AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I laughed as he dropped my hand and reached down to cup my ass, smoothing his fingers around the curve reverently. “I remember the first time you wore these in front of us. I thought my dick was going to punch through my pants when you bent over to grab that damn fruit.”
I gave him a playful shove away from me as I grinned wider. “Stop it, you’ll make me fall over if you grope at me when I’m walking.”
He grabbed my hand again and nipped at my fingers with a growl. “I’ll catch you, baby girl, don’t worry.”
We walked together in a comfortable silence, Liam and Noah having a low conversation behind us. Frustration filled me again at the thought of Noah and the way he had undermined me. The way he had looked to Liam over me and made me feel small. I darted a look back at him in the low light, his gaze catching mine as he gave me a wary smile.
“He didn’t mean anything by it,” Zeke murmured as I spun back to face forward with a sigh.
I raised an unimpressed brow at him. “He totally checked with Liam that my plan was allowed.”
“Did he?” Zeke countered, tipping his head thoughtfully. “Or did he check that his Alpha pair were both happy?”
I frowned at that and Zeke fell silent, letting me process.
“It felt like he undermined me,” I grumbled after a few minutes, my temper dampening as I realised that I might have blown things out of proportion.
Zeke shrugged. “I get that. But I also think he would have done the same if it had been the other way round. As much as the pair of you battle for it, neither of you are really in charge, right?”
I huffed and let him tuck me under his arm, kissing me on the temple before speaking again. “Plus you’re anxious as hell, which probably made it feel worse.”
Guilt trickled through me as I appreciated what he was saying, my lips twisting into a pout as my anger fell away.
“Smart ass,” I griped, making him chuckle.
“Yeh, yeh,” he answered, his grin clear in his voice. “He owes me one for this though.”
I rolled my eyes, but my answer was forgotten as we reached a fork in the passage and we slowed to a halt.
Noah stepped forwards and unrolled the map. “We’re not at the next doorway yet, the righthand tunnel must lead to one of the areas off the main path.”
The light above us flickered as the magic began to weaken, and I shot a spark of power at it to brighten it again as I stepped up beside Noah to see the map. He was right, we couldn’t be near the next entrance when we’d only been walking for a few hours, and the tunnels weren’t due to fork away in other directions until we’d passed it.
“Ok, well let’s check it out,” Liam said, turning right to take the second passageway.
Noah glanced over to me and caught my eye, giving me a questioning look as he rerolled the map. Guilt hit me again as I realised Zeke was right, and I smiled back at him before linking my fingers into his and following Liam. His pleased surprise filtered down our bond to me as he followed my lead, his thumb rubbing affectionately across my knuckles.
It wasn’t long before the tunnel around us opened up into a small room, my light bright enough to hit all four corners as I sent it to hover at the ceiling. A trickling sound drew my gaze to the far wall, where a small pool of water sat in a natural stone basin, fresh water filtering in a thin flow down the wall from an inlet above. An altar stone lay against the left wall, covered in rune markings which drew my focus as I walked closer and lightly ran my fingers across the engravings. I recognised many of them, and there were several which were new to me, but it was the presence of my own marking that made me stop and stare.
“You ok, Princess?” Liam murmured as he noticed my reaction, stepping up behind me to look.
I pointed at my rune where it sat engraved innocently among the others. “The mark from my back is there.”
He hummed thoughtfully. “This is an altar. Maybe we aren’t the first people to recognise the Great Wolf’s power?”
I nodded, curiosity filling me about the people who built this place. It made sense that it was witches, with the magic I sensed in the walls and the runes that I knew from my own studies, but this place was abandoned now. My people didn’t come here anymore, at least for the most part anyway, and some of these runes had most definitely been forgotten along with it.
“There’s no ventilation,” Zeke announced from across the space, folding his arms across his broad chest as he looked up at the roof. “We can’t have a fire in here. Though I think it’s supposed to be a resting place.”
“There are storage places here,” Noah said from the corner near the arched doorway. He pointed to a set of small cubbyholes that had been carved out of the stone, currently empty.
“Would have been a good place to leave supplies,” Liam agreed. “It’s too early to stop for the night yet, we should move on.”
I nodded. “There was another room marked near the next way up to the surface, we can sleep there.”
We began to move out, but I grabbed Noah’s arm to hold him back for a second.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as he looked down at me curiously. “I overreacted.”
