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He reaches up, places a hand on my shoulder, its weight doing something to my insides, sending my heart pounding harder. The ring on his finger presses into my shoulder.
“I’m not the one who hurt you, wolf,” he says, his voice quiet, his gray eyes searching mine. “Our people have quarreled with each other, but I have no quarrel with you, and you don’t have any with me.”
“That what you think?” I lean closer, baring my teeth, but he doesn’t flinch. He holds my gaze, while his hand…
His hand moves to the side of my neck, warm and solid. Strong.
I shouldn’t notice his face. The clean, masculine lines of it—the square jaw, the straight nose, the fine mouth. The shadow of dark stubble. The beads of sweat on his brow, the curling black hair that falls over one eye.
I jerk back, grab his hand and shove it off me. “What the fuck,” I hiss.
“Good, you’re back,” he says calmly. “Come with me.”
“Where? Another brainstorming session that will bring nothing but a headache?”
“Humor me and just fucking come with me,” he snaps, his eyes darkening. “Patience has its limits.”
“Oh, I’m testing your patience, am I?” I glance back at Mia’s door but it’s closed. She shut it while I was having a moment, and the realization that she saw me lose control is enough to shut me up.
Fuck.
When Ashton walks away, I trail after him because I can’t think straight enough to decide where I should be heading on my own. The change is slowly receding.
“You lost control too easily, wolf,” he says.
“Don’t call me that.” I chew on this for a bit, turn it over inside my head, and come to an admission. “The surges make it more difficult to control the shift.”
“Because shifting is elemental magic, and the surges suppress demonblood.”
“Yeah…” I rub the back of my neck. “Hadn’t thought of that.”
“Yeah, well. You need a brain to think with and you don’t seem to have one.”
“Fuck you.”
He snorts. “So heart-warming to see that you used up the favor Mia owed you to get her to help us.”
“I didn’t get a chance to talk to her at all, you asshole, much less call in my favor.”
His eyes cut to me. “Interesting. That was what she seemed to think, isn’t it? Promising to help us—”
“There is nous.”
“Funny, I thought we were all in on this,” Ashton, that bastard, says. “We all face the same danger, have the same questions—”
“Don’t think for one fucking second,” I hiss at him, “that this is a bonding experience.”
“A boy band, right? That’s what she said.”
“You’ve been eavesdropping? You’re such a creep.”
“Lighten up, wolf,” he mutters. “It’s not like she’s your girlfriend, right? Just a convenient witch to help us through this rough patch we’ve found ourselves in.”
“Rough patch.” I laugh, incredulous. “And by that, you’re referring to the shooter going about the school actually shooting us with bespelled arrows that not only hurt like fuck but also affect our demonblood? I’d call that more of a clusterfuck.”
“Aw, what’s the matter, Mutt, are you scared?”
I growl at him, letting another hint of wolf show through. “No, but maybe you should be. You vampires are the weakest link.”
