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There’s a teasing glint in his turquoise eyes as he pulls back, but I can hear the gravity in his voice when he speaks.
“Don’t ever do that again. Got it?”
“You wouldn’t listen to me.” Guilt still churns heavily in my chest, but I keep my chin up, glancing around to catch their eyes with a kind of direct seriousness that says I’m not playing around. “I tried to talk to you about it after we left Elder Jihoon’s house, but none of you even wanted to consider it. I know you were scared for me. But I need help. If I didn’t leave, I’d never be able to track down the witch and find the answers I need.”
My words hang in the air for a long moment, and I wait for the argument we had yesterday to start up again—for my mates to start listing off all the reasons I shouldn’t go. But instead, Archer just nods.
“You’re right,” he says simply. “We were wrong to ignore what you were saying. We completely disregarded your feelings.”
“We let our own desire to protect you stand in the way of what you need,” Ridge says. His voice is thick with emotion, his honey eyes dark with the lingering worry that clings to him like an aura. But he holds my gaze as he adds, “That’s why we aren’t here to drag you back home.”
I blink. “Really?”
“Really,” Trystan replies. “Our packs will function without us for a few days. It’s shitty to be gone from them again, but ultimately, this will benefit everyone. The witches are still a threat, and there’s nothing we can do to change that. But we can at least arm ourselves with information.”
“I left Amora in charge,” Ridge tells me. “And she’s sending messages to the other packs.”
Dare touches my face, the calloused pads of his fingertips rough against my skin. “We’re with you. If you’re determined to track down this witch, we’ll be right by your side.”
11
Sable
I was making good time before my mates joined me, but now, with their comforting presence around me and their voices in my head as we run, time breezes past like it doesn’t even exist at all. Now that they’re here—and they know I’m safe—some of the tension has dissipated.
Something seems to have shifted between all of us, and I think it’s because we’ve all accepted that we have to allow for more give and take. I’m slowly coming to realize that although the mate bond binds us together, connecting us on what feels like a soul-deep level, it doesn’t guarantee everything will be perfect between us all the time.
It still takes work to build a strong relationship. It takes open communication and mutual respect.
The sun moves across the sky overhead, and we keep up a steady pace in wolf form. The forest thins, turning into a rolling landscape that’s partly barren but incredibly beautiful, filled with small canyons, steep hills, and rocky terrain. Then we pass back into the woods, where wildlife teems around us and the trees’ canopies hang thick with leaves, blocking the heat of the sun.
By mid-day, we pass what the men tell me are the furthest northern barriers of shifter territory and leave the protection of the shifter’s borrowed sigils behind.
If I’m really honest with myself, I’m glad to have the men with me now, even though I hate the idea of putting them in any amount of danger. I’m clinging to the hope that this lone witch might not be our enemy since she doesn’t have allegiances to a coven. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t come across others out here who want to strip us limb from limb.
God, I hope we don’t run into any other witches. That would mean I’d led the men I love right into danger.
Again.
Are you fucking kidding? Classic rock trumps modern heavy metal any day, Trystan says, and I tune back into their conversation to get the hell out of my own morbid thoughts.
Dare bounds forward with a fierce shake of his head. Absolutely not. There’s more heart in heavy metal. More emotion.
What metal are you listening to? Ridge laughs. Just a bunch of incoherent screaming, in my opinion. How is that emotion?
Just because you like country songs about pickup trucks and moonlight and six-packs, Dare replies with mock disgust. What do you like, Sable?
I’m so caught up in listening to them—amused by their passionate rants and pleased by the break from talk of witches and magic and danger—that his question startles me. I shake my head lightly, not breaking stride. Oh, well, I guess I’m equal opportunity. I like a lot of different stuff.
That’s a non-answer, Dare shoots back, amusement in his voice. Come on, moonlight. You can do better than that.
I blink at his use of the nickname. I remember he called me that when he was buried inside me, pressed up against a tree outside the North Pack village. I liked it then, and I like it even more now. There’s something warm and familiar and possessive about the way he’s created a name for me that’s just his.
When it takes me a second to answer, he nudges me with his shoulder, barely even breaking stride. I look over at him to see his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his brown eyes glinting.
I’m not used to Dare being so playful, but it makes a little bubble of joy rise up in my chest. I know he feels better, more himself, in his wolf form, but I wonder if it’s us, too—me and the other men. Do we make him feel more comfortable in his own skin?
Fine. You’re all wrong, I tell them. It’s pop music or bust.
