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I pushed to my feet. “I don’t have time for this.”
He grabbed my shoulder, and I threw his hand off.
“Don’t put your hands on me.” I grabbed the bottle and walked to the edge of the deck, overlooking the lake nestled between the pines.
Wind whipped through the needles, raising bumps on my heated skin. Spring and the moon called. We’d had a harsh winter, and the frost still lingered, but spring was coming. Growth tinged the wind. I tilted my head back and inhaled, filling my lungs with clean air and getting Vin out of my chest.
A board behind me creaked.
“If you’ve come here to convince me to leave my people, you know I can’t,” I said without looking back.
“I’d never ask you to leave again, as much as I want to. I see now that you’d resent me.”
“They need me. They have nothing else. They’d starve.” I’d tell him my pack came first, but in truth, my soul threatened to rip in two.
“I believe you,” he whispered.
I pressed both hands into the railing. “They have jobs and food now. They have places to live. They aren’t living in caves and scavenging. We’ve built a hotel to support the club since the last time you came.” Before I’d taken over, they’d been living on the edge of society. Children died in the cold. No one had starved since I’d taken over.
“I’ve seen the work you’ve done. I don’t think anyone could deny those things. It’s one reason I’ve left you alone so long. My influence in your life will always be a disruption, but we can’t keep fighting against the current, Dominic. Fighting our connection is exhausting.” He slipped in next to me, but I didn’t dare look over.
I might have given him anything he asked for in those moments.
“I’m tired of fighting it, too.” My existence was exhaustion. I was so tired of trying to hold it all together with my bare hands. “But what is the right answer, Vin?”
“We’ve fought it for so long, and it’s torture. I think we should try it the other way.”
“As you’ve said. If you have an idea, out with it.” I glanced over, unable to read his mood from his posture. “Lay your cards on the table. We’ve danced around it for long enough, and if you are serious about this, it’s time for some honesty.”
He met my gaze, keeping himself stoic. My nostrils flared, the wind swirling around us and bringing his scent into my nose. Ice and parchment. Cold, but not dead, like vampires. Absinthe and blood burned at the edges of his aroma. Starch and the hint of a cologne probably purchased before I was born. One of those they realized is toxic to humans. Vampires loved those kinds of antiques. They laughed at the fragility of humans.
It occurred to me Vin might not even know the reasons behind the culture he was in. I laughed to myself.
“I want a relationship. It’s as simple and complicated as that, Dominic.”
“We have a relationship of sorts, if by relationship you mean occasionally seeking the other one out for sex. Are you looking for commitment? I haven’t fucked anyone else, Vin. I told you I can’t.”
“No, we have an arrangement. An unsatisfactory one. I’m requesting the terms be rearranged.” His pretentious wording amused me. His mannerisms and language stuck years in the past.
“Go on.” I waved him on.
“Are you so ignorant of the terms of a normal relationship that I need to spell this out for you, dear?” His tone dripped with condescension.
“Normal? So, what does that mean? Human? Wolf? Vampire? Whose normal do you want to go by?”
He blinked and then burst out laughing. “Fair. I guess we don’t have any idea what normal would be.”
“So forgive me for wanting you to spell it out, but I’m going to need clarity. Are you looking for me to propose or something?”
He kept laughing and shook his head. “I want to spend time together. Do more than fuck and leave. Those things we both crave but are unwilling to sacrifice for because they make us vulnerable to one another. I want to wake up together, and most of all, I don’t want to hide it. I want to face what comes with it.”
“Can you truly be vulnerable with me, Vinkettin?” Would I be able to wake up to him? Or sleep with him? I’d never let another person, other than my brothers, sleep under the same roof as I did.
“I want to.”
He rubbed a knuckle down my throat. “I want those things others have. I don’t want to ache for you any longer. There has to be a better way. We have to find a way to be a team.”
“What about my pack? My life here? Are you going to move in and be my boyfriend? How does this even look for us? You’re not a vampire, but you’re as close as you can get. And wolves aren’t exactly…” I circled a finger in the air, searching for the right word. “Gay accepting.” They were fine with primal urges, but we mated with the opposite sex. Especially with the alpha, there was an expectation of an heir. “What about the quickening?”
