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“Right,” I say. “Peaches told me—because of the rut, right?”
His face flushes. He’s embarrassed. “Right,” he says. “And with that trace of lycan from my bite, you’ll go into heat, too. I’m sorry.”
My thoughts are jumbled. Now that he isn’t touching me, the world seems to snap back into stark clarity. I’m his enemy, I tried tokill him, he bit me against my will, he’s a fuckingpriest.
“I think I need to go and…I don’t know, talk to Peaches or something,” I say quietly.
“I understand,” he says. “I’ll walk you back to the visitor center.”
“No, I think I’d like to go alone,” I say, stepping back. “I promise I won’t run off.”
“Doesn’t matter if you do,” he says. “I’ll catch you.”
?
“Yes, I understand the absurdity of the fact that I just kissed a werewolf priest.”
Peaches laughs at me as I emerge from the waterfall in the omega spring, scrubbing the soapy water out of my hair. After my conversation with Reyes, I needed to be dunked in cold water—so the first thing I did was grab Peaches and go straight back to the den.
I can’t believe the things I said to him, right after achurch servicenonetheless. I’ve always been bold, especially according to my more conservative relatives, but this takes it to a whole new level.
But when he touched my hip, the bite felt like it was searing right through the fabric of my dress.
I want him so bad I can’t see straight.
“I wish I knew what it was like, but I’ve never met my mate,” Peaches says. “Was it amazing?”
I scowl. “I’m not going to girl talk this with you.”
“Why not?” She lounges against the edge of the pool, sighing wistfully. “Come on, give me just alittle bit. The tension between you two has been crackling ever since you got here, so I figured it was only a matter of time.”
“Did you know we were mates?” I ask.
She chews on her lip. “No, but a few of us guessed, and I think Suyin and Mateo knew. The way you healed…it isn’t normal. Sure, our bites have healing properties, but nothing like what happened after Reyes bit you. So I kinda figured it was probably more than just his charitable nature.”
“You could’ve warned me,” I say. “At least so I could have tried harder to resist it.”
“But do you really want to?” Peaches crosses her arms and gives me a skeptical look. “You and Reyes are a lot more alike than you might think. And honestly, he seems lonely. I think you would be a great couple.”
“I’m not staying, Peaches.”
“You could, though.”
I dunk my head back under the water rather than keep listening, letting her voice fade to an echo in the stone chamber. I open my eyes to look around at the way the blue water plays against the floor of the pool, plants at the edges that filter out algae.
When I emerge, Peaches is standing at the edge of the pool and wrapping a towel around herself. I get out too and start getting dressed, quickly yanking on my shorts and tank. I’m still a little uncomfortable with all the nudity around here, even if this is the way they do things.
“I meant it,” she says, like I didn’t just willfully ignore her. “There are a lot of people here that like you: me and Charlotte and Elijah…and of course Reyes. I think Mateo is warming up to you, and Grant doesn’t seem to want you to leave.”
“There are forty other people here who won’t ever forgive me for the things I’ve done,” I say. “And honestly, they shouldn’t.”
Peaches gets dressed and towels off her hair, then sits at the edge of the pool. I sit beside her, my legs criss-crossed under me, hiding my scar as much as I can.
“I don’t know what you did, Tilda,” Peaches says. “But we’ve all done bad things. There was a whole war, and the world isn’t the way it once was. I mean…I’ve never known the world pre-convergence, and it’s a pretty ugly place.”
“That doesn’t quite convince me,” I say. “And how can he really know? Like…what if there’s some other mate for him out there, and she’s going to show up and be better suited for him? What if he just got swept up in the heat of the moment and the bite is making him feel just as out of control as I feel right now?”
“Reyes tends to be pretty dang composed and confident, and you’ve got him in a real tizzy.”
