“Don’t be,” he replied belatedly. His smile, so fucking bright, appeared and disappeared. “Jesus, Cyn, I never thought that’d ever happen again. I’ve been poring over the memories of you, of the way you feel, like an old bloke would his war photos, trying to fix it in my mind. I…” He took a long breath in and out. “I’m not gonna hassle you for more, but that was…” His gaze speared into mine, pinning me to the spot. “That was fucking everything.”
And it was. I didn’t need to reply, couldn’t say a thing, just stood there, until finally, he pulled back and started putting me through the basics of knife fighting.
I could have done with a knife right now. I sat in the passenger seat of Brendan’s car, fidgeting. Something to split my skin, let all the calamity building inside me out, would have been just dandy, as I felt too full, too tight.
“It’ll be OK,” Bren assured me, taking his hand off the gear stick to grab my hand and squeeze it. No more of a gesture than what his mother had done, but it didn’t feel the same. We both knew that what was coming wouldn’t feel the same either.
If I was antsy on the drive over, that was nothing compared to when we pulled up at the club. Brendan parked on the street, seeming to know going into the parking garage was not gonna be OK, taking my hand and walking us into the side entrance. A staff member saw him and approached, but he waved his hand in response.
“I’m gonna take Cyn to see Rhys and then we’re leaving. If you want to still be breathing in the morning, you won’t be telling Orion or Marcus about that,” Brendan said with a growl.
He seemed like an average guy, Brendan, and then he brought me bags full of weapons and spoke to other people with a kind of controlled ferocity I could only gape at. He waited for the man to nod, then drew me deeper, deeper into hell.
Because that was where Rhys was, or purgatory at best. The smell hit me as soon as Brendan unlocked the door, and he paused, looking at me apologetically before walking in first. Just in case there was a threat, he put himself between Rhys and me, a wall of muscle and determination.
We were on the wall. That same big screen TV I’d seen Marcus and Orion together on played a video on repeat. I could only stare at it, wide-eyed. There was me, a shadowy figure in the low light, rearranging fabric into my nest, my now expert eye sniffing at my previous efforts. Nesting was a part of me, and I was starting to learn my preferences there. It was assumed that omegas liked silks and satins, velvets and furs, but I didn’t. I like half destroyed fabrics—cottons that had been worn thin and smooth, open weaved knits and things that stretched around me, as tight as I needed to replicate their embrace.
But Rhys didn’t watch this with me, the replay of our mating. He was a dark lump on the bed, partially covered by a mess of blankets. I heard his long slow breaths, heard the little whimpers and cries and felt them pricking at my skin.
If this were a fairy tale, we had it all wrong. It should have been me sleeping the slumber of the dead, with him, the handsome alpha prince, leaning over to kiss me awake, but as I crept closer, I guessed it made sense. I didn’t want to be found, discovered, awakened, not anymore. I wanted to do the awakening.
Didn’t I?
I moved to the side of the bed and saw the matted, greasy fall of Rhys’ hair. It wouldn’t feel like feathers anymore, it would catch on my fingers and leave a residue. But I dropped lower as Brendan moved restlessly around the bed’s edge.
“Rhys.”
That came out in mouse whisper, so it was no surprise he didn’t respond. I swallowed hard and knelt down on the mattress, freezing when he began to shift. His face emerged from the matt of hair and his pillow, his nose questing. He had a scent of me.
“Rhys.”
I was much firmer, louder now, and his brows creased, his eyelids fluttering. He was swimming up out of sleep, about to crest.
“Rhys.”
That time was different. I wasn’t a mouse or a friend politely inquiring after his health. I was his mate, estranged and forced away from him, the bite he’d left healing long after the rest of me was still bleeding.
“Rhys.”
I placed a hand on his shoulder, ready to shake him if that was what it took. The part of me that had wedded itself to him was done waiting. Pain had kept her back, whipped her and forced her deep into her burrow, but she was no longer cowed. Cyn and Rhys might be having issues, but the omega was before her alpha and she wanted out.
He reared back, a blinking monolith, a massive hand reaching for me, snagging me around the waist and dragging me under the ripe smelling bed linens. His body covered mine, surrounding me, providing a wall between me and the rest of the world, but he didn’t see me, not yet. The alpha was in control, growling at Bren when he got close, which allowed Rhys to come online. His eyes blinked madly, as if he didn’t believe what they were telling him. Finally, he said, “Cyn?”
Chapter 30
“Um…yeah. Hi.” OK, so far, so bad. “Bren said—” A low growl at that. “OK, big guy. I need to talk to Rhys right now. You in there somewhere?”
“What?” he replied, shaking his head, t
hen frowning. “How the fuck did Cyn get here? Did you bring her, Bren? I told you—”
“Yeah, you did, but she countermanded your self-destruction orders, and going forward, I listen to her. If I’m gonna be a spear carrier, I’m doing it for the nicest smelling one in the room, and newsflash, that ain’t you.”
“Shit.”
Rhys was in the house and he was off me, shrinking back in the covers at a speed that was dizzying, but he wasn’t moving well. I saw it as he settled gingerly against the wall, when he scrambled for the remote, as we both watched it happen on the TV. On screen Rhys covered me with a kind of assurance that had me fidgeting in the sheets, pushing my neck up, and then—
“So that’s how it looked,” I said in a nervous tone, going for a smile and not really managing it. We all looked like frightened kids, wide-eyed, wary, and wondering what the hell was going on.