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He flinched as if I’d shocked him.
I realized immediately how he’d taken what I just said. "I've been ready for it withbothof you," I added hurriedly.
That caught his attention again. "And now?"
"Now what?" I asked, confused.
"Do you still feel that way? Are you still ready for…both of us?" I realized he was asking about the mating bond. Now that I'd accepted Daxon’s, there shouldn't be any problem in accepting Wilder's.
"I might need a day to recover before I enter a frenzy like that again. And maybe we can have food and water nearby this time," I teased, but before my full sentence could come out of my mouth, his lips were crashing against mine, so much relief embedded in our kiss that a hitched sob broke from my chest.
When he released me, I shook my head sadly. "After all this time, you still…doubt me.” There was heartbreak in my voice and he flinched from the sound of it.
I was eager to have him bite me, as exhausted as I was. Because Wilder was missing something inside of him, and not in the way that Daxon was. Daxon, perhaps, was missing part of his soul. Wilder was lacking in his ability to feel loved. Whether that was because of his parents, or his bitchy ex, something was missing inside of him. And although I tried my best to fill that part of him up, maybe the only thing that could work was the mating bond, for him to be able to really feel the depth of my love. To understand it wasn't a fleeting, slippery thing that would fade with time. It was real.
I wasn't going to go away.
And after all we'd been through, my love had only grown.
I was suddenly desperate for him to be able to get the same confidence in us as I’d gotten from my bond with Daxon.
Before I could do something crazy, like offer my exhausted body to him, Daxon was behind me, his hand curling around my waist.
"I am in no way trying to stop the bond from forming, Wilder, but I can see the way that you’re eyeing each other. She needs a night of rest…a night to recover. That’s the first meal she's eaten in three days. She needs at least three more of those before she goes into a frenzy again."
A flash of disappointment danced in Wilder's gaze, but he quickly pushed it down.
"Of course. We should wait longer than that. We have all the time in the world,” Wilder reassured both of us.
And although I didn't doubt he really meant it, a rush of foreboding passed over my skin. Did we really have all the time in the world? There was always something after us, something in the way of our happily ever after. How much longer until something completely prevented us from having our happy future for good?
"Everything's going to be all right," Daxon soothed, rubbing his hand up and down my back. I'd forgotten for a moment he could feel me, and I hurried to check in with how he was doing since Wilder and I had just been eye-fucking each other right in front of him…not that it hadn't happened before.
Again, there was nothing. In three days, we'd evidently achieved a huge level of growth we hadn't reached before. Adding Wilder to that would be amazing.
* * *
Three daysbefore
Wilder
I hit the ground hard, the door slamming shut behind me.
Flabbergasted, I stared over at Ares. "What the hell was that?" I growled, jumping to my feet and running towards the door.
I couldn't believe Daxon had done that. After how careful we’d been, for him to bite her…a flare of guilt hit me as I thought about something similar I’d done before. The asshole I was, I still flew at the door, wrenching it open. Daxon and Rune had disappeared from the entryway, and I could hear their soft moans from somewhere down one of the hallways. I moved to go after them, and Ares grabbed my arm.
"Get your hands off me, you filthy bloodsucker," I growled, baring my teeth at him.
My anger didn't seem to faze him at all. "You can't go after them," he said calmly.
I shook his grip off my arm. "Why the fuck not?"
He sighed, like he was talking to an errant child, and my anger only spiked.
I moved to run after Rune again, andagainhe grabbed me by the arm.
"Look man, it's not my favorite thing either. But she already accepted the mating bond; you’d only hurt her if you tried to stop her from getting what she needed from it."
