Chapter Five

 

“Oh, good, now hell has frozen over, too,” Remi murmured.

Maybe it really had. Ash stared dumbfounded at the trio of giants who strode through the snow. Grim was up front but only by a few paces, and Kamp and Rhett were at his flanks. They looked exhausted, half-frozen, but all three of them were matching. With smiles.

“Whaaaat the heeeeell?” Juno whispered from where she was draping holiday lights around the porch railing of 1010. “Y’all are seeing this, too…right?”

“Does it look like friendship?” Ash asked.

“Yep,” Remi said from where she sat crisscross applesauce on the bright red plastic lawn chair Ash had dragged onto the porch.

“Then yes. I see it, too.”

“Maybe they’re playing a prank,” Juno theorized.

When Ash looked at her friends’ faces, they were matching, too, with suspicious, squinty eyes. Ash believed in the boys, though. Sure, they liked to try to kill each other, but they could also be friends.

She and the girls had been setting up the perfect holiday picture right in front of 1010, complete with cases of Pen15 Juice on the porch and bright holiday lights all over the singlewide trailer, and a trio of giant candy canes propped up against the porch. They’d tried really hard to track down a baby donkey to put some reindeer antlers on, but had failed. None of the neighbors would even let them borrow a tame-ish cow. Two had told them they knew Rogue Pride was full of shifters and didn’t want their livestock eaten. Juno had hung up dramatically both times and then said she was going to go eat a cow from each of their herds on principle, but she was also on her period and a little grumpy. She wouldn’t really do that. Probably.

It was okay, though, because Kamp’s son Raider got to visit a couple weekends before the war with the Sons of Beasts, and he and Remi had knitted a little Santa suit for their pet naked mole rat named Waffles with Peanut Butter. Waffles for short. Remi currently had the hideous little critter bundled in her jacket to keep it warm for the picture, but the thing had bitten her six times already. Ash was good at counting. That bald little rodent was very angry inside. But Ash liked her. Waffles reminded her of Grim, and she thought Grim was very cute, even when he was bitey and grumpy. They should’ve named her Reaper Junior instead of Waffles with Peanut Butter. Just thinking about waffles made her tummy growl.

Grim was so hot in his work jeans, scuffed-up boots, wool-lined jacket undone to expose a red and black flannel underneath, and gray beanie covering his mohawk. He was tall and strong as an oak, long powerful strides, arms busting against the seams of his jacket, ax in his hand. This was like one of those movie scenes where a big mountain man was coming in from a blizzard like the cold weather didn’t affect him at all. Or like when a hero walked away from an explosion without flinching. All three of the boys looked so cool. Until Kamp turned and kicked Rhett’s ankle mid-stride, and he tripped and fell face-first in the snow. He cussed a lot so Kamp kicked more snow on him and cackled like a hyena. And then Grim told them they were both worthless. But before that, they looked very cool.

The second Grim looked up and caught her eye, Ash took off. She didn’t want to not be touching him for another second, so she bolted through the snow and leapt through the air as he held his arms out. She wasn’t one of those skinny girls, but she had faith in her man to catch her. And catch her, he did. His chuckle was deep, growly, and sexy, and he nipped her neck immediately as she hugged him up tight. Goodness, she loved this man. He smelled so good, so familiar, like home.

“I missed you all day,” she announced much too loudly against his ear. Grim hunched his shoulders, so she said, “Sorry, I’m just excited to see you.”

He eased her back onto her own feet in the snow and kissed her so sweetly she knew what color his eyes were not. The Reaper must’ve been sleeping because he didn’t allow gentleness. His eyes would be the brown of his human side or the green of the good lion.

“I love you I love you I love you,” she murmured, rubbing her nose against his.

“Sweet mate,” he rumbled, hugging her tighter.

“Get a room,” Rhett groused as he stomped by.

“How was your day?” she asked Grim, ignoring grumpy Rhett.

He heaved a frozen sigh and said, “Better now. It was long and so fuckin’ cold up there, but the boys did good and we hit our numbers.” He grinned but ducked his face from her fast.

“You’re proud,” she sang softly.

“Hell, yeah, I am. We rarely have good work days. I didn’t fight anyone today. And no one made excuses to quit early.” He cleared his throat and his eyes grew serious. “I’ll have to give the Reaper the body tonight, though.”

“I’ll Change with you.” She cupped his cheeks and grinned at him. “Grim, I’m proud of you.”

He snorted. “Woman, you say that if I lower the toilet lid after a piss.”

Ash shrugged. It was true. He’d been a bachelor for so long that she fell into the toilet in the middle of the night once because the lid was up. Now he always tried to lower it. Heck yeah, she was so proud!

“I have a question,” he murmured. “A couple questions, actually.”

Oh, that sounded very serious. “Okay. I’m ready.”

“One, do you want to go on a date with me tonight? And the Crew. A Crew date. I owe the boys a beer.”

“Gasp!” she exclaimed. “Yes! What are we going to do?”

“Well, we have to drive a shipment of logs down to the lumberyard, but I figured we could all pile in and go to that tourist bar right off that little mountain road that leads into town.”

“Meaties on the River?”

He laughed and gave one nod. “Yup, that’s the one.”

“Yes! I want to date there. Crew date. I mean, I want to do that. I mean, let’s do a date there.”

“Good. And two,” he said, his eyes dancing. He was the most handsome man in the whole world when he smiled like this. “Do you want to register to be my mate?”

Ash froze. Just…her body stopped working or feeling or responding. Even her lips. In her head, she was thinking, Yes, Grim, I would love to register to be your mate for all the public to see. But all that came out when she forced the words was, “Waffles is a bad rat.”

“Agreed,” Grim said, dropping his chin to his chest. “Did you hear what I just said?”

Ash tried and failed to inhale a deep breath. Did the oxygen disappear from the mountains? Breathing was like sucking on a vacuum right now, and her lungs were screaming. Finally, she wheezed out, “Yes!”

Her eyes were burning. Or freezing. She got embarrassed because she didn’t like people seeing her all weak and crying, so she buried her face against the impossibly sturdy indention between his pecs.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re shivering.” He wrapped her into his open jacket. “Are you cold?”

“Nope, I shake when I cry. Don’t think that’s lame and leave me.”

“Woman, I just asked you to register to me and the Crew. As my mate. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you never bit me, so I was confused. Sometimes when you’re gone all day, I think maybe you don’t like me enough to bite me, and then I get embarrassed that I bit you first because I think it’s supposed to be the boy who does it first, but my bear just did it and I thought I messed everything up and—”

“Aaaash,” he crooned, gripping her by the arms and easing her crying, tear-soaked, sobby, make-up smeary face away from his chest to look at her. Great, there was mascara all over his shirt.

He ran his thumbs under her eyes and cupped her cheeks. “I’m scared to bite you because of the Reaper, Ash. I don’t want to hurt you more than I have to when I claim you. I’ve been waiting for him to settle down. You think I don’t want to give you a claiming mark? I stay awake every night you spend in my bed thinking about it. I want you bound to me. I just don’t think the Reaper can be trusted with something like that. Not yet. This paperwork would announce to the whole world that you are mate of Grim and member of the Rogue Pride Crew, though. The whole Crew is registering—”

“Not me,” Rhett called from where he was scraping his boot off on the bottom stair of 1010. “I hate you all today.”

“He’s just hungry,” Juno called out. “Carry on. None of us are listening!”

Ash could barely make out Kamp whisper-scream, “Rhett, shut the fuck up.”

Grim glared at the Crew, all milling about the front of the trailer, trying to look busy but not really doing anything. Remi was just plugging and unplugging the Christmas lights and Juno was inspecting the snow on the porch railing.

Grim muttered a very bad cuss word under his breath and pulled Ash by the hand back toward the woods, farther away from the Crew. “So I guess what I’m asking is for you to be mine, but to be patient because our mating story will just have to be a little different than other pairs.”

“Like no claiming mark,” she said.

Grim’s smile was tiny and sad. “I wish I could do just one thing normal, Ash. I want to give you the world, and you deserve for our pairing to be exactly the way you want it.”

“No.” Ash lifted her chin, planted her feet, and crossed her arms. “I don’t want that. I don’t want the same story as everyone else because you are different and I am different, and together we are different. And that’s okay. Yes, I want to ride in the log truck and help you drop off the lumber and eat and drink at Meaties on the River with you and my other four best friends—”

“Don’t forget to include Waffles!” Rhett called.

“My five best friends,” Ash corrected. “And, yes, I want to register to our Crew and to you. And then you’ll be mine and I’ll be yours and we will officially bang for the rest of our lives. Whatever we decide to do with claiming is our business and is perfect for us. You aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re protecting me.”

“You really see me, don’t you?” he asked softly.

“Yes, and I love everything you are. Reaper and all. I’m an accepter, remember?”

“You’re perfect, Ash.”

“Oh no, not me. I’m a mess.”

“Not to me. Your mess is beautiful. To me, you’re the perfect match.”

She giggled. “I’m not a match, silly. I’m a girl.”

He belted out a laugh and swatted her ass, guided her back toward the Crew. “I didn’t mean a match that you light. I meant someone who fits me.”

“Oh. Yes, I fit you very good.” She waggled her eyebrows so he would know she meant it in a perverted way but every time she did, her nose flared uncontrollably, so she probably looked weird. But he didn’t look concerned about her facial health. He just chuckled a lot. And that was a victory, because when she’d first met Grim, he had very, very little laughter in his life. And now that happy sound came easy. A big part of her hoped she had something to do with that.

A good man deserved laughs. Grim had The Bad in him, sure, but The Good was way bigger.