Page 111 of Wretched Thorns

The porch swing creaked.

It had creaked the same way every time I’d sat on it in the last week, and tonight I’d given up trying to make it stop. I was lying across Callum’s lap with his arm draped just below my boobs, his thumb occasionally brushing the underside. The swing rocked just enough to create a welcome breeze, and the creak was honestly kind of nice. Like a sound for the porch. Like a sound for being held.

We’d just finished dinner. Rowena had cooked a spread big enough to feed an army — goopy chicken, hot water cornbread, and turnip greens full of pork belly — the kind you only find in the south. I’d actually managed almost a full plate. Which was a win I was scared to celebrate, considering I had considerable trouble keeping down any food the first few days back.

The kitchen was dark behind us now. The dishes were done. Everybody had drifted out to the back porch the way people drift toward water on a hot day, without anybody deciding to do it. The cypress and magnolias at the far line of the preserve were a darkening hedge against a sky that had finally cleared into something close to twilight.

The bond was quiet, peaceful. All three threads becoming as natural a sensation as the air that moved through my lungs.

I let my head fall against Callum’s massive thigh.

He moved his hand to the side of my neck, caressing that spot behind my earlobe that made me want to forget I had any injuries. The dark thread of our bond hummed once and went back to quiet.

It would have been easy to keep my eyes closed and drift. My body had other ideas.

Three days ago, I couldn't keep down toast. Tonight, with Callum's thumb tracing the soft skin behind my earlobe and the dark thread warm in my chest, something older than exhaustion stirred low in my belly. I was healing. I knew it from the ache fading to a dull pull. I knew it from this too—the simple animal fact of wanting, returned to me like a tide.

Callum knew it the moment I did. I don't know if it was the bond or his nose that clued him in first. His thumb stilled, then resumed its slow path, and a deep, bassy sound rumbled in his chest. Along the gold thread and the silver, the same awareness flared and softened.

Not tonight. Not with a cracked rib and their mother ten feet away. But soon. And soon was a promise all four of us were content to hold.

Jasper was on the porch steps with his back against the column and a beer in his hand he didn’t seem to be drinking. Eli had taken the rocker, but he wasn’t rocking it. Rowena was at the railing with her arms crossed and one shoulder against the post, looking out at the pasture like she was waiting for something or someone to come over the rise.

She’d been quiet at dinner.

She was quieter now.

Eli set his glass of water on the porch board, and cleared his throat.

“Mom.”

“Yes, baby.”

“What are you not saying?”

Rowena didn’t turn. She let out a breath.

“C’mon, Mom. Don’t leave us hanging.” Jasper flashed one of his infamous grins at Rowena, and my heart flipped in my chest.

“Actually, it’s you guys that should be talking.” Rowena said.

Callum’s thumb stopped teasing my lobe.

Eli looked at me before he started talking. He had that look he gets when he’s about to do the thing nobody else in the room wants.

“The mating bite.”

I knew this conversation was coming. I’d known for a week. There’s still something about hearing somebody else say it out loud that makes your stomach do a small unpleasant thing.

“Yeah,” I said.

“You’re human, well, mostly.”

Rowena’s eyes went to me and stayed there.

“Yes,” I said.

“A mating bite delivers venom. It’s how the bond completes. For wolves, the venom of a mating bite can be… pleasant. The bond locks. We’ve got an entire worldview, culture, and laws built on that one sacred fact. The problem is humans rarely survive the bite, let alone the transition it can trigger. That is how a crown of cypress came to be a thing.”