It takes some effort for him to tear his gaze away from Hunter, but he manages with a scowl. “Fine.”
Biting my tongue, I get to my feet so I can sit with one of the others while these two work out their bullshit, but make it all of five steps before changing my mind. “No.” Whirling around, I let the words pour out without restraint. “We’re not doing this again. You’re clearly not fine, and brushing me off when I express a concern feels like shit. So either I stop worrying about you, or you stop bottling everything up, but you can’t have it both ways anymore.”
Holding my gaze as he rises in a predatorily graceful movement, he stalks closer. Cupping my jaw, he uses his thumb to tilt my chin up to face him, his pupils completely blown. “I mean it; I’m okay. Just a bit restless and agitated, but that’s nothing to bother you with, because I don’t want you to misinterpret it as if I’m trying to guilt trip you into setting me free.”
Dipping his head, he kisses me softly before nipping at my lip hard enough that I jerk back, fingers flying to my lips. “What was that for?”
Demonic eyes sparkling with mirth, he says, “A reminder that if it were up to me, I’d bite you in a heartbeat.” Leaning in to whisper in my ear, he adds, “And I wouldn’t stop at once.”
A shiver snakes down my spine as he brushes the traces of blood from my lip with his thumb, tongue darting out to lick it clean on his return to his seat. Raking my gaze over him once more, I breathe a little easier. This fresh start isn’t only for me, it’s a chance for all of them. We’ve all spent our lives at war with ourselves in one way or another, but now we can go into our next trial with a new perspective.
Heading over to where Bo’s sitting, he immediately opens his arms in offering at my approach. Without a single blip of hesitation, I slide onto his lap, resting my head on his shoulder with my face buried in the crook of his neck. It’s the perfect hiding place when we’re out in the open; in Boden’s arms. As he clasps his hands above my hip, it leaves me completely surrounded by everything that’s uniquely him, the rest of the world falling away. His earthy scent mingles with the smoke coming off of the campfire, filling my senses, but it’s the sense of security that can only be attributed tohim.
While all of the guys feel like home in their own ways, Boden feels safe in the freeing sense that I don’t have to be anything, and it’s exactly what I need right now. Slade, Damian, Kaige, and Hunter; there’s a subconscious desire to prove my worth, to take on some of their burdens and stand beside them so I’m not one more person for them to have to take care of. Cinjin’s the devil on my shoulder, encouraging me to burn as brightly as I can without worrying about the fallout in the heat of the moment. And Reid? He’s always seen me better than any of them, and that’s why we’ve been caught in this dance of being afraid of each other. He saw before any of them what kind of monster I could be if I stopped holding back, and I saw what life could be like with someone that cared enough to really see me, and how much it would hurt to lose.
“You’ve been pretty quiet through everything. Any deep, dark secrets you want to get off your chest?”
Humming low in his throat, he makes a show of mulling things over. “Have I already told you how in love with you I am?”
Smiling softly into the side of his throat, I wrap my arms around his neck. “I don’t believe that you’ve gotten around to it yet, no.”
“To be fair,” he amends, “I don’t consider it a secret, but something I should get off my chest. So thank you, Sabrina Whatevernameyou’reusingthisweek for telling my sister to take her money and shove it up her ass. Pretty sure I fell a little bit in love right then and there.”
Pivoting so that I’m straddling his lap, I languidly kiss him, as if we have all the time in the world instead of possibly only another day. Rather than ‘I love you, too’ or any clichéd retorts, I opt for what I think would mean the most to him to hear.
“Thank you for making it easy to let my guard down.” With another lingering kiss I pull away, settling back in on his lap to look Damian’s way as he uncomfortably clears his throat.
“You know-” he meets my eye for a heartbeat before returning to talking to the fire “- when you think about it, Kaige is the only one that actually has a shot of doing this entire mate thing right from the beginning. Courting you properlybeforebeing chosen or not.”
My stomach tightens as I glance towards where Kaige is face-palming himself. Sarcasm saturates the smooth cadence of his voice as he glares at Damian. “Subtle, D. Thanks for that.”
Squirming on Boden’s lap, I face him more fully. “With as much as you've kept your distance since I marked Damian, I thought that was a deal breaker for you, what with having separate packs and all.”
His eyes widen as he whips his head my way. “What? Fuck, no, I-" he rakes a hand through his disheveled blonde hair with a grimace, and I watch in fascination as the firelight dances across his bright orange irises, turning them into living infernos.
With a deep breath, he meets my gaze with an unwavering intensity that makes it hard to breathe. "I absolutely have an interest. How could I not? I wastrainedto kill people and lead, yet you put my skills to shame after only being at it for a couple of weeks. You’re brilliant, gorgeous, sweet, and lethal. You don't need any of us, so those that you've done the honor of choosing have to add something to your life, stand out amongst all of your options.”
Pressing his lips into a thin line for a moment, he confesses, “You don't need anyone to take care of you, and with the money this lot has, you'd want for nothing if you let them actually spoil you like you deserve. Financial security gives you the option to do anything or go anywhere you'd like, yet I can't even escape Ash's torment? What do I possibly have to offer besides a dying chunk of forest and a miserable pack? I can't keep up with conversations about your work, or make you laugh." A bit of red creeps up his neck as he forces out the admission, "And I've never slept with anyone before, so not exactly about to impress you on that front when you have several mates to tend to your needs already."
"How canyoube a virgin?" I blurt in genuine surprise, and by the way his blush deepens, he clearly doesn't see the underlying compliment.
He clenches and unclenches his fist at his side, but still refuses to look away. “Sex isn’t meaningless to me, so I was waiting for my mate, if I were ever lucky enough to find one. Even if I weren’t, it's not often I get to leave my territory. I was fully prepared to take a human mate someday, yet when you’re interested in dating instead of hooking up, it’s that much harder to meet someone when you only make the random trip into town. So it just... never happened."
Hunter groans and throws out a hand in my direction. "Well, shit, look at her face. Thanks a lot for making the rest of us look like even bigger assholes than we already did."
Cocking my head, I point out, “You know, it's comments like that that make you look like an asshole, not other people.”
Slade absentmindedly strokes a hand over my leg as he watches it all play out with amusement beside me and fake coughs. “Not the comments, the personality.”
Flipping him off, Hunter gets to his feet and paces around the fire like a restless animal. All the while, Damian tracks his movements as if expecting to need to intervene, but attempts to keep things from escalating. “Like we explained when we first showed up, Annika leaving broke something. While you all struggle with being cursed to live with your wolves, we,” he trails off, hunting for the right words, and Kaige picks up where he left off.
“We struggle with living.” My head whips his way as he shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Hunter doesn’t sleep for shit; never has, and not for lack of trying. But his other half gets his kicks by fucking with his head when he lets his guard down.”
“That’s enough,” Hunter snaps, rubbing the heel of his palm across his heart. “She doesn’t want to hear this shit.”
“Actually, I do.” He faces me with a scrunched-up forehead, so I clarify, “Not like you’ve made it easy to get to know any of you. And I know that’s as much my fault for being caught up in my project, but it doesn’t mean I’m not interested.”
Turning to Kaige, I encourage him to keep going. “So it isn’t only the lack of girls and food. Your other halves have more of a foothold? As in, they’re stronger than what we deal with?”
