He starts to pull his hand back and I grab his arm before I can stop myself, my fingers closing around his forearm, and he goes still and lets me hold it. I’m working out what I want to say when the back door bangs open and Aiden’s voice cuts through the cold air outside.
“What the fuck!”
Kojo looks toward the sound without alarm, then back at me, and says quiet and without any room for debate: “Grab the back of my shirt and stay behind me. I will be your guard.” I don’t wait for him to say it twice. I step behind him and take a fistful of fabric at his lower back and he moves forward, steady and unhurried, and I move with him around the side of the truck to where Aiden has gotten himself out of the back seat and is standing in the snow with one palm pressed to his temple, staring at Andrew. Andrew stands on the other side of the open door with his hands in his pockets, watching Aiden with a patient look.
Aiden looks at Kojo and his voice, rougher than usual from the paralysis, cuts straight across the cold.
“You knew.” He drops his hand from his head. “You’ve known the whole time I had the fated scent. That Andrew was my mate. Three years I’ve been your guardian, your friend, and you said nothing to me. I’ve spent my whole life thinking something was wrong with me, that I was just built to be alone, and you said nothing.”
“It is not my story to tell,” Kojo says.
Aiden stares at him. He moves closer, still unsteady on his feet but not stopping. “That’s what you’re giving me. Three years, man. Not one word. I trusted you.”
“It’s okay, honey bun,” Andrew offers from behind him.
Aiden turns and glares at him. “You and I are going to have our conversation later. And stop calling me that.”
Kade has come around the pump and is leaning against the side of the truck with her arms folded. She laughs, short and sharp.
Andrew glances at Andrew, then shrugs. “At least he’s not rejecting the mate bond anymore.”
She moves toward him and puts a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got a mate with spunk. Appreciate that. He’ll keep you on your toes, and for a man like you.” She gives him a look that says the rest. “You need that.”
Aiden hasn’t moved his eyes from Kojo. “Do you care nothing about me? Was I just your transportation to Wintermoon?”
Kojo tilts his head, turning the question over. “No,” he says. “You have been a true companion to me and to my Bouda.” He stops there, and I can see it. The part where a different person would say I know I hurt you is just missing. He’s not hiding it. He doesn’t know where to look for it.
I move from behind him. He raises one palm, guard instinct, and I put my hand on his arm.
“On your homeland,” I say, “how does the Bouda clan resolve conflict?”
He looks at me directly. “It depends on the nature of the conflict. Some are brought before the Matriarch for mediation. Others are settled on the battlefield.” I blink at him. “The battlefield.” He nods, and I take a second with that before I ask which one this qualifies as.
He considers it like it’s a real question that deserves a real answer. “This conflict is not worthy of the battlefield.”
Aiden makes a sound that has some laughter in it despite everything.
Kojo keeps his eyes on me when he says, “I do not understand why he is angry.” Then, quieter: “My Bouda does.”
“Then listen to your Bouda,” I say.
Something shifts in his face. When I try to pull my hand back he catches it with his other hand and presses it back against his forearm, his fingers closing over mine.
“No,” he says. “Please.”
His skin is so warm it should be alarming. Like holding your hands over a furnace vent, except it moves, it breathes. I leave my hand where it is.
“Did you build a real bond with Aiden over three years?” I ask.
“Yes.” No pause at all. “My Bouda and I owe him our lives.”
I look at Aiden for a moment, then back at Kojo. “So if Aiden had known from the beginning that I was your fated mate and said nothing to you, and you found out tonight the same way he did, how would that feel?”
“He would not be able to identify you as my mate.” “He cannot detect your scent as I can.”
“Hypothetically.”
He looks at me with the word sitting between us. “Hypothetically?”
