“You are. I can feel you blushing.”
I bit the side of his neck in retaliation but stepped away. I wanted more, but apparently two virginish prudes and a feral wolf wouldn’t take the hint and leave.
He went back to digging in the box. The lines on his forehead appeared again.
“Everything okay today?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You?”
“Yeah.” It was something we asked each other. Kept us honest. “Felt good. Being back in the shop.”
“Told you it would.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah.” I sat on the bed next to the box he was digging in. “Elizabeth and Jessie see that girl off okay?”
“She got picked up this morning,” Mark said. One of the Omegas. Not like him or Carter. Not infected. A regular girl bitten by a rogue Alpha last year who had turned Omega after being abandoned. She’d been placed with a pack up in Washington. She was the twelfth we’d sent to another pack. There were only a few noninfected Omegas left. There wasn’t any rush. They could stay here if they wanted, or we would find them a home.
The infected ones, they needed to stay as close to Ox as possible. At least until we could find my father. They needed the Alpha most of all. Carter and Mark were better off. Their bonds with the pack were stronger, even if they did have violet eyes. The threads between us were tenuous, but they were holding and becoming more fibrous every day. It would be enough until Robert Livingstone showed himself.
And he would. That much we knew.
Mark growled in frustration, and his eyes flashed. He dropped something back inside the box. It sounded like it broke.
“Hey,” I said, reaching out to grab his arm. “It’s okay. Take a breath. What are you looking for? I can help you find it.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. I saw a hint of claw and fang. “It’s not… I know it’s here. I know it. I just can’t remember where I put it.”
I tugged him toward me. He resisted, but only just. He stood between my legs, breathing in through his nose and out his mouth. I waited, rubbing my thumb over the back of his hand, thinking.
He settled eventually.
We’d caught it early enough this time.
“Sorry,” he muttered, obviously frustrated.
I shrugged. “It’s okay. It happens. You do the same for me.”
“It’s not—”
“It is,” I said fiercely. “It is the same, and don’t you try and tell me otherwise. Remember what you told me? What we would be for each other?”
He softened, and it felt green. “I’ll be your hands.”
“And I’ll be your sanity.”
He leaned forward then. He kissed me. In our room, as cool winter sunlight filtered in through the window. It was sweet and warm, and I’d never wanted anything more.
“Sap,” he muttered, kissing me once, twice, three times.
“Just as long as you don’t tell anyone.”
“Secret’s safe with me, Livingstone.”
“Damn right it is, Bennett.”
We grinned at each other like fools.
But that was okay too. We’d earned it. Earned this.