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A rumble echoes up his chest. He smells of animal and fur, but also incongruously of soap and gorgeous boy. After a long, endless moment, his arms come around me, hauling me fully onto his lap, his clawed hands carefully not touching me.
Someone says something I can’t make out—Jason, I think—and Ashton snarls something that might or might not be an answer. His arms crush me to his furry chest and his face nuzzles my hair.
Warmth spreads through me. I’d say it’s probably a sense of happiness, but it feels more… concrete than that. Like physical warmth flowing through me, in my veins, in my muscles, and where he touches me… it seems to spark, tiny pinpricks of electricity that shock a whimper out of me.
“Mia,” Ashton whispers, and I raise my head to look at him, startled.
The whiskers and black fur are gone. The red ring around his gray irises is still there but it’s already fading, only a pinkish tinge remaining. His hands close on my body and nothing pierces my flesh, the claws gone.
“Was that magic?” Emrys whispers, and I realize he’s crouched beside us, head cocked to the side, dark brows pulled together.
I don’t answer that. Let him think what he will. Besides… I don’t know. Was it? How would that be possible?
And I have more pressing concerns because Ashton doesn’t look so good. He’s holding on to me but he’s shaking hard, and his face has gone white.
“We should head back,” Sindri says from the other side of us. “I don’t think this is over, the moon and the shock of whatever happened must be—”
With a faint sigh, Ashton starts falling backward, his hands dropping off my body, eyes rolling up. I jerk back, barely avoiding toppling on top of him as he falls to the ground, passed out.
“What the fuck,” Emrys snaps. “What did you do to him, Mia?”
“Screw you,” I whisper. I’m shivering, as if all warmth has flowed right out of my body, leaving me cold and disoriented. I grab my blouse from the ground, shake off the dirt and pull it back on. I want to reach for Ash, but I also feel the need to cover myself up.
“Hold your horses.” Jason gets up from where he’d been sitting on the ground behind me. “She didn’t do anything to him, man. Shifting takes a lot out of you and shifting back and forth like this is hell, especially when it’s your first time.Capeesh?”
“Sure.” Emrys rubs at the back of his neck. “You’re the animal specialist. So what now?”
“I’ll carry him,” Jason says and bending, he lifts an unconscious Ashton over his shoulder, powerful muscles flexing. His eyes have bled to amber, but otherwise, he seems human enough. Rising without seeming effort, he starts down the hill. “Coming?”
“Wolves and their never-ending energy,” Sindri mutters, getting up slowly and reaching down his hand to me, helping me to my feet. For a moment we’re chest to chest, gazes locking, and he looks so tired it shocks me, eyes bloodshot, cheeks pale, lips white. “The rest of us will just plod along and hope to make the finish line.”
Then I push away from him and turn to go, rubbing my hands over my arms, fighting more than just the cold.
What is going on here?
I climbdown the small rise after Jason and Emrys, occasionally glancing behind me to make sure that Sindri is following. Despite not knowing what I’m doing and what will happen now, despite my general annoyance at Sindri, I’m a bit worried about the fae boy. I actually catch him stumbling once when I turn around. I wonder if the others noticed.
“The fey are creatures of elemental magic,”Sindri had said.“They’re more affected by it than other races, with the possible exception of werewolves.”
He hasn’t complained, though. Am I overreacting, overthinking this? Everyone has to be tired after all that has been going on. I think I’m noticing him because I’m so bewildered with him—nasty one moment, kind the next. Claiming he didn’t share those videos of me and yet saying he wants sex with me like I’m his paid slut.
Eyes to the front, I tell myself.One step at a time.
Once I know that Ashton is okay, I’ll go find Melissa and Vanessa, ask them for more details, and then I’ll make a plan. Especially now that Emrys is about to destroy everything and… and shut me out. I don’t know what to do, I…
I don’t want to hurt them.
But they deserve it.
Isn’t that enough to throw anyone for a loop?
Jason kicks Ashton’s door open and it’s kind of like a déjà vu from that other time when he’d brought me here to help Ashton, let him drink from me.
He lays panther-boy on the bed and steps back, running a hand through his hair. “He’ll be all right, yeah?” He turns to Sindri who has entered last. “And fuck, what’s wrong withyou?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me.Kraish.” Sindri braces a hand on the wall and grins, all teeth.
“You look like hell.”
