Page 176 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

"You're shy," I correct him lovingly. "I wouldn't say you're introverted."

He huffs and shrugs.

"Think he still has a headache?" I ask.

Headache or not, he signs, he would still want to be with you.

"That's sweet," I murmur.

Not because his words are romantic—they are, in their blunt Wraith way—but because of what they say about the two of them. Brothers who know each other down to the bone. Wraith doesn't have to guess. He knows.

Thane would want to be here.

Thane is probably lying in his room right now staring at the ceiling, jaw clenched, headache pounding, too stubborn to ask for company.

"Then let's go get him," I say.

Wraith nods.

I climb out of his lap and he reaches for the scarf. I watch him loop it back around his neck and draw it up.

This time, he adjusts the fabric over his jaw, but he doesn't cinch it tight the way he always does with masks.

The fabric drapes loosely across his lower face, covering the worst of it, but there's space between the scarf and his skin this time. As he stretches, muscles flexing, and walks after me to the window, the scarf sags down.

Before he can fix it, I stretch up on my tiptoes to kiss the unbandaged side of his jaw, letting my lips linger against his sharp teeth.

He doesn't panic.

That's the first thing I notice. My lips press against the ridge of exposed teeth—hard and smooth and warm from his body heat—and he doesn't pull back. Doesn't jerk his head away or make that strangled sound in his throat that means don't look, don't touch, please gods don't see me.

He just… holds still.

His breathing catches once. A small hitch that's barely even there.

I hold the kiss for a second longer than I really need to.

His scarred hand rises slowly, like he's giving me time to step back and change my mind, even though I would never, ever change my mind about him.

His palm finds my cheek. His thumb follows the curve of my cheekbone, and as I sink back down to flat feet, his other hand comes up to mirror the first.

Both palms cradling my face.

For once, he isn't turning his away from mine, and my heart is slamming so hard I'm sure he can feel it where his fingers brush against my throat. Gods, I hope he knows it's because I love him and this is new, not because I'm nervous. I'm not nervous at all.

Just the good kind.

The good fluttery-stomach-butterflies kind.

He tilts his head, watching me. And then he bends down—all seven-foot-three of him folding toward me like a tower bowing to the wind—and his face stops an inch from mine.

His eyes search mine one last time.

Can I?

He doesn't need to actually sign it. It's all there in the way his thumbs press gently against my cheekbones, his eyes on mine.

"Yeah," I whisper.