Page 13

THIRTEEN

Reed

I blinked down at Fiona. The look of shock she wore surely mirrored on my own. Her normally pale, slightly golden skin tone was gone, replaced by a gorgeous blue. If I were speaking in terms of art, I’d say she’d been stroked with Prussian Blue or perhaps something closer to cerulean. But I was no artist, and all I knew was she’d turned the dark of stormy seas and angry skies.

She was the ocean and the storm, and for the first time since I’d met her, I could sense something inhuman about her.

My wolf was as entranced as I, and my eyes started to glow as she looked up at me, her familiar features slightly sharper, slightly more exaggerated. She was stunning.

“It was all true,” she whispered, eyes wide as she looked down at her hand, flexing and turning it, then looked back up at me. “Everything my great-grandmother said. They locked her up, Reed, and everything she said was true .” Her wonder and shock at discovering more about her powers faded to sorrow so quickly, I nearly missed it.

She started to weep, deep, racking sobs as she buried her face in her hands. I tried not to focus on how strange it was to see one blue, one cream, instead wrapping her up and pulling her into my chest.

“I’m so sorry, pretty girl, I’m so sorry.” I rubbed her back and held her as, one by one, my pack mates quietly got up from the table and filtered out, giving her—us—privacy to process.

“I still don’t know what I am,” she whispered after a while, after the sobs had faded to hiccups, then silence. “I… I don’t even know what the book says. All it told me was to touch it. But the voice is so quiet, if it’s trying to tell me something else, I can’t understand it. Does this mean I’m part mermaid? In cartoons, their top half is human, though. I don’t understand, this all feels crazy, and I just?—”

“It’s going to be okay,” I finally said, tilting her chin up so I could see her face.

“But—”

“No buts. I don’t think we can definitively say anything yet, except I think you may have some affinity to water. You’re absolutely not crazy. You’re gifted . And hopefully, with time, we can figure out how to read that book. Or at least research the symbols on the outside, so we have a specific species to research.”

She bit her lower lip between her teeth, and I tugged it free, soothing over it with the pad of my thumb. Slow swipes back and forth until she settled. “It’s been a long, tiring day. Why don’t we head back to my room and get some rest? Bring the book, and we can keep working on it tomorrow, okay?”

“I ruined your shirt,” she said, sorrow and shame overpowering her scent like a cloud as she stared at the tearstained fabric, shaking her head.

“You could never ruin anything of mine.”

She snorted, rolling her eyes at the statement. My wolf didn’t like that, didn’t like the self-deprecation she seemed so prone to.

Frankly, the man didn’t like it either. I held her chin between my thumb and forefinger, leaning in close so she could only focus on me, so I could feel her panting breath across my lips.

“It’s true. I don’t think you understand, pretty girl. I covet your smiles, of course. Your touch? Intoxicating. But more than that, I covet you . All of you, even the tears. I want the ugly right alongside the beauty. I want every facet of you, with nothing held back. If you anoint my shirt with your tears, I will wear them with pride. And one day, when I’ve earned it and you mark my skin with your teeth, I will consider myself blessed to be bitten by a creature as wild and wonderful as you. Whatever you want of me, you have it. Whatever you need, it’s yours. No matter what.”

She was still, then, and I began to worry I’d said too much, too soon. I didn’t know how to exist in half measures, and we’d barely met, after all. Holding back, though, felt like a lie.

Because my feelings? They were intense. My wolf didn’t care if we didn’t know her yet. We would. I wouldn’t stop until I knew every single thing that made my mate tick. He wouldn’t stop until she was ours.

Fiona curled her fingers into my collar, not letting me escape her, as if I’d ever want that.

There was something new, wild in the depths of those mismatched eyes when she said, “Take me back to your room, Reed.”

I didn’t make her ask again. I waited for her to clutch the strange book to her chest and then levered her up by the thighs, anchoring one hand on her lower back as I stood, her head on my shoulder.

She was peppering kisses along my throat, the tiny touches like little flames, branding me everywhere she touched.

I didn’t see the landscape as we crossed the courtyard. It was all a blur between the library and my temporary bedroom. But when the door clicked shut behind us, she wriggled free of my hold. The book, she carefully deposited on my desk, then turned back to face me. Her hands were behind her, gripping the top of the desk chair like it was a lifeline.

The position thrust her breasts forward, and it took everything in me to keep my gaze locked with hers.

I flipped the lock on the door, and she seemed to make a decision. She kicked off her shoes, then backed toward the bed. There was a determined look in her eye that I didn’t quite know how to interpret. But when she reached down for the hem of her shirt and began slowly peeling it up over her head, I groaned.

Every inch of skin she bared was beautiful torture.

Because now I knew what that look meant, and just as much that I couldn’t indulge it.

She would regret it come morning. And I couldn’t ever let her regret our first time. And damn, I knew that if I let her finish stripping down, laying herself bare, I would never be able to resist her.

“Fiona.” Her name was a command, a reprimand, as much as I tried to keep it gentle.

She flung the shirt free, exposing the skimpy bralette she wore. The tops of her breasts were right there, on display for my greedy eyes. And I drank her in. How could I not?

But I crossed the room in a flash, pinning her hands at her sides before she could start peeling off her pants.

“Not yet,” I whispered against her ear, pressing a kiss to the feverish skin right below it, finishing it with a sharp nip.

She gasped, arching in my grasp at the tiny sting of pain. I groaned, dropping my forehead to her hair, pulling in her scent, the sweet, heady arousal I found there nearly driving me to throw chivalry to the wind.

“Why not?” she asked, no small bit of impatience adding a snap to the words.

“Because the first time I take you, it won’t be because you’re sad and confused. When I’m ready to own you, it will be because you’re mine, and you know exactly what it means to surrender to the wolf.”

She shuddered, pressing her face to my neck and inhaling, that wild part of her craving my scent as much as I did hers even if she didn’t understand why. A tiny nod, that was all she gave me, but I took the assent, and drove her back onto the bed, following her down until our chests were pressed together, our faces buried in each other’s necks. I held my weight on my forearms, not wanting to crush her, but wanting her to feel me over her, protecting her, cherishing her as she drifted off to sleep.

And if our hands wandered in the night, stroking and reassuring, owning just a little bit more of each other with every stolen touch, we were only putting each other back together, keeping the darkness at bay.