Even if Mathias could have spoken, he didn’t think he’d have found any words. He collapsed on the grass like a puppet with his strings cut. Trembling, he tried to push back the wolf-man. He had to shift back, had to turn into his human form so that he could check on Ward, explain everything, make sure his mate understood.
The beast refused to be banished. The excruciating process was exactly the same, like a door that wouldn’t budge even when it had burst open once. Mathias howled in maddened denial. No. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be stuck like this, stuck in a shape Ward could never love.
Even as the thought processed, a wave of warmth flooded him, chasing away the panic. Ward dropped down next to him on the grass, his presence stronger than Mathias’s fear and self-disgust. “Hey. Look at me. Look at me.”
Ward’s soft hands cupped his cheeks—or what would have been his cheeks if he’d been human. Those soft fingers caressed his snout, as if Ward didn’t care about the blood staining his jaw. Hypnotized by Ward’s voice, Mathias met Ward’s gaze, half expecting to see the horror again.
Much to his shock, Ward smiled, his eyes glinting with tears of relief. “There you are. There you are. You’re here.”
Ward’s arms came around Mathias, hugging him tightly. Mathias held on as carefully as possible, wary of not startling his mate. “It’s okay,” Ward whispered. “You’re no monster. You’re still my Mathias, and you’re beautiful.”
Mathias would have deemed the words a white lie meant to soothe his wounded heart, but suddenly, their bond glowed with an onslaught of emotion. Mathias felt Ward’s terror—his fear at witnessing Mathias’s pain. The transformation had hurt them both, but Ward didn’t fear him. It was all in the color, in the gold of the bond and of Mathias’s eyes—the same gold Mathias could see in their shared consciousness, and somewhere deeper, within the third member of their little family.
When he stirred from his strange trance, he was once again in his human form. Ward must have felt it too, because he released a soft, breathless sob. “Wow... That was really something.”
“Yes, it was,” Mathias replied.
He would have probably compared it to what they’d experienced during sex, but they were both still covered in blood, and Vera’s dead body still lay a few feet away from them. To top it off, Mathias became aware of a few other people who hadn’t been there before.
Dean Simmons took a tentative step forward, looking around and meeting Mathias’s gaze in a mix of shock and relief. “Well... I get the feeling I was really lucky at the Gathering.”
For all his words, he didn’t stop Will when the human approached Mathias. To be fair, Will kept some distance between them, likely realizing that Mathias didn’t quite have a good enough grip on his wolf and his composure.
“Are you okay?” the human asked.
“No,” Mathias replied, “we’re not. But... We will be.”