“Pish-posh,” I scoffed—an expression I’d stolen from Ben. Most of his British words were NSFW, but I liked “pish-posh.” “It’s a bruise. It’ll go away. And you promised me sex in the shower.”
“I think that was you promising me,” he told me.
“You, me, who cares?” I grabbed his hand and dragged him back to the shower. “Nudge.”
It was a big shower, plenty big enough for two.
“No fair deploying the WMDs,” he pretended to grump. “Nudge” was our code word, never to be resisted but also not for overuse. But I could tell he approved of my plans no matter what he said.
“When you are dealing with a big bad wolf, you have to deploy all the weapons you have,” I explained, turning on the water.
I did not wince when the water stung my cheekbone. He saw it anyway, putting one hand up to protect my face.
“I did not expect joy,” he told me, kissing the sensitive skin just behind my ear.
“What?” I asked, distracted.
He pulled back and met my eyes, his own dark chocolate, the pupils wide with passion. “You bring me joy,” he said clearly. “I never expected this. I don’t deserve it—but I am claiming you for my own.”
“Well, yes,” I told him. “I thought we’d established that when I claimed you for my mate and then my husband. I get you. You get me. No take-backs.”
He laughed. Kissed me.
I buried my face against him and just breathed in. He brought me joy, too. But he also brought with him this steady certainty that I had someone in my corner.
When I was a teenager, my home had been torn away with the deaths of my foster parents. My foster mother had died trying to become a werewolf. Unwilling to live without his mate, my foster father, Bryan, killed himself, leaving me alone at fourteen. I spent the next two years living on my own on the outskirts of the Marrok’s pack, under its aegis if not its certain protection. When I was sixteen, I lost even that.
I’d learned to stand on my own two feet by then, though. I’d lived a mostly solitary life for years and thought I was content. Then Adam showed up and turned my world upside down.
I wrapped my arms around him, taking in his solid presence, this man of duty and solid strength, this man who loved me when he could have had anyone. There were no words for how much I loved him. At least no words that I knew. But I did know how to show him.
That was joyous fun for both of us.
When he carried me out of the shower a limp, thoroughly loved mess, he whispered, with a growl in his voice, “No take-backs.”
—
Uncle Mike’s was a pub run by fae for the supernatural denizens of the Tri-Cities. From the outside, it looked like a somewhat-seedy dive located in what had been an old warehouse in an industrial area of Pasco, not a place where anyone would expect to find a pub.
There were quite a few bars and pubs in the Tri-Cities where the tourists could meet some of the fae—carefully selected to make good impressions. There was even one pub that was currently the setting of a low-budget reality TV show about tourist and fae interactions. Uncle Mike had opened his pub for the tourist trade briefly, but the need for us to have our own place, where we could be ourselves, was too great. Petitioned by his usual customers—and a few of the more unusual ones—Uncle Mike had closed his doors to the general public once more.
By the time Adam and I arrived, most of the pack was already in the private room that we’d reserved even though we’d left them the mess at the corn maze to clean up.
They greeted our lateness with unrestrained hilarity—since some of them had overheard my earlier proposition to Adam of a shower with benefits. Their humor was tempered by an undercurrent of cheer that bubbled through the pack. Knowing that Adam and I had a strong bond made the wolves feel safer. Sometimes the pack’s keen interest in my... no, let’s be honest, in Adam’s sex life made me uncomfortable.
But I understood. Werewolves have one place of safety, and the Alpha is the center of it. Adam’s strength and stability were the core around which our pack thrived. Adam had had a rough few months, and anything that made him happy was good for the pack. Our lovemaking was not and could not always be private when it was so important to the pack’s survival.
The night was filled with moment-by-moment retellings of the fun and disasters of the evening, with Sherwood the star of the show. He had not given anyone easy victories, making Zack’s triumph especially sweet. We’d missed it, but apparently Zack’s team had hoisted him over their heads in the parking lot and carried him into Uncle Mike’s in triumph.
Our lone submissive wolf often shied away from attention, but Zack looked relaxed and happy tonight. I noticed various pack members walking by his table so they could high-five him, pat him on the shoulder, or even just casually ruffle his hair. Like happy Alpha wolves, submissives made the pack safer, too. Zack’s quiet contentment spread over the room like a blanket in winter. With the exception of Warren, I noticed, with faint worry.
Warren was usually as imperturbable as any dominant werewolf I’d ever known. But he was visibly more tense than he’d been at the corn maze. I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. A little space had opened around him where he sat in his usual place, right next to Zack.
Zack lived with Warren and his human mate, Kyle. I mean lived with like a roommate, not like a roommate. It had started out as a temporary arrangement, but none of them were making any effort to change matters. It made me feel better that our most vulnerable pack member (besides me) was living under Warren’s protection.
Like Warren, and despite a lovely interlude-with-shower, I was more than usually out of sorts. After we’d dressed, Adam had told me the real reason he’d decided on an after-the-corn-maze party. I had not been happy to learn he’d been keeping a few things from me.
I nursed my limeade and kept my seat while Adam wandered around the room, doing his part to keep the cheery atmosphere going. Which was smart of him, because I might love him, but right this moment I was pretty unhappy, and by holding back information, Adam had made himself a convenient target of my ire.