Page 29

TWENTY-NINE

Reed

I chalked up Fiona’s quiet mood to exhaustion, and tucked her into our hotel room bed early the night of our arrival. After that, it was a simple matter of contacting the dwarven ambassador, and letting her know of our request to see the king at his earliest convenience.

The next morning, though her color had returned, she still kept me at arm’s length.

There was nothing I could recall to make me think I’d hurt or offended her, but after a delicious but silent breakfast, I towed her into a quiet enclave in the hotel’s lobby, leaving the others to entertain themselves for the morning.

“What’s wrong?”

She bit her bottom lip and looked away, clearly not wanting to tell me, but I had her boxed in, and I wasn’t letting her escape until she told me.

Relationships thrived on communication; I’d lived long enough to see plenty crumble from a lack of it. I wasn’t going to let that hurt us.

“You can tell me anything, you know,” I whispered, pressing a tender kiss to her hair.

She shuddered under the touch, then lightly pushed me back with a hand on my chest. Her eyes were damp with tears when she finally spoke.

“You can’t kiss me like that anymore, Reed. It’s not safe. I nearly killed us all yesterday because we got carried away. I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you, or any of your pack mates, for that matter. They’re lovely people, and they don’t deserve to be in danger just because you had the bad luck to be fated to me.”

My blood turned to ice, my veins threatening to fracture with each blow from her lips.

“Stormy girl, no. Control takes time. I won’t ever touch you or kiss you if you really don’t want me to, but yesterday was an honest mistake, and you corrected it.”

Her scent turned bitter, like burnt sugar. “How long are we going to keep calling it a mistake when it keeps happening? That’s the second time I endangered innocent lives. It’s my job to make sure there isn’t a third. We have to keep our distance until we figure out what I am and how to control the monster inside me.”

“Whoa—hang on a damn minute.” I nabbed her defiant chin between my thumb and forefinger. “You are not a monster. Monsters don’t care who they hurt. That is clearly not the case here.”

“You don’t understand what I feel inside. You just don’t.” Her words broke on a sob, and I swore she was tearing my heart out of my chest with every little sound of sorrow.

I’d chosen the wrong location for this painful a conversation. I scooped her up, ignoring her squeak of protest, and strode out the back door of the hotel, ignoring the light dusting of snow on the ground. She had a jacket, and the cold didn’t bother me unless it was below zero. Wolves ran hot.

We reached a beautiful garden full of native flowers and wild-looking plants, hardy to the first frost of winter. The mountains in the distance towered over a rickety-looking wooden bridge and the small, lily-pad-covered pond it spanned, and I didn’t stop until we reached the middle of it.

The garden was deserted, as we’d arrived in the off-season, and the hotel was basically ours. It was private, peaceful, and beautiful; the perfect place to have a hard conversation.

“You’re right, I don’t know or understand everything you’ve been feeling,” I started after I’d set her on her feet, bracketing her body with mine against the railing of the bridge. “But I’m willing to listen. To learn with you. Don’t shut me out.”

Another shuddering sob before she spoke. “I’m scared. Scared to hurt you. And you can’t say that won’t happen, because it already did. And it nearly happened again yesterday. You might have survived a fall on your own, but from thirty thousand feet plus, inside a burning jet? I don’t know if even wolves can withstand that kind of damage.”

I stroked her hair, thinking.

Her fears were real, valid. I didn’t want her to feel that they weren’t. All I wanted was for her to let me face them with her.

“So we practice. Practice control, practice reining things in when your power starts to get out of hand. It’s possible. And before you argue it’s not, think about Brielle and what she’s dealing with right now. Fuck, my own brother went feral for years . Never shifted, completely lost to the wolf. He only came out of it a few months ago when he found his mate.”

She stilled, craning her neck so she could see my face. “You want to practice being intimate? And working on my control?”

“If that’s what it takes, that’s what we’ll do. I’ve never been afraid to put in the effort for something important to me. And you? You’re the most important person in my life.”

Fiona blushed, and I wished for at least the hundredth time that we had our mental bond so I could get a peek at whatever she was thinking.

“Won’t that be unsatisfying for you, though? Yesterday, you didn’t even get to”—her voice dropped to a whisper, even though we were alone—“come.”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. She was ridiculously cute with the unexpected shy side.

“You think I only enjoy getting to feast on your pussy if I also come?”

“I wouldn’t have put such a fine point on it, but… yes? I’ve never had a boyfriend who was willing to do anything for me without reciprocation. Most didn’t even put much effort into foreplay at all.”

I growled, narrowing my eyes at the mention of another man in bed with her. “Luckily, you’ve left the boys behind and found a real man. Because real men know that your pleasure is their pleasure. No, I won’t find it unsatisfying to practice your control with you. No matter how long it takes for you to be comfortable. We’ll go as slow as you want.”

She swallowed, drumming her fingers anxiously on the bridge railing. “Did you know that there’s a bridge in Virginia where if you kiss your partner after crossing it, they say you’ll be together forever?”

Nice subject change, but she didn’t say no to the idea. I was calling that a win.

“I did not know that. What exactly about this moment made you think of it?”

“There’s lots of folklore around bridges. Love lock bridges, the bridge of sighs, the kissing bridge. The more I learn about real magic, the more it makes me wonder if there’s any truth to it. And also, if this bridge has any magic.”

I leaned closer, pressing my chest to her back, speaking low and slow against her ear when I answered. “Why don’t we make our own lore for this bridge? We’re both magical, so I think it can be as magical as we make it.”

She hummed happily, clearly putting some thought into what she wanted to assign the rickety little bridge. After a moment, she turned and laced my fingers with hers, lifting our joined hands in front of her face so that the backs of our hands were facing each other. Her brow was furrowed with concentration when she spoke.

“Our hearts and hands are bound as one, from the rising to the setting sun. Love never harms the one we hold dear, hear this day from my lips to your ear. Our kiss is our pledge, our love a shield. By the power of water, our bond be sealed.”

When she kissed the back of my hand, I felt a zing of power snaking through my arm, and when I mirrored her move, kissing the back of her hand, my lips burned with the same strange magic she wove between us.

“Do you think it worked?” she whispered, as if afraid to break the spell.

“I think it did.”

“Good. Now anyone who walks over this bridge, holding hands and sharing a kiss, will never harm their other half.”

“It’s perfect.”

And then, it started to rain.

By the time we walked back to the hotel, we were soaked to the skin. I suspected she had called the rain, though I didn’t voice my thoughts as we took turns taking hot showers and changing into warm, dry clothes. As much as I wanted to get my hands back on her, I also knew the importance of taking things at her pace.

Her trust was more than enough for today.

* * *

The next few days passed in frustrated, if uneventful, boredom. We hiked with the rest of our group, ate delicious food in the little village, and stayed up too late around the communal fireplace in the evenings over bittersweet cappuccinos.

For most, it would have been heaven. An Italian getaway in a romantic hotel with my fated mate. And on one level, I loved it. Fiona was a beautiful enigma, one I was enjoying getting to know in a lower-pressure environment.

We shared little bits about our lives, our pasts as we lay in bed each night, fingers intertwined in the darkness.

But I was a man of action, and it didn’t sit well with me to be waiting around when I was on an important pack mission. We needed that stone, and we needed it today .

Or, at the very least, to get negotiations underway.

I slipped out of our room silently on the sixth morning, letting Fiona sleep in. I had the empty hallways to myself in the predawn light, and after ordering up a fresh cappuccino from the hotel bar, I called the dwarven ambassador.

She answered on the third ring, just when I thought I was about to be sent to voicemail. “Hello?”

“Anebara. I’m looking for an update on our request to see King Cysernaphus.”

“Well, good morning to you too, Alpha Monstru. You’re as awful as your surname implies before the sun has even risen.”

“Women with Blackkhert as their surname shouldn’t throw stones.” I lazily sipped my coffee, unconcerned about pissing her off after waiting nearly a full week for a lousy audience. It was downright insulting, and I was done being insulted for the sake of diplomacy.

“The king is a very busy dwarf, and?—”

“Ambassador, let me save you some trouble.” I put the delicate mug down on the bar, gripping my knee in suppressed fury instead. “If the next words out of your mouth aren’t ‘Of course, Alpha Monstru, King Cysernaphus is anxious to see you today ,’ then I’m going to have to call the high alpha and let him know that the dwarves aren’t interested in real diplomacy with wolf shifters, and let him escalate it himself. As he’s newly mated, you can imagine it’s not high on his list to have to drag himself away from his new mate to speak with you, after you’ve given his chosen representative the runaround for no Goddess-damned reason.”

There was a heavy pause.

“King Cysernaphus would be delighted to host your delegation tomorrow evening, for a proper welcoming feast.”

“Excellent. We’ll see you tomorrow at seven.”

I hung up the phone, then lifted a finger toward the bartender for a refill.