“Don’t snap at my mate,” Grayson snarls.
“Dude, chill, he didn’t snap at me. That’s just how he talks. He’s kind of a dick.” It should not warm my heart that she says it lovingly. Iama dick. Why does she like that?
Orion laughs, “God, I fucking missed you, firefly. Call Gray dude again, he loves that.”
“For fuck's sake, it’s a three-ringed circus back here. Apologies, Mona. But he shouldn’t talk to you like that.”
I growl, “All I said waswhat.”
“It was your tone.”
“Oh, this is fun. Were you guys like this growing up?”
“No.” “Yes.” Gray and I answer at the same time.
Orion and Mona laugh. Even Eli chuckles.
I take a deep breath. Their comfort with each other, their casual nature—it isn’t easy to digest. All the things I’ve lost, it’s never felt more obvious as it does in this moment. It makes me fucking angry.
“Why the fuck didn’t you two assholes bond her?” I spit at Gray and Orion.
Gray’s alpha pulses at me, his pheromones spilling out of him in rage. A little guilt, too, if I’m reading him right. I can’t help it. He grates on me, so I needle him further.
“She’s your fucking mate. You’re the Lune. And you let her get kidnapped right off our property, right out from under your fucking nose and—”
“Shut the fuck up, Silas!” he roars. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you weren’t there!”
I almost laugh. He’s right, Iwasn’tthere. Does he think I don’t wish, upon every-fucking-thing on this godforsaken planet, that I was there? That I wouldn’t have rather been there, safe and tucked away in Silent Peak with our mate, than literally anywhere else?
“She could have died!” I snarl. “Or worse! You want to know what worse means?” My fists clench, fingers shifting into claws, breaking the skin of my palms. The pain grounds me. “Being Deidre’s possession? Being tortured by witch fire, having the entire coven watch on while they take turns—” My mouth snaps shut.
The shame crushes me when I see his rage dissolve into pity. It makes me nauseous.
He’s quiet, and it makes me want to smash everything in this car. As if he can sense how close I am to doing just that, he says gently, “We were waiting for the next moon to bond her. Or for her heat. We wanted to do it the old-fashioned way. Together, and when the Moon Goddess was nearest—”
“Old-fashioned,” I hiss, and shake my head in disappointment. “That’s the problem with wolves. You’re all so fucking stuck on tradition, you’ve lost sight of progress. The best thing for her wasn’t for you to wait. She could have died,” I say again, the words cracking.
It’s quiet in the cab. The alphas scents are bitter, almost sour. At least I’m not the only one feeling like shit. Sighing, becauseI don’t want Mona included in that, I ask, more softly this time, “What was your question, pet?”
Our bond is mostly shuttered again—from my end, anyway, but I can still feel her. And her omega, trying to reach through and soothe me, as if she can feel the turmoil boiling inside me.
She clears her throat. “Grayson was worried about the magic in my system. I told him it burned off. It’s gone, right? Ghost said so?”
Her heat burned it off. Memories of taking her, losing myself inside her, finding peace and quiet in her body, begin to flash in my mind.
More than all the wild positions and rutting—the last time, in the backseat of the car, holding her close while she sobbed into my shoulder, knowing through the bond that she was scared I was going to leave her—that was the most connected I’d felt to her, ever. The strongest, most powerful moment between us.
She’s so easy to read, my mate, even without the bond. That was when I knew she’d overheard us. And her terror that I’d leave her, that she even wanted me to stay, it all became one fucked-up jumble in my head. She will push me away, right? When she learns who I am, what I’m really like?
“Yeah,” I agree, letting the memory fade. “The magic is gone.”
The old me would have added,it burned off in your heat. He would have rubbed it in Grayson’s face, gloated about all the ways I took our mate, how I alone kept up with her.
Grayson scratches his chin. “We’ll have Doc check you over, anyway. I want to be sure, Mona. No arguments.”
Annoyance rumbles up the bond through Mona, and I chuckle into my fist.
“I’m only agreeing because I want to see Doc. You said Joey’s okay? What about Kellen?”
