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Cole nodded.
“I’m not sure how all of the King pack will take a Longroad pack guest,” I added by way of explanation, though my worries about my sister were far deeper than that.
“They’ll be on their best behavior,” Cole promised me. “And when she’s with the cubs, Teresa won’t allow any bad behavior.”
My face must’ve shown my doubts because Cole said, “Teresa will look out for her. I know she was a bitch before, but she’ll watch her manners.”
AlthoughIthought Teresa was a bitch, I frowned at him.
Cole raised his hands as if he knew what I was thinking. “Hey, it’s her word, not mine.”
“Excuse me?”
“She knows she was out of line with how she treated you before.” Cole and I walked together through the forest, and his hand almost brushed mine. The musky scent he carried was more intoxicating than the breeze moving through the forest, carrying the fresh, green smell of the forest. “Now we’ll see if she does anything about it.”
“Why?” I asked tartly. “Because Stone doesn’t want her to torture me now?”
The memories of Stone and Teresa looming above me, of Teresa wrestling me onto the rock, of the leather straps binding my wrists… they rose like ghosts, and my stomach tightened.
The back of Cole’s hand brushed mine. I looked up at him, surprised by the contact. He was looking down at me protectively, as if he had noticed my feelings and he had needed to move close to me.
“I’m not going to make excuses for her,” he said. “She can explain herself.”
We reached the clearing behind the house. It comforted me to see the way it stood on the forested hill like a beacon.
The longing to stay and the longing to run twined inside me, and I wasn’t sure which feeling made my heart ache more. “I missed this place.”
Cole’s lips pressed together, but his eyes were dark and serious. He looked at me as if there were a dozen things he wanted to say, and he wasn’t going to say any of them. I knew that feeling.
But I didn’t want to just leave him and go into the house, either. I took a step closer, close enough to see the tattoos that crept up his neck. I’d seen him shirtless dozens of times, but I never had the chance to study those tattoos. We were always training, and I was always trying not to stare. The desire to pull his t-shirt off and take my time examining the way his muscles flexed beneath the ink pulsed inside me, but I was never impulsive.
“Cole,” I said softly. I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t want to leave him.
“Amelia?” His brows arched, faintly amused.
The moment hung between us. It was so little distance to close, and heat crackled between us, but Cole made no move toward me. Why? Liam had been so careful of me, worried he would push me too far. Did I need to be the one to rush the small distance to Cole, to put my hands on his powerful chest and rise onto tiptoes to kiss his soft lips across that hard jaw?
I almost did it. But I had spent a lifetime being shy and demure, and couldn’t quite make myself move.
Finally, he said, “I’m glad you came home.”
He turned and headed toward the house, though I knew he wouldn’t leave me without a bodyguard.
“I’m not home,” I called after him. I didn’t want these men to think I was staying.
It would only make it harder for me to leave.
He glanced at me over his shoulder. Skepticism was written across the handsome planes of his face and in those dark eyes.
As Cole entered the house, Shaw squeezed past him, their movements synchronized as if they had somehow planned to always have one of them protecting me.
Shaw bounced down the steps, looking spry and cheerful for someone who had been with me through the past few days of hell.
“Of course you’re home,” he said. “Trust me, in my experience, home is where the people piss you off.”
Shaw flashed me one of those blindingly bright smiles.
“I didn’t find Liam,” I said. “But Stone was going to look for him.”
