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I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it, or the things Warrick did to me with his tail.

It seems strangely hilarious because they are the same body with two souls and it shouldn’t be this hard, but Aiden and Warrick loathe each other. Neither want me with the other and it’s all so confusing. The line isn’t even blurred anymore. I can’t find it. I’m sure there should be one when it comes to getting kissed by my brother in front of our mother, or allowing Warrick to take me in my sleep, but I’m fine with both.

Honestly, I always suspected that Warrick wasn’t getting enough. Before last night in the storage tent, our time was always short. He’d hold me and graze his hands along my back. He’d get me aroused but nothing would ever come of it. He’d carry me to bed, and I’d wake up with Aiden.

But the dreams ... the vivid details of getting owned and claimed would chase me into dawn with a sweet ache between my thighs. I always assumed it was from going to bed horny. I never thought he was finishing the job.

It did make me wonder why. Why not just take everything when he had me in his arms? Why wait? I’ve read about incubi. I know they usually feed on sleeping humans so maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be done.

I make a mental note to ask tonight. It’s such a tiny thing in the grand scheme of things, like the fact that he let Aiden watch last night. Let him watch me get filled by Warrick’s tail and cum. He saw me naked, saw my pussy open and...

I jump when the curtains snap open and the object of my torment strides in. He stands just inside the doorway, tall and impossibly handsome in the sinking afternoon light. His dark eyes bore into me with a need that mirrors mine.

My heart squeezes in my chest with a longing so deep, it echoes through me.

“Hey.” His voice is a low rasp, and I feel it vibrate through me, a tremor that makes everything in me tighten.

He steps closer, his footsteps slow, deliberate, as if he’s approaching a wounded rabbit. The air between us is thick with unspoken words and every second hits like a whip.

As a man, Aiden is a looming force of strength and silent warning. He’s a wall of toned muscles, long legs, narrow hips, and a chest made for a woman’s head. With his warm, brown eyes and choppy, dark strands, he could have anyone, but I want him to only want me.

“Hey,” I whisper.

His long fingers bump mine as we both reach for the empty vial next to the mortar. Mine glide over his. His warmth soaks into my skin. Up my arm. Pools in my chest. Neither of us let go.

His eyes never leave my face. They trace and roam like he’s filing every inch to memory.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Guilt sends my gaze to the table between us. “I’m sorry.”

But I have been. After that wild display, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I could only grab my things and hurry from the trailer with Mama’s incoherent shriek pounding between my ears. The apothecary was the only place I could think to hide. Not a great place, but the task of crushing herbs and brewing elixirs has always provided a sense of calm, and calm was what I needed.

“Why are you sorry?”

“For everything?” I finally manage, my voice quieter than I intended. My heart pounds, but I force myself to look at him.

Aiden’s gaze is sharp and hot with something I’ve never seen before. The air between us shifts and I feel the weight settle onmy chest. The unbearable tension. Like we’re standing on the edge of a cliff, and one wrong move could send us plummeting.

“What if I don’t want you to be sorry?” His voice is barely a whisper, but it cuts through me.

My breath catches as his words hang in the air like a challenge.

“I have to be,” I whisper, but even I don’t believe it.

“Have you eaten?”

I shake my head. “I’m not hungry.”

I know he doesn’t believe me, and he shouldn’t. I’m starving. I haven’t eaten all day, but the thought of running into him kept me locked up in my little shop.

“Come on.”

I blink at the large, scarred palm extended to me. My hesitation is brief, but I take it like I have my entire life. I lock up the shop and let him guide me out into the bustle of the midday crowd.

The late afternoon chill has me scuttling closer into Aiden’s side. Unlike me — who wears a jacket in the middle of July — Aiden always runs hot. His body temperature is perfect in the winter when Mama refuses to turn the heat on because — like Aiden — she also runs hot. Burrowing into him is like getting enveloped by an open flame.

Wordlessly, he shrugs out of his black flannel and drags it around my shoulders. The residual heat from his body clings to the threads, and I greedily snatch it closer.