My eyebrows lifted. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“We hardly know each other.”
“We know the things that matter. As far as I’m concerned, everything else can be figured out in time.”
That was actually similar to what my mom had told me over and over since I refused to pick a mate. Which was both concerning and kind of comforting.
Maybe if I wasn’t keeping such a huge secret from Maverick, I’d be willing to consider the perspective. But I was.
I glanced at the bedroom door in the mirror. “Don’t let Rhone hear you say that you’re ready to seal the bond. He would insist on chaperoning. Constantly.”
“Maybe for a few hours. He’d get tired of it.”
“Would he?”
“Probably not. I’d sit down and have a conversation with him where I told him I wasn’t going to change my mind, and he would concede. Eventually.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in charge of him?”
Maverick made a noncommittal noise. “The Alpha is the face of the pack. The Beta is the backbone. We lead together. Everyone would defer to me over him, but it would fall apart without him just as quickly as it would without me.”
“How did you guys meet?”
“His family made the apple pies our pack sold at the market. Mine made the cherry pies. There was a rivalry. Our families didn’t hate each other, but Rhone and I did.”
“When did you become friends?”
“During the war.”
“Did something happen to your family? If you don’t mind sharing.”
“The trees started to die when I was about seventeen, and the war had been going on for about a year. We all packed up and joined the Alpha’s military so we would have food to eat. Over the first little while, Rhone and I both lost our parents, and he lost his sister too.”
My throat swelled. “I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” He closed the hoop of the last earring he put in for me. “The loss will always hurt, but they would’ve been thrilled that Rhone and I became family. They spent our whole lives trying to explain that we shouldn’t hate each other over pies.”
He lowered his mouth to my ear and dragged his tongue over the piercings, apparently ready to change the subject. “You’re sexy as fuck.”
“Thank you.”
“How long would you want to wait before I bite you?”
It was a complicated question. One I didn’t have an answer for right away.
On one hand, I wanted him. Badly. Not just sexually, but for his personality and who he was. It seemed insane to seal a bond so quickly, but when it came down to it, I had to pick a mate among five options. I was falling in love with one of them. I didn’t like the other four.
There was an obvious answer:
Seal the bond before you fuck yourself over and get stuck with Timber, Green, or Poem.
On the other hand, I wasn’t going to take things further with him when I was lying to and manipulating him. That wasn’t me, and I didn’t want it to be.
So I couldn’t seal the bond.
If he didn’t hate me after he knew the truth, I could consider it, but there was no point in dwelling on that hope. He was going to hate me.
