Mari peeks outside. “He’s sitting on the edge of the porch again.”
“Wolf or man?” Annie asks.
“Man.”
“What’s he doing?” Kennedy elbows Mari away so she can see for herself.
“Staring at the moon.”
They’re all looking to me, but I don’t know what to say. “I think he’s guarding us. He’ll probably go home in a little bit.”
They seem skeptical.
“What do we do?” Annie asks.
“Go to bed. I’m sure everything will go back to normal in the morning.”
From the looks on their faces, none of them believe me. I offer what I hope is a reassuring smile, and head back to my room.
I glance quickly out the window as I pull the curtains closed. Killian is still there, his shoulders curved, a sprig of lavender in his hand. He’s popping the flowers off, one by one.
His posture isn’t defeated or upset. If I had to say, I’d call it contemplative.
I touch my lips. They feel the same as they always have.
I let my mind skim the place where the mate bond used to be. No difference there. Tender but healing. No pain.
But there’s a new rawness in me, beneath the confusion and hurt. My wolf is so confident in Killian’s wolf. She’s snoozing now, perfectly happy and assured that he’s miserable.
Killian’s rejected me a handful of times at this point.
But he’s sitting in human form on my porch.
I turned him down, but he didn’t get angry. He didn’t force the issue.
And he didn’t stick us out here in this cabin because we don’t belong. He did it to protect us.
I do remember what it was like, even though the memory feels much longer ago than it actually was. I remember the Butlers and the Campbells forbidding me to walk anywhere alone.
I remember Eileen Campbell hurrying me past the commissary one afternoon. She hissed at me to look down. There was a circle of males out back by the picnic table. A female was sobbing.
There was always a feeling of dread anytime the pack met—at meals or bonfires or full moon runs. That’s where I learned to be small. And quiet.
If anyone was trying to change things, they were doing it in secret, and I was too young to know.
Then Killian came to power, and overnight, the rules were different. He burned the picnic table behind the commissary. The unprotected females were moved to this cabin.
Why did he change things?
I’d like to know, but I can’t imagine asking.
Even after tonight.
The kissing.
He’s alpha. I’m a lone female. We’re never going to talk like equals. On the most primal level, we aren’t.
I crawl under the covers, certain that it’ll take forever to fall asleep, but I drift off right away. I have strange dreams, and I wake often and steal to the window.
Each time, Killian’s there, staring at the moon, and then later, laying on his side, sleeping on a bent arm, my shawl bunched around his middle.
When the sun rises, he’s gone, a pile of plucked lavender next to where he sat.
I sweep them into the flower bed before the others wake up, and I can’t stop my lips from curving.
The alpha of Quarry Pack slept on my porch. And he took my shawl when he left.
7
KILLIAN
I wake up with my left side numb, my face plastered to a wood plank with drool. The sky is lightening over the foothills. Down in the commons, elders are stirring. A baby cries.
I feel hungover as shit, but I haven’t drank a drop.
As mysteriously as it hit me, the compulsion has eased. I can leave if I want. I swing my legs over the side of the porch, crack my back, circle my shoulders.
Una is sleeping. She doesn’t say much when she’s awake, but she was mumbling and cooing all night long. Except for when she woke up and checked to see if I was still out here. My wolf woke me. He wanted me to make a move. He doesn’t realize we both got shut down hard.
Obviously, I said the wrong thing. I don’t claim to know how to sweet talk. I don’t have to, and I prefer to be straightforward.
My cock is hard as shit, worse than morning wood. I can scent Una from here. She smells drowsy and soft like she’s fresh from the oven. Her essence wafts through the cabin walls, through the gaps in the door and window frames.
When’s the last time we had the maintenance crew up here to check the insulation? We’re not so flush with cash that we can afford to heat the whole damn camp.
And she must get cold when the wind blows down from the hills.
She needs to be in our bed.
Reaching for us when she wakes up, hungry and demanding like she was for that too brief moment last night. If we’d been in a safe place—my cabin or up in the dens where I could sense an enemy approach—I would’ve had her riding my cock before I could fuck things up with my mouth. But my wolf and I are in perfect accord on one thing. Her safety comes above all else.