I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard him talk this low before. That deep voice of his, it sounded like a purr as he pushed me into embrace of an armchair and shoved an ottoman under my feet, murmuring something about magnets and trouble. It could’ve been because of how fast he moved, blurring as he darted from one side of his suite to another.
Without looking, he waved a hand and made an arched doorway appear on a blank space of wall. If my mind had been clearer, I would’ve found it curious that I’d never seen this door in his room before.
What I did notice, as the door opened and Dain rushed inside, was that obsidian box of his sitting on a desk towards the back of the room. It was no longer in its original spot, and quickly faded from my mind as the door swung shut and vanished.
Within half a second he was knelt in front of me, his hands holding my jaw steady as he brought a glass bottle to my lips.
“Drink this…”
When I finally opened my eyes, it took me several minutes burrowed beneath the blankets to work through everything that happened. I spent most of that time trying to remember what I had done the moment of the explosion and wondered if it had any effect on the man that started it. As I relived the last few hours, I stopped short when Dain whisked the two of us away to his bedroom. I could tell from scent alone that these blankets I hid beneath were mine, but that wasn’t what I found odd. I remembered the explosion with perfect clarity, but the memory of being cradled in Dain’s arms felt different. Like a rose-colored filter had been placed over it, dulling some things while enhancing others. I remembered feeling weightless in a pool made of midnight tiles, cradled in his arms, but couldn’t remember the pain as he pulled the chunk of wood from my stomach. Rayna stretched as she finally woke but asking her would do no good. She had been knocked out cold
The memory of Dain’s voice filled my head, stealing my breath and fueling the fire in my veins.…ill-tempered and hot headed…He wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t the kind of thing a person was willing to admit in the heat of the moment.I was flushed all the way down my neck. Images of myself naked and nestled in Dain’s arms flashed in my head, covered by a sugary-sweet haze that I now knew was from being drugged. My anger was tinged with a heavy dose of embarrassment, and it was that festering emotion that made me see red.Adley’s cherry-blossom painted lips opened, “I don’t think you should—”It wasn’t a place I pictured in my head as I turned the closet doorknob, but Dain’s face—his hair drooping in his eyes, and his lips tilted in a cocky smirk.I held my breath the moment I stepped through the doorway and into Dain’s bathroom, willing some
I saved myself from swooning or worse, tearing this shirt off my body and leaping into his arms by remembering why I was here. As I looked at his arms, thick with muscle, I could still see myself being carried in them—vulnerable in more ways than one.Without the toned muscle and slender figure of the other she-wolves in town, I became aware of my body from a young age. My breasts made most tops provocative, and my soft stomach refused to flatten and tone no matter how many meals I had skipped or sit-ups I’d done.“You think I’m going to get naked and play with you after what just happened?” I narrowed my eyes at him.Dain’s smile was feline, “you did last time.”“It—it doesn’t matter. Don’t pull that shit again.” My voice wavered and my eyes darted to the far side of the bathroom as I issued my warning. Which was probably pointless considering he had no boundaries and had decad
I sucked in a sharp breath, feeling my face and neck heat. It only worsened when his eyes drifted away from my own, content to explore every place my skin had reddened.“If you already knew, then why did you need me to say it?” I asked, my voice losing its sharpness.“It makes no sense.” He blinked, true confusion in his star-flecked eyes. The emotion made him look younger, somehow. Not nearly as altered by death and tragedy. “You weren’t embarrassed when I had my head between your legs…you were begging for more.”“I was…distracted.” I scowled, hating the way the words lodged themselves in my throat. I had told myself a million times it didn’t matter what anyone thought of me, but I couldn’t seem to make it stick when Dain was involved. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed…but I’m bigger than the average she-wolf. Sometimes…sometimes I’
I was more than pleased to drag Adley along when Dain sent Leslie to let me know tonight’s dinner was now moved into his suite. It was the least he deserved considering I spent the better half of an hour scrubbing dirt from my body and extracting every twig from my hair.After four piss-poor attempts at removing them with magic, I was now left with four small yet unassuming bald spots. With Dain’s words playing on repeat in my head, I couldn’t properly focus on what I was doing. It was much harder to carefully detangle my hair with magic, than it was to simply tear the leaves and twigs out.Dain’s eyes found me the moment he opened the door to his suite. I could tell from the clusters of stars and how bright they were that he was far from letting go of what happened earlier. I could also tell from the muscle that ticked in his jaw that he hadn’t missed the blonde standing at my side, a wide grin on her face.“Oh, don’t b
Sympathy and understanding played across her face like a billboard. I had no clue if her friendship with Aidan meant anything, but I trusted that ours did. She knew from the beginning how much he meant to me, even if what we felt for one another weren’t one in the same.“He’s in…some.” She admitted, and while I was a little relieved the reluctance in her voice made me hold my breath. As if she couldn’t help herself, she added, “you and him…you’re not together in any of those futures.” I knew she was looking out for me, but I had come to terms with this truth before finding out Dain was my mate.“I wasn’t asking for that reason.” I was blushing like crazy, but I couldn’t tell if it were because of Adley’s assumption or because Dain was still watching me. “I know Aidan and I are on different paths, but if you see him in even one of those futures…that mean&rsq
All throughout dinner I looked for signs of fatigue in Dain. Healing Adley had nearly killed me, though I was wounded to begin with. He looked better than alright. Smirking and grinning as though the Russo’s hadn’t made a serious move just hours ago.“You don’t have any clue what they were looking for, do you?” I asked Adley a few hours after finishing dinner, back in the safety of my suite.My stomach was stuffed, mostly from the flaky pastries Dain kept pushing my way, insisting I try his childhood favorites. Somehow I wasn’t surprised to learn that he was a picky eater as a child. His eyes narrowed playfully when I told him it was fitting.I was curled up on my side of the bed, watching as Adley rummaged through her suitcase. Skirts and lacey underwear slid across the floor as she tossed them behind her, digging through the little zippered compartment in the back.“If I had to guess, they were probably looking
Since I had spent the day draining every ounce of my energy both mentally and physically, I was more than ready to curl up in bed. Seconds after my head hit the silken pillowcase I was out cold, but it wasn’t darkness I had slipped into.Colors flashed behind my eyes, like the world was being shaken up while I stood still. It stopped abruptly, but my head was spinning as it fought to catch up. The more I blinked, the clearer things became. Colors took form, morphing into different shapes and textures.I knew this was a dream from the strange floating feeling that encompassed my body, like a tether was keeping me grounded.One glance was all it took to realize I was standing in the living room of my house, right in front of the chipped coffee table we had since before Zack was born. There were still circular spots of coffee dried onto the table from where dad would bump into the rickety thing.I leaned down to touch mine and Aidan’s name, which