisen.
“Who killed your parents?” he asked.
“Who killedyours?” I challenged. “My past is my own. You might have bought my service, you might have saved me from death, but you didn’t buy every part of me.”
Cade looked up at me, his chin tilted defiantly. “They know we aren’t joining. Somehow. I don’t understand how.”
“How would they know? I thought that’s what the tattoo covered up.” I gestured to my neck. “Basil should make it look like we’re magically bonded, right?”
Cade huffed out an unhappy breath and began pacing back and forth in the room, his tight movements speaking of irritation and anger. He stripped off his jacket and threw it to the ground near the bed, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.
As he revealed his forearms, I couldn’t help but admire the muscles, the pale skin that was stained with tattoos.
“No, no one’s mentioned about the bond itself.” He turned to me, accusing. “I mean, they know we aren’t…joining. There’s been some implication that we, as you soeloquentlyput it, lay back and thought of England just long enough to form a bond.”
I laughed, a short bark of amused sound. I thought of how Coral had taken one sniff and known we hadn’t had sex recently, how Tyson implied that we weren’t intimate, even when he’d only known me for a few minutes.
Cade’s eyes flew to mine, and I was lost again in that blue, that endless ocean of blue. Shaking myself out of it, I said, “The scent. You don’t smell like me, and I don’t smell like you. So,allthe consorts know we haven’t ‘joined’ recently.”
“So…” Cade swallowed, his throat working, and I watched the bob of his Adam’s apple. He cleared his throat. “Anyone who’s talked to their wolf would know we haven’t…”
“Probably,” I said.
Cade inhaled deeply, and we were standing so close again. I tried to remind myself his family had killed mine. His house was the reason I was an orphan. But a sneaking sensation crept up my back. The desire to bury my hands in his blond hair and see if it was as soft and silky as it looked.
A voice hissed in my mind.If he knew who you were, he would kill you on the spot.It sent a shiver down my spine, but somehow, that didn’t lessen the attraction.
“What… What do they smell?” Cade asked. I couldn’t drag my eyes away from his plush, pink lips. He licked them again.
“When you’re truly mated to someone, when you’repartners,” I said, “you smell like each other. You breathe the same air, you sleep in the same bed, your skin rubs together.”
I stared at his lips, which had parted just slightly, wondering if I dared tease him. “If you sniff deeply enough, you smell like each other’s come.”
Cade’s eyes widened, and then he glared at me. “Well, that’s easy enough.”
He moved forward, and I thought for a second he was going to touch me—he was going to wrap his arms around me and finally let me feel what those soft, pink lips felt like. I wanted to run my rough hands over his pale skin and find out exactly what it took to make him beg.
Cade nudged me aside, heading into the bathroom. He shut the door behind him, and I stared for a few long moments, gaping at the closed door. Part of me wanted to tell him I’d been joking, that I’d been pushing his buttons to see what he would do. But Istillwanted to see what he would do. Would he go that far?
With a shrug, I shook off the feeling, the attraction that had sparked between us. I sat down on the bench, realizing that I had been so distracted I had forgotten to tell him about Keith.
Approaching the bathroom door, I knocked sharply, twice. “Cade? I have to tell you about Keith.”
Inside the bathroom was quiet, but I heard the soft sound of flesh on flesh. A muffled grunt, followed by a soft sigh.
My nose twitched. The heady scent of arousal was thick in the air. I could smell what he was doing. I swallowed, my voice rough when I said, “Cade? I was just… There’s an easier way to—”
