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It felt like she was trying to convince herself of that as she stared at Tyler, but I opted not to say as much. Instead, I pressed a kiss to her temple when I rejoined her in front of the glass.
"You—actually, never mind. I forget you Resistance boys don't have an aversion to fainting," Vasille grumbled, obviously unhappy that I'd hopped right up as she made her way towards her workstation, blood sample in hand.
"I'll be fine," I said, but she waved off my attempt at reassurance. Aria smiled up at me.
"Okay, let's go grab a snack or something,” she said. “The twins wanted us to come running again, but I managed to put them off with this, so we'll have to avoid the training grounds or face their persistence."
She was giggling at the thought even as she spoke, but I could only grimace.
If I wasn't so averse to shifting, it would be funny how hard the two old hybrids were pushing for us to join them on a run. The suspicious part of me was convinced that there was some ulterior motive I needed to go hunting for, but they hadn't given any hint that there was something other than just an honest desire to connect.
I think they just want a pack,Aria said down the bond.We're the closest they've gotten to one in a long time since most people can't stand the sight of them.
A pang of guilt hit me in the chest, and she smirked like she was proud of herself.
That's dirty, pup.
Aria shrugged, practically skipping as I weighed out her theory with a frown.
They’re just so lonely, Sariel. I feel bad for them,she rubbed in further. I just rolled my eyes.
Thenyougo run with them!
Auren caught sight of us as he headed into the kitchen, so I waved to him.
My brother was standing near a stray cat by the door, which promptly bolted into the bushes and away from us as we got closer to the door. It made the leather-clad man wince, but he just sighed and held the door open for us.
“How are things going with your other half?” Aria asked him, obviously keen on making conversation despite my brother's desire to dodge it. I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d been doing, lingering outside like he was waiting for someone since it clearly wasn’t us he’d been looking to see.
“Nowhere, yet,” he grumbled and then hurried off toward the kitchen. We could have kept pace, but since he was so eager to escape, we just watched him, glancing at one another with amusement.
I couldn’t help but be suspicious of my brother's seemingly random connection with one of the newcomers, but Aria had accepted it in stride. To her, there was no question. Auren now had a mate, and it was our job to take care of them, just like we took care of everyone else in our circle of friends.
I chalked it up to being a wolf thing.
My wolf was in agreement, even though it was going to be impossible to do at the rate we were going. Elias’s crew were vocal, but they weren’t exactly out to befriend us. Collaborate, sure, if they had to. But otherwise? No.
I couldn’t foresee my brother being happy with that arrangement, though. He was a control freak all the way down to how people were feeling on any given day. Every issue there was, he had to fix. He could claim those cameras he kept on everyone were for safety purposes all he wanted, but I knew better.
Underneath all that apathy was still the boy who’d tried to sneak stray kittens into his room when he’d found them outside the elementary school.
It was just hard to remember that, sometimes, between the leather jackets and all the grumbling.
3
REVELATIONS
ARIA
“Aria!”
I turned at the sound of my name, my initial frown morphing into a grin when I saw Atlan trudging toward me.
The surlier of the twins liked to act like he didn’t care about anyone, but I knew better. Kiran was just more cheerful—Atlan had the bigger heart.
Unfortunately, that just made him prickly because everything around us was going wrong at every turn, and people were getting hurt. I hadn’t realized as much until the last meeting we’d had—withoutPack Olskin to sit in on things—and he’d lost his temper about some of our Resistance members being put to work as spies in the Free Kingdom.
“Atlan!” I shouted back, cheery.
