“Puhlease,” scoffed Bailey. “She’s always doing bitchy stuff.”
“Yeah, to your snake,” clipped Aspen. “She’s perfectly normal with, and pleasant toward, everyone else. Mostly. Anyway, she’d be perfectly normal with your mamba if the damn serpent didn’t constantly pick fights with her.”
“How about we stop the conversation before it turns ugly,” Havana cut in. “Just watch the movie. Breathe. Relax.”
Bailey sniffed. “Fine.” She slid Aspen a brief look. “But your bearcat is pissy.”
Aspen ground her teeth. “Say that again, I dare you.”
Bailey said it again.
The last thing that Luke expected to find when he walked into his apartment was, as Deke called them, the unholy trinity. Aspen and Bailey were yelling in each other’s faces while Havana ordered them to calm their asses down—something they didn’t do.
He was about to ask what the hell was going on, but then Blair came walking out of the bedroom. Like a crab, a few of her joints displaced. She rushed at the arguing females, who promptly squealed and ran into the kitchen. Blair chased them around the dining table, ignoring their pleas for her to stop.
Havana’s mouth curved into a Cheshire cat smile. Noticing Luke, she said, “Dude, I really like your mate. She is now officially my favorite person ever.”
He felt his lips quirk. “Mine too.”
Apparently done tormenting the other females, his mate stood upright and slid her displaced joints back into place.
Huddled against Aspen, Bailey said, “As much as that freaks me out, it’s also morbidly fascinating.”
Aspen reluctantly nodded. “But please don’t ever, ever do it again.”
Blair only smiled.
Wanting to be alone with his mate, Luke politely ushered the others out of the apartment—which took longer than he would have liked, since they made plans for a movie night at Havana’s place even as they began making their way to the front door.
Finally alone with his mate, he turned to face her. “You know, I would have said that nothing could unnerve either Aspen or Bailey, but they actually squealed just now.” He hauled Blair to him and slid a hand up her back. “I’d like to say that you didn’t creep me out as much as you did them, but I’d be lying.”
Blair chuckled. “Mitch squeals even louder.” She curved her arms around his neck. “How’s your dad?”
“He seems okay. Seems. I’m not buying it. He can’t possibly be all right—I certainly wouldn’t be in his position.”
“I suppose he thinks he’s protecting you by hiding how much he’s hurting; that he doesn’t want to burden you with it.”
“It’s more than that. He holds it all back because he doesn’t want comfort. He wants to feel the pain of my mom’s loss, because he feels that he should; that to not feel it would be the same as being at peace with her death. That’s how I’d feel if I was him.”
Blair frowned. “I wouldn’t want that for you. It wouldn’t be a betrayal if you didn’t—”
“No, we’re not having this conversation. We don’t need to, because I don’t intend to lose you. It won’t happen.”
“Luke—”
“I’d never survive it. I’d venture back into that dark place, and I’d get lost in it. I’d never find my way out. I’d never look for a way out.” Palming one side of her face, he swept his thumb over her cheekbone. “You’re what holds me here. I need you a little too much, really. Need you more than you need me. Sometimes … sometimes it feels like maybe our soul wasn’t split into halves; like instead I got a quarter of it and you got the rest.”
“That’s bullshit. As is the whole ‘I need you more than you need me’ part. I know what it’s like to feel swallowed up by grief. I was like that after Marianna died. I didn’t feel anything close to whole. But then I found you. You became my focus, just as I was yours. You made everything okay simply by being there. You’re an integral part of me, Luke. If you were gone, I’d be an absolute wreck. There’d be nothing—not one thing—that could make me want to live. I need you as much as you need me. Don’t ever think differently.”
Luke stared into those ivy-green eyes, swallowing hard. Nothing and no one had ever gotten to him the way she did. She had a direct line to his heart—made it squeeze, melt, race, even hurt with her moments of raw honesty. Just the same, she was a balm to his cat’s soul, soothing him, completing him, anchoring him.
She was everything that Luke needed; everything he’d never known he needed. She might not be a born alpha like him, but she was his match on every level. She handled him in her own way—rolling with his dominant behavior, demanding to be counted, compromising when necessary, brooking none of his bullshit.