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Jill snorted. “Abit.”
“She’s a hot mess,” Ezra agreed. “But she did get us here, so that counts for something.”
The other two women nodded, and they finally stopped in front of what looked like a… door. In the ground?
I frowned down at it.
“The guys are still working on clearing out some of the old dens and getting them ready for new women,” Riley explained, gesturing to the door in the ground. “They usually conceal the entrances with trees or massive boulders, but they haven’t had time yet. So, the entrances look like this. They’re more secure than they look. This one’s cozy and open, so, welcome home!”
Oh.
Okay.
I forced a smile, my fingers digging into Amarok’s arm just a little harder. They were giving me my own place to live, so I needed to be grateful. Much, much more grateful than I was in that moment.
Ezra pried the thick wooden slab up off the dirt with Jill’s help, and I peered down into a hole.
It wasn’t even a glorified hole; it was a straight-up hole.
My stomach clenched.
“There’s a ladder,” Jill told me, probably seeing the worry written all over my face.
“Historically, wolves didn’t let anyone but their mates in their dens,” Ezra explained, flopping the door closed. “Scent is one of those things that can really affect the guys, so we try to keep with the tradition. We give every woman her own den, but we also have a larger den for the whole pack, where the guys tend to hang out. There’s a smaller one for the women, too.”
“Maybe let’s go to the women’s one?” I asked, still nervous. The last thing I wanted to do was climb into a hole all alone. What if there was a guy in there, waiting to attack me?
It wasn’t likely, but… still.
“Sounds good,” Ezra agreed. “Sorry, we’re awkward at this. Still trying to figure out the best way to welcome new women.”
“It’s just an awkward transition, I think,” I admitted as we resumed walking. I tried to remember where the flap for the den was, but all the trees looked so similar, I doubted I’d be able to really cement it in my mind.
“It is,” all three of the women agreed.
My shoulders relaxed slightly when we walked up to what basically resembled a huge log cabin. It was big enough that I would’ve called it a mansion more than a cabin, but cabins came in all shapes and sizes, right?
At least it was a house-like structure.
That alone made it feel more like home.
Jill and Riley strode into the cabin like they’d done it a thousand times, and Ezra waited outside, near the door.
“You’ll have to let go,”Amarok murmured into my mind, as we stopped.
Oh.
Right.
Fear swelled in my throat, and I forced my fingers to unlock from his arm, slowly prying them off his skin. My eyes widened when I saw how red his skin was beneath my grip, and noticed four small, crescent-shaped cuts.
My fingernails had made the poor man bleed.
I couldn’t stop myself from tensing, or hold back the panic that swelled in my chest.
“Sorry,” I said quickly, my gaze flicking to his.
Where I expected to find fury, I found only the intense warmth of his gorgeous, dark eyes.“Never apologize for holding on to me when you are afraid. My blood doesn’t bother me, Aurora.”
