He growls low in reply. It’s almost a purr. He flips off the lights, and a few moments later, he slips under the covers beside me. A faraway part of me wonders why I’m not freaking out. I don’t want to sleep with him.
Right?
But he doesn’t touch me. He lays on his back, an arm propped under his head, bicep bulging, staring at the ceiling. I can’t make out his face in the dark. His body is alert, but relaxed. He’s not getting ready to pounce on me or anything.
We lay side by side in silence for a while. Gradually, the tension seeps from my muscles. Looks like he’s going to stay over there. I nestle my nose into the pillow. Yum. Toffee. The case smells like detergent, but it can’t hide the delicious scent coming from the feathers.
Killian’s voice, when he speaks, almost startles me. “I should make you eat.”
“No, please. Eat tomorrow.” My heavy eyelids sink closed. I don’t know how late it is. It could be ten. Midnight. Later.
Time is inconsequential. I hover on the edge of sleep, but I can’t let go quite yet. I don’t want to lose this feeling.
The room is velvet black. It’s quiet except for the occasional clatter of the fridge’s ice maker in the kitchen. My body feels like it does after a long swim. Good tired. There’s not a single worry skulking in the back of my mind.
And it doesn’t make sense. My pack’s alpha is lying in the bed beside me, and he expects things, and I think he might have taken his clothes off.
But I feel—safe. Completely safe.
For the first time in so many years.
This is what it felt like when I lived with my mother and father. I could sleep. The grown ups were on guard. I could let go and drift away. They’d never let any harm come to me.
I don’t feel unsafe in my own bed at the lone females’ cabin. I know the pack will protect me. But I don’t sleep too deeply, either. A lot can happen while help is running to the rescue. I rub the scars on my thigh where the skin almost couldn’t knit back together. Abertha did her very best, but the wounds were bad, and she told me infection set in right away.
A memory bubbles up in my consciousness, another bed with a soft quilt, a woman slumped and snoring by a fire, but the past is murky and far away, and maybe it’s better to turn my face further into the pillow and close my eyes.
“Goodnight, Una. It’s all right. Whatever you’re worried about, you can worry about it tomorrow.” Killian’s voice rumbles in the dark.
And I do what he says. I let go.
I wake up hours later in the pitch black, panting. I know immediately where I am. Killian’s bed. He’s beside me. Closer. Awake.
I’m wet. Aching. My bra is twisted under my shirt, and my skirt’s hiked, making an uncomfortable lump under my butt. The waistline digs into the flesh above my hip bones. And I’m wearing my socks. I hate wearing socks to bed. My feet are hot. Everything’s hot.
And there’s something lodged in my chest. Between my breasts. It’s not my heart, but it pulses. Slow. Steady. Insistent.
I push my palm against it as if that could stop it, but even with my brain cranking too slowly into gear, I know. It’s the bond. It’s all the way back.
No.
It can’t be.
I sit straight up. I’m sweating, and I can’t see a damn thing. I yank my collar away from my neck as if that’ll help me catch my breath, but the problem isn’t in my throat or lungs, it’s in my head.
There’s going to be terrible pain. I won’t be able to handle it. I’ll break.
Killian eases up to sit against the headboard. I sense the movement more than I see it.
“It’s okay,” he says.
“No, it’s not.”
“You’re safe.”
I laugh, and it has a hysterical edge.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Again?” I try to straighten my bra, but it’s hopeless. The wire’s twisted to hell.
“Yes. Never again.”
“I hate you.” It comes out a sob. Nothing’s right. My skin is raw, and it’s too stuffy in here.
He takes a second to reply. “Yeah. I guess you would.”
“I don’t want a mate.”
“I do.”
I— My brain kind of stutters. Males always complain about being tied down and leg-shackled and ball-and-chained. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard the older males wistfully expound on how Killian Kelly is the luckiest shifter alive—alpha, unmated, and drowning in eager pussy.
The only reason most males seem to want mates at all is to have pups and nail down their rank.