“Can you put this topic aside for now? I'll tell you at a later time, but right now it’s important for me to tell Silas I haven’t told you anything about it if he asks.” His eyes are pleading and fearful. Well, with him asking like that, I kind of have to put it aside for now. I need to show him some trust if I want him to trust me in return.
I start to answer with just a nod but think better of it and say, “I trust you’ll tell me when the time is right.” I’m looking him right in the eyes when I say it and give him a small smile to accompany my words. “You talk about not being sure about what’s true or not... What do you think about coming with me to my home and we can seal the bond there?”
Holding my breath, I wait to see what his response will be. My hand raises to cup his cheek, to sooth the emotions swirling around in his eyes. “You answer one question for me, and I’m left with five more in its place,” he responds.
Well, so much for not trying to add more emotions to his plate.
“I’m sorry, my knight. You know I'll answer all the questions you may have.” His head dips down to rest his forehead on my knee. I place my hand on his head and use my nails while rubbing circles to relax him.
“That feels good.” His words are mumbled since his head is facing away from me. “I don’t know if I can leave, especially not right now. My uncle relies on me and I’m the commander of his soldiers.”
I make sure my voice doesn’t carry any of my frustration or anxiousness to leave when I respond, “Marcellus, the plan has always been for us to leave once we’ve bonded. I’m to be Queen and have responsibilities to get back to. We can’t stay here until your uncle says you can leave. He doesn’t rule your life.”
He gives a tired sigh. “I’ll think about it. Would you like to spend the day with me again tomorrow? Maybe then, I can ask you some more questions?”
“I don’t believe you’ll ever need to ask me if I want to spend time with you. My answer will always be yes. But I do appreciate you asking. Plus the one adventure you took me on is one of my favorite days, ever.” But only when I take out the part where he stated he didn’t trust me, although I won’t mention that.
“Well, now you have added some pressure for me to give you another memorable day.” I feel the smile on his face, even though I can’t see it, and I giggle in response. I move my hands to his shoulders to try to knead some of the tension out of his muscles.
“You better be careful, Darling. I might just get used to this kind of attention from you.” One can only hope…
Chapter 14
Derrick
Present
Iswear I just closed my eyes a moment ago with how exhausted I still feel, which I hate. It's like I've had no rest at all. Instead, I’m more drained than before I fell asleep. I must have been out for a few hours though, because I definitely remember being woken up at least once. I was having the best dream before I was rudely jarred from sleep that first time, but I can’t quite remember what I was dreaming about.
I woke up laying on my stomach with my legs stretched out and my head tilted slightly to the left, laying on my front paws. So, when I hear rustling to my left, I'm able to just barely crack one eye open to observe what’s making the sound. I find Marcus fully dressed in black military tactical pants and a black t-shirt with, you guessed it, black boots.
He’s sitting next to the most precious thing I've ever seen. I know I fell asleep with him in between her and me, but now he’s on her other side. He has one hand entwined with one of hers, and his tablet is propped up on his knees. Did she wake up and emotionally-dead Marcus already put the moves on her? Shit, dude. I watch as he clenches his jaw. Interesting... He's showing an emotion… huh.
Suddenly my mind flashes back to yesterday when he caught sight of me holding our girl. I may have peed my pants a smidge when I heard him growl. Marcus is an intimidating man, and an even more intimidating wolf. He’s beyond ripped and works hard at being the ideal picture of the perfect protector. So when he growled, and I turned around to find it was directed at me, I had a split moment of spine-tingling fear and my heart rate shot through the roof.
I take a peek at her, being discreet so as not to alert Marcus I’m awake yet. An idea pops into mind of how I can mess with him. Sometimes fucking with Marcus bites me in the ass, but I really can’t help the amount of joy it brings me.
I start to scoot as slowly as possible toward our girl. I’m moving slower than a snail, so Marcus doesn’t notice I’m inching closer to her. He must be concentrating on whatever he’s looking at on his tablet. Probably making alternate plans since we obviously had a hitch in our original itinerary.
It’s taken like ten hours, but I’m almost within touching distance, and Marcus hasn’t even spared a glance in my direction. My paw stretches out to touch her when I’m suddenly getting pounded in the face with a stream of water. His aim was so accurate, he got some up my nose. I sneeze and snort, wiping my face with my paw, trying to get rid of the irritating sensation. The sound of someone laughing reaches me and I whip my head up to see who’s here since I don’t recognize it.
My jaw drops when I spot Marcus’ body shaking with the sound. Holy shit… is this the first time I’ve heard him laugh? Surely not, although another instance doesn’t come to mind. It’s always been impossible to amuse him, Fates know I've tried.
“Clearly, you haven’t been trying hard enough. I hope you’ve learned your lesson this time about fucking with me, or next time I’ll literally bite you in the ass!” he says between chuckles. Fuck, how was he able to give a response? It's like he could hear my thoughts.
“Gosh, maybe it’s because I could hear them,” he gasps as he mocks me.
“What the actual fuck?!” My eyes widen, then narrow as he laughs at me. “Wow, I’m gullible. I can’t believe I fell for that.”
“Oh, I’m not fucking with you, man. I can legit hear you. Alex and I figured it out this morning. When one of us is touching her, we can hear the thoughts of whoever’s in their shifted form.” His response shocks me. I’ve never heard about our people being able to listen to each other’s thoughts.
“Oh snap! No way. That’s awesome. This will come in handy. Let’s not tell Klaus and use it to mess with him.” Oh man, the ideas keep coming to mind. I’ll have to make this a good one.
Marcus gives me a blank stare before saying, “Alex went to do a perimeter check and to get us some breakfast. Hopefully, he‘ll be back soon and we can discuss everything that went down yesterday.” I nod my head, thankful he’s taken care of everything like usual.
Reaching inside myself, I recognize the hold I have on my wolf form. Releasing the hold, it feels like my wolf form lets go slower than normal, but I’m laying on the rock floor naked within a few seconds. Placing one of my hands under my head, I prop the other on my bent knee. I waggle my eyebrows and taunt Marcus, “Paint me like one of your French girls.”
I quickly roll, barely avoiding the stream of water he tries to squirt at me, again from his water bottle. I laugh and work on pulling out my clothes to get dressed.
