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It’s beautiful here, but it’s not the same.
I want to go home, and Juliet is the closest thing I can get to it. Combine that with the fact that she’s my fated mate—after that night on the roof, neither of us can deny that—and not falling for her was a lost cause.
Still, I never thought I’d be this guy, the one following his girl around like a puppy dog, desperate for the smallest scrap of affection. The one who stands by her with my hopeful tail wagging, no matter how many times she makes it clear that she’s having amucheasier time resisting me than I am resisting her.
I dream about Juliet every night and wake up hard, burning with the need to make love to her. To fucking worship her. I’d be happy with a chance to bury my face between her legs and taste her while she comes. I’d give her a full body massage with a happy ending and never ask for a single thing for myself.
If she’d only let me in.
But she won’t. She isn’t cruel. In fact, she’s kinder than ever, treating me with respect, gratitude, and a warm friendship that tears me apart with every friendly smile and platonic thump on the back. Because it’s the same warmth she shows Layla and Diana and even Alexander and Catherine. I’m just another member of her inner circle, the one I know she’d give her life to protect.
But I don’t want her to die for me. I want her to live for me. I want her to seek my company above all others and to crave the comfort of my body as much as I crave the comfort of hers.
It’s not just about the sex act itself. It’s not even primarily about that. I want to be naked with Juliet for pleasure, yes, but also because I want to be connected to her, to know her in a way no other person ever has or ever will. I want to prove to her with every kiss, every stroke of my body into hers that being fated mates doesn’t mean what we feel isn’t real. It just means that the stars or our DNA or something currently beyond our understanding designed us to be a perfect fit.
It means we were made to love each other. That’s fucking amazing, not something to sneer at or to be ashamed of. We’re not weak because we hunger for each other on a cellular level; we’re lucky.
Lucky to have a fated mate and lucky to have met while we still have so much life ahead of us.
Assuming Juliet isn’t one of the Variants picked off during the trials, of course…
I’m no longer sure rigging the game is the end of this. I’ve caught Beck and his cronies whispering in small groups at the brotherhood’s near nightly bonfires in the woods. Some things they share with the group, but some plans are made in secret. Rumor has it that our strongest wolves will be given two assignments at the trials.
One: Come out on top and prove that wolves should rule this school.
Two: Attack as many Variants during the trials as possible, always ensuring they either don’t see who hurt them or that there are no third-party witnesses to testify if it comes down to our word vs. theirs.
So far, however, Beck hasn’t asked me to take anyone out. Maybe he senses that would be pushing me too far. Or maybe he doesn’t trust me, after all. Maybe he’s playing some kind of game, keeping his enemy close until the time comes to strike.
I honestly don’t know. The combination of lies, lack of sleep, and unrequited love for a woman I’m afraid is going to be killed has my instincts all messed up.
“I wish I could just slip into your skin for ten minutes and show you how it feels,” Catherine says, flopping down in the sand at the secret beach we’ve been using for shifter practice.
It’s inside the defended territory just outside the walls, but inaccessible from the main beach unless you know the secret entrance through the caves. It also can’t be seen by the wall patrol, which is both good and bad. Good because we don’t want anyone to know what a hard time Juliet’s having—some of the guards are on Beck’s father’s payroll and can’t be trusted. Bad because if our enemies do find and attack us here, we won’t be able to call for backup.
“I wish that, too,” Juliet pants, her hands braced on her knees and her head bowed as she sucks air.
“I wish we had more time. The trials start in two damned days,” Layla says, fanning Juliet with her copy of “Fetching” magazine, a shifter-centric fashion publication I had no idea existed until we arrived at Lost Moon.
The longer I’m here and the more I get to know about the average shifter experience, the more I realize how isolated Hammer kept us from the rest of the supernatural world. Maybe it was simply to make it easier to keep his double life a secret. Maybe there was a more sinister reason. I fully intend to ask him once I have him locked away in a dungeon somewhere.
“We should try something new,” Layla continues.
It’s just her and Catherine here today. Alexander had counselor duties he couldn’t blow off and Diana is doing extra training with the other Variants. As a bear shifter, Layla is better prepared to go up against wolves than the other Variants and felt okay about skipping the extra training today in the name of helping her roomie get furry and feathered.
Apparently, phoenix shifters have both furandfeathers, something none of us realized until we read the few articles that Catherine found in the library.
“Like what?” I ask, bringing Juliet a water bottle I stole from the dining hall. She accepts it with a weary “thanks,” that makes my heart twist. She’s gained weight and muscle in the past twelve days, and her catatonia-inducing night terrors have become a thing of the past now that the implant’s out. But if she can’t learn to shift without exhausting herself, she’s still going into the trials as the ultimate underdog.
“I don’t know, but doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, right?” Layla shrugs. “So, we should try something else.”
“I think they should tweak that definition,” Catherine says. “Sometimes doing the same thing over and over again is the path to mastery. Back in my ballet days, I did at least a thousand double turns before I landed a triple.”
“But she’s right,” Juliet says, pressing the water bottle to her forehead. “I don’t feel like I’m getting any better or closer or whatever is supposed to happen. It’s like I get to the door to my shifter form and try to open it, but it’s locked and there’s no handle. I just end up beating on it until I’m exhausted and really, really hot.”
“So, try not beating on it,” Layla says, smacking the magazine into her hand with a sharpthwack. “Boom. New tactic.”
Juliet’s lips twitch. “Okay. But what do I do instead? Tell it to open sesame?”
