Page 21

ASHER

S he blinks between us, the sense that she’s overwhelmed clear in her wide eyes.

“ Yours ?” she questions, eyebrows furrowed as she looks from Tatum, to Wylder, to me, and then Lincoln. She doesn't linger there long, though, the scowl on his face makes sure of that.

Whereas Wylder rocks back on his heels, pride radiating from him. “ Ours ,” he repeats, confirming what we’re all thinking, and she shakes her head in disbelief.

“Do I get a say in that?” she asks with eyebrows raised.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to deny her, just as I did before, but the reality is, I want her to want this and forcing it doesn't achieve that.

What I see when I look at her is more than this moment, more than this period of time, more than the blood kin curse. Claiming her without consideration, although it gets my cock hard as fuck, is not how I want this to go.

“Do you need a say in it? Haven’t you been ours for a while?” Tatum asks, cocking a brow as the room hangs suspended in silence.

Her jaw is slack as she stares at my brother, and as innocent as his question is, it cuts deeper than that.

“She always needs a say. If we commit, so should she. We’re nothing but all in, and that means all of us,” I finally call out, breaking through the tension rippling around the room. Tatum rolls his eyes at me while Polaris’s cheeks gain that usual pink hue.

She likes that. She likes being seen, considered, taken into account. Something so simple and easy makes all the difference to her.

Lincoln clears his throat, scrubbing the back of his neck with his eyes set on our girl before us. “Say no, Midnight,” he murmurs, and she scoffs. Yet there's no surprise from her at another one of Lincoln's outbursts.

“You would like that, wouldn't you?” she states, and he shrugs.

“I agreed, didn't I?”

She bands her arms around her middle, adding an invisible divide between us as she tilts her head at him. “That doesn't mean anything from you,” she retorts, and I sense the hurt in her eyes, but the pain is just as clear in Lincoln’s gaze too.

It’s a rare sight to see, one Polaris probably doesn’t even realize, but I don't interject because she's not wrong. If he's going to be better, he needs to see that his actions have consequences. This is one of them. The only person who can heal the damage he’s done is him.

Worried our Alpha is leading us off track, I clear my throat. “Do you want to be ours, Silver?”

She gapes at me with wide eyes. “I-I don't know.”

Fuck.

“What don't you know?” I push as gently as I can, trying to understand the situation from her perspective.

She sighs, but the tension that coils around her doesn’t ease with the motion. “Anything… everything,” she admits, and I sense something in her tone. The way her breath hitches and her pulse quickens just a tick has understanding settling in my chest.

“Does this have something to do with Blaze?”

She shrugs, but I sense the tension that lingers in her muscles, keeping her coiled tight.

I don't like vampires. None of us do. As wolves, we were raised to see the world as factions and the thought of sharing her with anyone outside of the four of us, let alone a vampire, feels absurd.

Never mind that she's bound, that's not an obstacle we can remove.

That's set in stone, just as it would be if one or more of us were to mate with her.

If I have to concede to still be a part of this, whatever this is, then I'm willing to consider it all.

Fuck, we literally just made Lincoln call fifth to acknowledge we know the vampire is caught up in whatever dynamic this is, but it seems that’s not registering strong enough to our witch.

“What do we need to know about that?” Wylder asks, seemingly on the same page as me as he interrupts my thoughts, and she shrugs again.

“Honestly, I’m still trying to put all the pieces together,” she admits, shuffling nervously from foot to foot.

The five of us stand stoic in her room. Our defenses are high, but I feel like if I ask her to take a seat or give any form of direction right now it will break the moment, and there might just be a chance for us to figure some things out here.

“How about you explain it to us so we can figure this out together?” I offer.

She rubs her lips together nervously until Tatum steps forward, his little finger extended as he breathes. “Pinkies.”

The two of them interlink their little fingers, the action saying more than words can, and the tension eases slightly from her bunched muscles as she exhales, eyes set on Tatum.

“He has a coin.”

Fuck.

Understanding stretches between the four of us, each wolf glancing from one to another as Tatum remains connected with Polaris. “That changes everything,” he states, and Lincoln huffs.

“That changes nothing.”

Tatum pays him no mind as he keeps his focus fixed on Polaris. Just like Wylder and me.

“Is it the same as ours?” Tatum asks and she nods.

“Yes. He showed it to me a while back. It's one of the memories he hid from me with compulsion,” she offers, and although the knowledge of it kicks my heart rate into overdrive, the fact that she’s sharing is everything.

With his free hand, Tatum gently runs the back of his fingers down her cheek, proving to her that he's here for her no matter what, easing even more of the tension around her, and she melts into him.

I want it to be me that she falls into, but I get the feeling that if I take a step toward them, it could tip the balance we seem to have established, so I plant my feet shoulder-width apart and lock in.

“What else did he hide from you?” Wylder asks, hands flexing at his sides, and she offers a tight smile.

“The bonding,” she offers with a light snicker.

There’s a hint of humor there, but I can't get a read on how she actually feels about that.

Although, it makes sense why he would hide that.

Even though it's confusing as hell, it explains why she's never been pulled in his direction knowingly, since the information was hidden, and why there was no inkling for us either.

What it doesn’t explain is why he would compel her to forget, but the only person who can offer us that answer is the vampire in question, and I don’t think we’re quite ready for a conversation just yet. Acknowledging him is one thing, accepting him is another.

“Anything else?” I ask, and she drops her hands to her sides, releasing Tatum’s finger.

“Uh, when I was at Florentines, I was friends with Sian,” she starts, and Wylder holds up a hand.

“The vampire?”

“Yeah, Terence too,” she adds.

“The other vampire?” Wylder clarifies, and she nods. “The one that Sian girl was looking for at the hospital?”

Polaris shrugs. “I don't know.”

“The one I… had some fun with?” Lincoln interjects, and Polaris cocks her brow at him.

“You mean the one you beat the hell out of?” she corrects, and he shrugs.

“What about them?” Lincoln asks, distracting away from the finger being aimed at him.

“Well, Sian had a boyfriend, B, or Benjamin, sorry, and when we got here, he was declared a human by the chalice. But from the moment we left the assembly hall, I didn't see him again.”

I frown. Sure, there are four different factions on site, and it's not a small campus, but it's fairly easy to cross paths with the same people again and again. Especially when you're in the same age group, which leads to some of the same classes.

Polaris clears her throat, making it known there's still more to the story. “Well, not until I recently found him in my room, but at the time, none of it made sense. It was only when Blaze gave me my memories back that I could digest it.”

“What else was he hiding?” Wylder asks, impending rage brewing beneath the surface until Polaris offers him a soft, genuine smile.

“Nothing bad. Not about him, at least,” she states, slightly bewildered by that fact herself, more so than us.

Lacing her hands together, she takes a deep breath.

“The first memory he hid from me was of him taking me to the vampire dorms to see if Benjamin was there. I don’t know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that he was because he was chained to a bed on the edge of death, nearly drained of every ounce of blood. ”

“Fuck,” Tatum curses under his breath and Polaris’s mouth sets in a thin line.

“He was chosen,” I murmur, and her gaze snaps to me.

She nods. “If that's what it's called, yeah.” Tatum reaches out to tuck a loose tendril of hair behind her ear and she tilts her face to look down at the floor. “What makes it worse is it was Sian who chose him.”

“What the fuck?” Wylder blurts, just as surprised as I am, and she nods.

“The third memory he hid from me was of him taking me back to the vampire dorms, only that time, he didn't lead me down into the basement. He took me to his bedroom.”

The tension immediately thickens, each wolf uncertain of where this is now leading, but if she senses it, she doesn't show it. “Ben was there, alive and… fine, just like he always was.”

Relief floods my veins at the fact that he hadn't stolen a memory of taking her back to his room to do fuck knows what with her, potentially against her will. That’s the kind of shit that shouldn’t be hidden by compulsion.

“But you can't take a chosen,” Lincoln grunts, interrupting my thoughts, and Polaris shrugs.

“He did, and he has.”

“For you,” Wylder states, and her eyes latch on his.

“Yeah.” Her heart races a little with the acknowledgment. As if it’s bewildering to her that someone would do something crazy for her, as if she’s undeserving, and I make a silent vow then and there to remove that self-doubt.

“Why?” Lincoln asks, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and she gulps.

“I don’t know.”

“Because he loves her, obviously,” Wylder states, making her eyes widen, disbelief framed by shock.

She shakes her head, looking at the floor once again, but it only lasts a moment before she gathers herself. When she lifts her head back up, she settles her stare on Tatum.