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“I shower. Even use soap.”
“You know what I meant. And the fact you did not eat anything yesterday and still do not smell of hunger concerns me further. There’s the distinct possibility Demetrius and Marcella will make a point. Rarely is a wolf banished for just one meal. Sometimes giving space is wiser.”
“Or the move of a wolf making a point and leaning into their ambition,” I said.
“And you’re ready for another go at Marcella. Or to chew on your own paws. I think it would be a good idea to keep you separated until your destructive urges pass. That, and I am ambitious, as you have so accurately discerned.”
“How ambitious?” If I got locked in with Searle permanently, time to know just how serious his ambitions were. He was a First Beta in an Elder pack. There were exactly two things to feed his ambition: becoming the primary First Beta or becoming Alpha. He’d eaten everything else.
He buttoned the cuff on his left sleeve.
“Searle,Ican’t do that,” I said under my breath. “I’ll be spotted instantly by the rest of the Council! It’s dangerous enough me being in immediate orbit.”
“It isn’t something I can or care to accomplish in the near future. But I won’t pass the opportunity to nip heels.”
“You’re a lousy harrier,” I said under my breath.
“I know, which is why I never seriously considered a little power tussle until you entered my life.” He offered me his hand.
I rocked off the bed and winced around my side. Damn. Marcella had nailed me in the tender bits,andshe must have given me the boot right over my bladder, because even my interior lady bits felt a little sore. But mostly just the tangled barbed wire knot of pain absorbing most of my left side.
Searle pulled up my flowing top to check the deep blue bruise that had spread over my side. He felt along it with skilled hands. “Is it getting worse?”
“No.”
He lowered my top, but remained standing close. Very close. He brushed his palm along my cheek.
I tensed.
“You need to stop flinching when I touch you,” he said. “Or when I am close to you. The pack continues to notice our intimacy hasn’t improved.”
He could shut up about intimacy. A flush of fury followed by a wash of anguish rolled through me, then left nothing in its wake. “I thought we were talking about breakfast.”
“When I take you off the hillside into town, you’re going to be around AmberHowl who will be watching and won’t know.”
I reconsidered my meal options. I wasn’t hungry, but I needed to drag myself forward and keep going. I only had to make it to July, and before July, Ineededto go to Norway. That meant being obstinate. Best way to be obstinate and signal I’d learned nothing? Find a chicken leg to chew.
He shifted a bit closer. “Shall we practice?”
“Practice what?” Somehow I didn’t think he was going to suggest practicing our respective right jabs with the pads.
“A touch of intimacy.” He brushed his thumb over my lips. “Only a touch.”
I twitched and leaned back, but caught myself before I recoiled even as my nerves jangled awake and my left hand danced with sudden silver shocks.
“He’s gone away,” Searle said softly, “and you need to be prepared to survive in July. You can’t keep flinching. You have to learn to live with my touch, even if you don’t yet take comfort in it.”
Had my mother heard a similar statement at some point? But Sterling wasn’t dead yet, and no matter what had happened in Florida, I wasn’t giving up. He was still my mate. He was still my husband.
“And no one wants to see you die,” he added.
And transferring some affection from Sterling to Searle would preserve me? It might have saved my mother’s life, or my mother might have been able to carry on for Jerron and me. Or perhaps my mother was like Cerys, and had wanted nothing to do with her cruor Alpha mate, who had been willing to expend hisentire packon trying to get her back.
That was a violation of the First Law, arguably.
Searle caressed his thumb over my lips again and dipped his head. “You don’t need to tell me he left you. He said goodbye. It’s done and it’s over. He isn’t coming back.”
He tugged me closer with one hand and caressed my lips again, hooking his fingers under my chin to steady (or restrain) me.
