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Someone popped a bottle of champagne, and glasses were handed out. I was patted on the back so many times I thought my spine was going to break. These people didn’t know their strength.
I smiled and thanked them, going through the motions while my head was still too fried to sort out any of it.
“Thanks, everyone,” Kicks said. “We appreciate the well wishes, but it’s been a long night. I want to go get them settled in.”
“You settle them in real good!” one of the guys said, getting a good laugh from the crowd.
They were still carrying on as we walked down the hall.
“Can’t believe we’ve got ourselves a guide,” someone said.
“He sure pulled that off. I knew he was good with the ladies, but this is next level,” another said.
It was a reality check for sure. Kicks had never hidden his desire to have a guide for his pack, but somehow it had felt like he’d been protecting me tonight. It might’ve been both, but I’d be foolish to think the two didn’t go hand in hand, and that was probably being generous. Would he have cared if I lived if he hadn’t wanted me for his pack?
“Why don’t you two head up to the suite, and I’ll be right there,” he said, waving toward the stairs.
“Sure.” I tried not to glare at him, but it was hard after that little reminder from his pack that I was just a pawn in his larger game. Yeah, I wanted to go back and shut them up too. Didn’t they know they were tripping him up after he’d been playing me so smoothly?
“What did they mean?” Charlie asked as we climbed the stairs.
“They were kidding around. Sometimes people can be a little crude when they joke. Kicks has had a lot of girlfriends in the past, is all.”
“But what does ‘the next level’ mean?” he asked, leaving no stone unturned—ever. Sometimes I felt like I was walking through a rock garden with this kid.
“You know how when you play games and there’s different levels? Apparently, I’m the next level. That was sort of a compliment—I guess.” At least, that was how I was going to try to think about it.
“I hopeI’mnext level one day.” He spoke with the awe of a gamer whose greatest dream was reaching the final level.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You were born next level.”
He smiled up at me, as if, because I said it, it must be true. It was like everything I said to him carried more gravity than it would on regular old Earth. Sometimes it made me afraid to speak, because what if I said the wrong thing? Just another way I could mess him up. Day-to-day childrearing felt like dancing around a land mine.
“I think this is the one.” I pointed to the door of the suite we’d been in last time.
Kicks was walking down the hall toward us already. Guess telling his pack to shut the hell up didn’t take very long. He smiled, then motioned to the door at the end of the hall, which was his suite. I guessed it made sense if I was his mate. I smiled at Charlie like this was all normal, even as it felt like my throat was closing and my rib cage constricting.
Had I been an idiot? Why had I let him rush us here so fast? I could’ve called it off, or said we’d be courting for a while. What had I done? I’d walked here of my own volition when I truly had no idea what kind of man he was. Odds were I’d been played like a total idiot, and Charlie was going to have to take the ride with me, including the drop.
Could I go back? Groza hated me, had tried to kill me several times. Logic said we were both better off here, even if I had thrown my cards in with a manipulative psychopath.
I was barely maintaining normal breathing when Charlie glanced around and said, “They said you are mated now. Does this mean Kicks is going to be my brother? Or will he be more like my father, because you’re sort of my mother?”
Now Ireallycouldn’t breathe, and I was supposed to answer this?
Kicks glanced at me. Whatever he saw urged him to answer for me. “You can call me whatever you want.”
I took the nearest chair in the suite, which was similar to the one we’d stayed in. All the Victorian coziness was doing nothing for me right now.
“I’m going to be able to go to school and see my friends still?” Charlie asked.
“Yes. We’re only a few minutes away,” Kicks said as I slid even lower in the chair.
“What about my room? Am I going to have my own room? I really liked my room at the cottage, but that’s gone now.”
Kicks ruffled Charlie’s hair the way I often did. “Not only are you going to have a room, it’s going to have electricity, and we’ll put in a game console. You can bring your friends over whenever you want to play, too.”
“Really?” Charlie sounded as if he’d just been told there was proof of God.
