Page 85

“You’re feeling good. That’s a start.” Hooking his finger beneath my chin, he stares down at me, his eyes roaming every part of my face before falling on my lips.

“Do you want to kiss?” The question takes me back to the days he was mute and couldn’t tell me what he wanted. When he nods, I pull him to my lips, savoring the taste and feel of him. This moment that nearly slipped through my grasp. “When those gates shut, I didn’t think you were coming back to me,” I whisper against his mouth. “As crazy as this sounds, I wanted more than anything to be there with you. By your side. Even if those things tore us apart.”

“You and I belong together, Wren. Not even hell can tear us apart.”

“I love you.” Coarse stubble brushes beneath the back of my knuckles as I stroke his cheek. “Promise me, if this doesn’t work and I don’t make it through this pregnancy, you’ll be here for this baby.”

“It’s going to work.”

“But if it doesn’t.” I grip his jaw, staring up at him, unyielding in my request. “You will live for this baby.” It’s not a question, but a demand. He told me once, when he thought I was dead all those years ago, that he’d become reckless, uncaring about everything else, and self-destructive. “You promise me.”

“I promise you.”

With a nod, I nuzzle my face into his chest, wrapping my leg around him, needing nothing more than this. “Then, we wait.” The pain typically comes at night, and I suspect that if I wake in the morning, I can take some small measure of comfort in knowing our friends didn’t die in vain.

Chapter 36

Cali

The stars in the sky twinkle, as I stare upward, wiping the tears from my cheeks. A perch up in the rocks, overlooking the camp, serves as a good place to think. Where I can be left alone without the distraction of all the others bustling with purpose down below. Here, there’s only the chirping of crickets and birds, and the soft rustling of wind through the trees.

Valdys offered to help the medicine woman of the hive clean and stitch Atticus’s wounds. One had apparently become dangerously infected, accounting for a fever he’s had for a couple of days, and according to her, if he’d gone much longer, he probably wouldn’t have made it. Which would’ve left Valdys completely alone, trapped inside that hospital with all those mutations. A thought that now stirs more agony than before.

Brandon opted to stay in Szolen, with his parents. Much as I tried to persuade him to come with us, as he’ll undoubtedly be branded a traitor, he refused. I fear for his choices, but ultimately, they’re his to make, not mine.

The sound of footsteps alerts me to Valdys’s approach, and something warm moves through me as he takes a seat beside me on the soft-woven blanket one of the elder women gave to me when we returned. The scent of metal, and whatever soap he used when he showered back at Wren’s old house, waters my mouth, in spite of the sadness that lingers in my heart.

Both he and Atticus cleaned up and found some clothes that, although a bit tight, allow him to blend like anyone else who wasn’t branded a slave as a young boy. If anyone else happened to look like a monstrous Alpha. Pants hug his meaty thighs, while a black T-shirt clings to his biceps and broad chest.

When he leans in, kissing along the edge of my throat, the flutter in my belly is a reminder of how this man’s touch affects me.

“Did you eat something?” I close my eyes, focusing on the feel of his lips dragging across my neck, the stubble of his face scratching the surface, his warm breath feathering my skin.

“Yes. The older women insisted both of us eat three helpings of stew.” His comment brings a smile to my face, the first I’ve allowed in what seems like an eternity.

A calm nestles inside my bones when his palm slides across my thigh, but at a flash of Cadmus’s face, I flinch at the guilt needling my stomach. Of course, Valdys senses this, and pulls away from me.

“You’re thinking of him.”

“Not in that way. I mean ... ” I lower my gaze from his, the shame of what I need to confess only adding to the ache twisting up my insides. “While you were … I had my …. I mean … I needed ...”

“Cali,” he says, palming my cheek as he guides my eyes to his. “You don’t have to explain. You would’ve been in tremendous pain, if not for him.”

“He wouldn’t do it the first time. He refused.” I shake my head, blinking back more tears. “It was Titus the first time. Then Cadmus. But he …. He was so messed up over it. I’ve never felt so awful in my whole life. Like I forced him to do something terrible.” I can’t help sniffling, recalling the moments I watched Cadmus break into tears after, and feeling like his tormentor.

“If they wouldn’t have screwed with his head, you know he would’ve been the first to ease your pain without you having to ask. It wasn’t because you forced him, Cali. He did it because the thought of watching you go through that pain was worse than his fears.”

“He was such a smartass. A jerk. But he was good.” A sob cracks inside my chest, and as Valdys wraps his arms around me, I bury my face into his side, letting the agony wash over me. “He always called himself the bad guy, but he was good.”

Valdys doesn’t say anything more, just tightens his hold on me, letting me cry over the loss of my friend. A man whose blood and pain I shared. One who saved my life more times than I can count. I cry for him in those final moments, when I couldn’t save him, too, until there’s nothing left in me.

I lift my face to Valdys, whose eyes are also filled with tears, and a need takes over me. The weight of the world bears down on me, and all I want to do is fall into his arms and stay there where it’s weightless. Where he shares the burden of my misery and guilt. I want to crawl inside of him and bask in the safety of a place where this unforgiving world can’t touch me for a while.

I climb over his legs, straddling them, and he sets his hands at my waist, pulling me closer, trapping me in his strong and protective arms. Our lips meld perfectly together, as he dips his tongue past my teeth, and I steal his breath with greed and ravenous hunger. As my body falls into his, he lies back against the rocks.

The metallic taste of him fills my mouth, the memories of his touch flooding in from the fringes, and I dig my nails into his scalp, desperate, fearful that it’ll all slip away from me again. I want the heat of his skin to warm me, the strength in his hands to mold me into whatever he wants right now. The more he touches me, the more I crave him, the more reckless my heart becomes to the caution warring within me. Warning me of the pain that awaits in the possibility that I could lose this. I could lose him again.

Pressure tugs at my chest, begging for one sip of air, and I break for only a moment, drawing in a breath, before my mouth yearns to be filled again. Fingers latch to my sides as Valdys seats me against his bulging erection and gasps against my lips.