It’s also possible the spell wasn’t all that strong. I still barely have any measure of control over my power.
Magic shimmers over all four of them at once, until they’re human and looking at me with such a mix of expressions that I’m flooded with guilt. They’re carrying packs, which they each shrug off as if by unspoken agreement. Unconsciously, I shift and drop my backpack too. Then I stand still, breathing hard as I face them, hesitant to make the first move.
Archer looks betrayed and guilty, and I know it’s because he was meant to be keeping watch over me. I used magic on him to get away, and out of all the men, I know he feels that cut the deepest. He survived years of magical torture at the hands of a coven of witches, only for his mate to turn around and use her power on him too. His expression makes the bottom fall out of my stomach, and I wonder if I’ve ruined everything with him.
Trystan’s face is schooled into such an expression of determination that I’m worried he’ll never let me out of his sight again. He’s overbearing and overprotective enough without me adding fuel to the flames, which I know I did tonight. Dare’s eyes are hard to read, the lines of his face set and his jaw tight.
Ridge, though, radiates pure, unadulterated anger.
He stalks toward me, hulking and broad-shouldered with his hands curled into fists at his sides. His ash brown hair is windswept from his race after me, and his honey-colored eyes are unblinking as he looms over me.
Fear creeps into my consciousness, and I cringe away from him. I’m not used to being scared of Ridge—he’s the one who has been most like a protector to me, my champion since the night he dragged me out of Devil’s Ditch after I fled from my uncle’s truck. Ridge is firm but gentle, gruff but kind. Unlike some of my other mates, he never gets this caught up in his own fury. But right now, the heat in his eyes smolders hot as the sun.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he roars, throwing both arms out as if to indicate our current location deep in the middle of nowhere.
I gasp at the harsh sound of his voice and back away, everything in me screaming to put distance between me and Ridge’s fury.
But he follows me, advancing as many steps as I take backward. “Why the fuck would you do that? Why would you sneak away like that? Do you have a death wish?”
His voice cracks on the last word, and his fists unclench as his shoulders sag. I realize then that he’s not mad at me. His rage isn’t anger at me for casting a spell on them and running away—it’s coming from a place of fear. Fear for me.
Before I can come up with a response that doesn’t sound pathetic and useless, he reaches out and hauls me into his arms. He squeezes me tight to him, ignoring our nakedness, and his breaths are shallow inside his chest where our bare skin is pressed together. He drops his head, burying it against my shoulder as he shudders against me.
“You can’t fucking leave us like that, little wolf,” he murmurs against the crook of my neck, his words tickling my hair. He splays his hands over my back, fingers digging in like he’s latching on to me so I can’t slip away. “You can’t leave us. We won’t survive it.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. I’m almost unable to speak through the weight of his embrace. Or maybe it’s the weight of my guilt. “I couldn’t let you keep risking yourselves by being near me. Not without trying to find some way to fix it. To control my magic.”
“I would walk into hell with you, Sable.” Ridge pulls away just enough to look into my eyes, though he doesn’t release me. “If that’s what I had to do to keep you safe, to be with you, I’d do it and I wouldn’t look back. I want to be with you no matter what. No matter what you are, no matter what happens.”
A lump
rises in my throat and tears sting my eyes, but before they can spill over, Ridge is kissing me. His kiss is desperate, his fingers hard and bruising on my arms as he drags me against his body and devours me. For the first time, I can feel past his ever-present strength to the vulnerability inside him.
My big, gruff protector isn’t made of stone like he always seems to be.
He isn’t invincible.
I’m his vulnerability. I’m the one thing that can destroy every foundation he has. The realization floors me.
Losing me might kill him. The bond between us is absolute, so strong and all-consuming that I don’t know where he begins and where I end. And it goes both ways. Losing him—losing any of these men—would wreck me more thoroughly than any of the abuse I ever suffered before meeting them. This mate bond runs deeper than anything I could have ever imagined. I need them and they need me to complete each other. We’re a team, meant to be together come hell or high water.
Leaving them, even altruistically the way I just tried to do, won’t ever work. The bond will keep bringing us back together, no matter how far I run. Or the separation will destroy us.
I throw myself into returning Ridge’s kiss, trying to show him just how much I need him. How fucking sorry I am. My tears flow freely now, until I can taste them on my lips. And still, he doesn’t stop kissing me.
I break the contact between our lips long enough to cup his face in my hands and say, “I’m so sorry I lef—”
But he doesn’t even let me get the words completely out before he leans back into me, his mouth hot on mine. He kisses me so long, so hard, so deeply, that I wonder if he’ll ever stop. I get lost in the heat of his skin on mine, in the feeling of his hands claiming my body. My head swims as I cling to him, almost forgetting my name and the reason I’m out here to begin with.
Right now, all that matters is loving this man.
Finally, he pulls away, his breathing ragged, each gasp tearing from his chest as if it hurts him. We stand for a long moment with our foreheads pressed together and his hands rubbing up and down my arms as he composes himself.
Archer breaks the spell as he joins us, his hand wrapping around my elbow. Then he’s hugging me, pressing light kisses to my face, my lips, my jaw. A moment later, Dare is in front of me, his arms strong and sturdy around my shoulders as he leans in for a kiss.
Their combined anger and fear finally starts to fade from the air as we come together, the five of us gathered in a tight knot in the middle of the woods.
When Dare releases me, Trystan turns me to face him and kisses me thoroughly too. His hands slide down the curve of my waist and over the swell of my ass as our kiss deepens. And then he gives one cheek a light slap, making me yelp into his mouth.