He didn’t say anything. Just turned his head away, his eyes focusing on the ceiling.
“Because I love you,” I said softly. Taking his face between my palms, I turned his head toward me again, stroking my thumbs over his cheeks. “You snuck up on me, Emilio Alvarez. From the very first, you showed me so much kindness and compassion during Sophie’s murder investigation. You supported me even when I violated police procedure. You bought me shower poofs and baked me brownies and watched the moonrise with me. You protected me. You let me into your heart. And somewhere in all of that, through all the insane stuff that’s happened between the first time you showed up at my house with your messy bed-hair and San Francisco T-shirt, and right this very moment, I fell in love with you.That’swhy.”
Another tear escaped down his cheek, but still he hadn’t spoken. His brown eyes seemed to darken.
Emilio was healing remarkably well, especially considering the extent of the original damage. Elena was right—his color was looking good, and the wounds crisscrossing his body were no more than battle scars now, his skin red and raised, but completely healed.
Still, the experience had clearly changed him. He’d died that night, and I’d brought him back. Despite the fact that he’d just unburdened himself of one of his greatest secret shames by telling me about his past, there were new shadows swimming in the depths of his eyes.
It seemed to me that he’d aged, somehow. Not physically, but… cosmically.
“I don’t know how to ask this,” I began. “So I’m just going to blurt it out. Are you pissed that we brought you back? Or freaked out or… I don’t know. Confused? I need you to be totally honest with me.”
At this, he immediately shook his head, surprising me.
“You brought me back to my sister. To a chance to set things right between us—a chance that she is finally willing to consider after twenty years of stone-cold silence. You brought me back to my brothers. To my life’s work. To the new friends and partners we’re making here in Raven’s Cape. And most importantly, you brought me back toyou,mi brujita.To the woman I fellmadlyin love with. So sure, I could sit here on this bed and tell you that what you did was wrong, unnatural, that it never should’ve happened, that I was supposed to die that night and you should’ve let me go.” He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, and when he looked up at me again, his gaze was full of fire. “But that would make me a damn liar, because there isnowhereelse I’d rather be than right here in your arms.”
He slid his hands into my hair and pulled me against his mouth, stealing my breath with a wild, feverish kiss that had me wishing we had the house all to ourselves. I wanted him to claim me in every room, in every way, both of us running around naked and howling up at the moon and celebrating the fact that we’d survived another crazy night.
But for now, that kind of celebration would have to wait. I was grateful for the kissing anyway.
I finally pulled back to catch my breath, my lips stinging with the intensity of his welcomed attack.
“You’re blushing,querida,” he teased. “Something on your mind?”
“Maybe.” More heat rushed to my cheeks. I felt like a kid with a crush, and I loved every minute of it. “It’s just… You… you fell in love with me, too?”
“You think I buy shower poofs and twelve bottles of fruity conditioners foreverywoman I meet?” He grabbed me by the arms and flipped us so that he was on top of me, the sheet between us barely hiding his desire. “What kind of—”
He cut off abruptly, taking a deep whiff of the air, his face twisting with concern. I felt the change in his body immediately—his muscles stiffened, then bunched, and I recognized the movements for what they were.
He was about to shift.
“Emilio, don’t!” I gripped his arms, his muscles hot beneath my touch. “You’re not totally healed yet.”
Without a word, he jumped up from the bed and headed for the door, naked and stumbling as he went.
“Wait!” I shouted, chasing him down the hall, nearly tripping over Sunshine and Sparkle on the way. “You’re still healing! You can’t just—”
“The guys are in trouble!” he shouted, barely avoiding a collision with Elena, who seemed to be on the same trajectory toward the front of the house. Someone managed to haul open the front door just in time, and the pair launched themselves out, transforming into wolves before their feet even touched the snow-covered ground.
Twenty-One
GRAY
The question about whether Emilio could fully shift in his current condition was swiftly answered.
They were magnificent together, two sleek, black wolves streaking across the bright white snow like arcs of dark lightning. I was so mesmerized by their power, their grace, that it took my mind a minute to process the sight unfolding before me.
The team that had gone out for supplies in two relatively newish vans was now stumbling out of a single, completely jacked-up van that had somehow gotten wedged into a snowbank at the end of the driveway.
Haley, Jael, Ronan, Darius, and Lansky—I counted them twice just to be sure. They were all there. All standing on their own two feet.
But three of them were covered in blood.
“Ronan!” I ran outside, following the path of the wolves to the end of the driveway, where Emilio and Elena were frantically sniffing around the van and the perimeter of the yard. Sparkle and Sunshine joined them, tracking some unknown threat.
“It’s not our blood,” Ronan said, and I stopped just before him, reaching out to touch his jacket for a quick second. He lowered his head to catch my eyes. “Hey. I’m okay, Gray. We all are. I promise. Which is more than I can say for half the shit we bought and one of the vans, but hey. Priorities, right?”
