Page 62 of Their Mate

“Fine,” I said, and it felt like stepping onto thin ice that had somehow held my weight. “One moment.”

Aidan’s smile was soft, but his eyes shone with victory. Declan’s hand tightened around mine and then eased, like he remembered I was skittish and chose not to spook me.

I leaned in, just barely, until my shoulder brushed Aidan’s. Declan shifted so our knees touched. The fire crackled. The world didn’t end.

Maybe I could be Watch and still let this in. Maybe I could be blade and bond both.

“Tell me something else,” Declan said, still close enough that the heat off his skin felt like a fire brand against my skin. “Not about missions. About you.”

“It’s a short list,” I said.

“Then start small,” Aidan murmured. “Favorite season.”

I huffed. “Winter. Easier to track. People make mistakes when they’re cold.”

Declan grinned. “Romantic.”

“I didn’t say I was fun,” I said, but the corner of my mouth traitorously lifted.

Aidan’s eyes warmed. “You like quiet places. That’s why you sit near the edges of camp, why you kept to the back when we were moving through the tunnels.”

“You profiling me?”

“Observing,” he corrected. “It’s how I keep people alive.”

Declan nudged my boot with his. “He meansyou.”

“I knew that,” I shot back, but I didn’t move my foot.

Edward was a statue at the door. Logan pretended not to notice any of us and failed.

Declan tipped his chin at the faint scar on my forearm. “That one?”

I glanced down. “Rope burn. First extraction I led. We were too loud, and I paid for it.”

“Did you get them out?” Aidan asked.

“Yeah.” I rolled my sleeve back down. “Didn’t feel like a win though.”

“Some aren’t,” he said, like he knew the shape of that experience.

Declan leaned back on his hands. “Alright, my turn. I can make stew out of almost anything we find that isn’t actively trying to kill us. You’ll hate it the first time and ask for seconds the third time.”

I snorted. “Confidence.”

“Practice,” he said unabashedly.

Aidan’s mouth tugged. “And I can read a storm from the way the clouds billow in the sky.”

“Cute party tricks,” I said. “I can field-strip a rifle blindfolded.”

Declan’s brows went up. “Show-off.”

“Jealous?”

“Absolutely,” he said, shameless and sweet.

The bond hummed low and steady, not the lightning strike it had been when we first locked eyes, but a pulse I could almost pretend was my own heartbeat. Aidan reached for my hand, slowly enough for me to know he was coming, and turned my palm up. His thumb drifted once across the callus on my trigger finger, a thoughtful, grounding pass.