Chapter Twenty-Three

Willa had always heard that it was supposed to hurt, and that certainly hadn’t been an exaggeration. For a moment, she lay in her bed, pressed beneath the heavy weight of Blue’s body, panting with uncertainty. Squirming with discomfort.

“We can stop this here,” he whispered, lifting her hips and sliding a pillow beneath. “I won’t be angry.”

“I want to. It’s just not . . . familiar.”

He chuckled against her ear and laid a soft kiss on the cusp of the lobe. “I hear that changes.”

“Then I want you to.”

“Are you sure?”

“You’re trying to talk me out of it. You don’t want to?”

“What do you think?” He rocked against her, sliding the rigid part of him along her juncture, exciting the stimulated nub even more than his mouth had.

Tasting her like that had been a breathtakingly intimate act to witness, but what they were doing was far more intense. It was how people were created.

“Relax,” he murmured, locking himself against her once more. “I’ll do everything I can not to hurt you.”

“Short of leaving.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Good.

She always had to make people leave before she got attached, and she was tired of it.

He worked himself into her, and pressure mounted as he pushed past the entrance. A sting. A rip, perhaps.

Breathless pressure.

Her gasp when he slid all the way home without warning.

He worked his hand between their bodies, massaging and providing counter pressure to the stretch.

Tipping her face toward his, he took her mouth with a kiss so tender—so possessing—she stopped paying attention to the unfamiliar discomfort below. He kissed as though she was the last sustenance on the planet and like he didn’t want to save any for anyone else, and that was fine with her. She didn’t want anyone else near. She didn’t fear that he’d use her up and immediately forget why she’d even been needed in the first place.

She started with a gasp when he rocked his hips, soothed when he whispered into her mouth, “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“You’re too good for me.”

She could only emit the tiniest of scoffs as her head fell listlessly to the side and legs shook around his waist.

The sting had given way to nervous confusion. Something between pain and pressure, that eased with his renewed whisper of “Relax, sweetheart.”

Trusting was hard, but she managed to concentrate on other sensations. On the soft scrape of his goatee against her cheek and his warm breath. On the tenderness of his hand as he slid it from her hip to her thigh. On the growling, whispered endearments crafted especially for her.

“So sweet, sweetheart. You deserve everything. Anything you want. Tell me, and I’ll make it right. Anything you want.”

She believed him and felt a sort of feminine satisfaction she’d never experienced before when he whispered, “I’m so close. Fuck, you do this to me. Can’t control . . . ”

She didn’t want him to go away. Didn’t want him to peel his body away from hers, to roll off and take his warmth with him.

Instinct took over and she tried to trap him in the cage of her arms and legs. Of her chin hooked over his shoulder. He couldn’t go anywhere without taking her with him.

And perhaps that small shift in position triggered something inside her, or perhaps the sensation building was too intense for her to keep ignoring. Each stroke was fuel, and she wasn’t the one in control of the ignition. She may have been the conductor, but the symphony had taken a tempo she couldn’t keep up with. She couldn’t make out all the layers. Couldn’t tell who was playing what, only that it was fast, and lush, and that even if that out-of-control accelerando and crescendo ended with her in combustion, it would have still been the best thing she’d ever made.

There was a pulse inside her. Vaguely, she registered Blue’s groan and the nick of his teeth against her chin, but those were just the unassuming driving rhythm beneath the frenetic, jaw-dropping climax.

And she was floating, warm, and powerful, and omnipresent. Drifting somewhere else. A pretty green place to land below, stunning cerulean skies above.

So many flowers in bloom.

The laughing, curious, feminine whisper of, “Is that you, Safya?”

So much peace. She’d never been calmer.

Blue’s voice brought her back. She didn’t fall so much as fade from that place, coming to with her lover’s hands pressed to the sides of her cheeks, forehead crinkled with worry.

“Willa?”

“You’re still here,” she whispered in awe.

“I told you I wasn’t going anywhere. You all right? I thought you blacked out, but your eyes were open and you started muttering.”

“What was I saying?”

“I don’t know. Wasn’t English.”

“Spanish?”

“No. I think I’d know enough of that to recognize it. Arabic, maybe?”

“I can’t imagine that would have been it. I’m not fluent.”

He shrugged and slid his thumbs across her parted lips. “How are you feeling? Like a bath might help?”

“I don’t want a bath. I want to stay here. I want you to stay with me.”

Chuckling, he shifted his hips. The uniquely male part of him was still hard when it fell against her belly. More distracting, though, was the warm surge that followed it.

“I think you’ll be more comfortable in the morning if I give you a bath now.”

“Can we just be still for a while? I’m so tired.” And her head throbbed because her mind was racing and trying to chase down the memory of something that she’d just experienced and yet couldn’t visualize. She’d gone somewhere just then. She knew it, but the memory was gone.

“Whatever you want, sweetheart,” Blue said. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

• • •

When Willa opened her eyes again, she was half-splayed atop a hard, lumpy thing, and as her vision cleared, she wondered if she’d cried herself to sleep on the floor again.

But floors didn’t breathe, and floors didn’t smell like sex.

“Oh, good,” Blue said. He slid his phone onto the nightstand and sat both of them up. “I’ve needed to piss for an hour. Didn’t want to wake you, though.”

“What time is it?”

“Seven.”

“Ugh.”

Blue ran a soothing hand up and down her spine, relaxing her even more deeply into an already docile state. “Seems like a good place to spend a morning, but I think you said you had some important stuff to do.”

“I do. I regret that I do. I usually hate days off. I hate having to find ways to occupy myself. There’s only so much I can talk to King. If I’d had the gift of foresight, I would have kept today open.”

“It’s okay. I won’t leave you by yourself for too long. I’ll scoop you up after lunch.” He picked her up beneath her underarms as though she didn’t weigh much more than an afghan draped over his naked lap.

Her cheeks started burning the moment the word lap settled into her mind and her gaze landed on the center ring attraction.

He laughed and set her on her feet beside the bed. “The newness will wear off in time.” He padded to the bathroom and closed the door after him.

She sat on the edge of the bed, scratching her head, and trying to gather her wits about her. She’d slept well, thanks to Blue’s magic touch, but there was something in her memory she couldn’t quite access. Something she’d dreamed or a conversation she’d only been paying half her attention to but suddenly seemed important. It was like a Post-it note in her brain scribbled with a reminder, but the handwriting was undecipherable.

“What was it?” she murmured.

King jumped onto the bed and then immediately off when she cut him a look.

“Okay. I see you. I’ll let you out.”

She slid the patio door open for him and left it ajar while she combed through recent memories, trying to find the place where she’d left something incomplete.

“Ah.” She snapped her fingers and glanced at the hallway. The memory was fragmented, and seeming to fall apart more the longer she thought about it, but she’d gone somewhere else after Blue had stirred her to a peak. There’d been a voice there, familiar somehow, but rarely heard.

“Blue?” she called.

“You all right?” His response was immediate and tinged with an unexpected franticness. He yanked the bathroom door open before the water even finished swirling down the commode, eyes round with concern.

Running a hand through her mussed hair, she took a breath. “I’m fine. I just wanted to ask, last night, you said I was muttering in a different language?”

His shoulders, stiff and high, fell into their natural position with his exhalation. He dragged a hand through his messy hair and retreated into the bathroom. Water drummed in the sink bottom. “Shit, woman. Can’t leave you alone for a minute. Gonna give me a heart attack. Yeah. You were talking to yourself.”

“Was it Greek?”

“Greek?” He stepped out of the bathroom a minute later, drying his hands on one of her many mismatched towels. He leaned against the doorframe casually, ankles crossed, long legs drawing her eyes up his well-honed body.

He was a machine. A gorgeously sculpted machine. It was probably a good thing she’d never paid attention before. She wouldn’t have gotten anything done in six months.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

But other people were looking at him.

“You’re a born alpha. You don’t have to shape-shift for the full moon,” she accused.

He slanted his head and furrowed his forehead with confusion. “Sweetheart, are we having two different conversations?”

“Do you have to be naked all the time?”

“If you want me to put my clothes on, I will. Figured I’d shower first?” He crooked his thumb toward the abandoned bathroom.

“I meant outside the house. I don’t care if you’re naked here.” She might even have preferred the state, though it was admittedly a distracting one. She might have been too hungry and under-caffeinated to be attempting clever insights, but it seemed reasonable that a naked Blue was a Blue who should have been in her bed.

His deep, thunderous laugh elicited a woofing callback from King in the backyard. “I’m not naked all the time. In fact, I don’t know any Coyotes around here who keep their clothes on as much as I do, except Kenny, and that’s ’cause he’s uptight.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’m not.”

She studied her nails, feigning aloofness. “Just something to consider for the next full moon.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Now you were saying. Greek?” Blue returned to the bathroom and found a bigger towel to wrap around his hips.

“My . . . father is Greek.” She felt as though the anvil of truth that had been sitting on her chest plummeted into her suddenly nervous stomach.

She’d never told anyone about that part of herself before. There were some immortals who may have been able to guess who’d provided her with her nonhuman genetics, but they’d never confessed their suspicions aloud.

When she looked up, Blue had inched closer, expression unreadable.

“Greek-ish, I suppose,” she said. “As you may imagine, there’s always some uncertainty about the origins of gods who go by different names in different countries.”

“Uh-huh,” Blue said noncommittally.

“I’d appreciate if you kept this between the two of us. I worry people will ask questions I’m unable to answer or ask for favors I’m unable to do for them. Just because he has power doesn’t mean I do.”

“I’ll respect your secret, Willa.”

“It’s . . . Safya, actually.” She twirled her thumbs around each other and fixed her gaze on the knot of his towel. “That was the name my mother didn’t share with anyone.” She grimaced. “Except my father, I suppose. I’d . . . like if you used it. Maybe then I won’t feel like such a fraud.”

“Safya, then,” he said softly, nodding contemplatively. He sat beside her on the bed’s edge and worked his thumb into the knot at the base of her neck. “It’s pretty. What does it mean?”

“I’ve never thought to look it up. Maybe I will.”

“I might do it myself.”

“Oh.” She liked that he was always so curious and in such a gentle way. “Anyway, I . . . ” She wrung her hands and tried to find the right balance of words. Precision seemed important. “I don’t like mentioning my father’s name or even having it spoken around me. I remember once, before I came to this country, I was having an argument with my brother about him, and I suppose something in that yelling summoned him to us. He’s frightening and petty and mean, and . . . ”

She must have been rambling. Blue had started rubbing her back the way some mothers did to colicky babies.

“Take a breath,” he whispered, moving soothing energy to her that she’d learned better than to fight.

Deep breath in. Slow breath out. Repeating, until her pulse slowed and the swimming sensation in her head abated.

“I’ll . . . I’ll write it down.” She headed to the kitchen for a pen and paper, but he caught up to her in the hallway and pulled her against his body, his lips on her neck, his hand over her heart.

“You don’t need to,” he said. “Doesn’t matter.”

“But I . . . need to tell someone. Do you understand? I’m tired of being this island.”

He didn’t say anything. She feared he wouldn’t consent to letting her exorcise the secret, and she’d have to keep carrying it around with her just like every other trauma she’d borne alone for hundreds of years. But then he put her down, gave her a breath-stealing squeeze, and said into her hair, “You don’t have to, but if you need to tell me, I understand.”

“I want to.” She grabbed his hand to pull him along. They made it to the kitchen, and she started rooting into the clutter atop the table in search of scrap paper.

King bounded into the room, whimpering with his head low and gaze averted.

“What the hell?” Blue knelt beside him, locking his intense scrutiny on the dog’s hind leg.

“What? What happened? I hope those assholes didn’t already—”

He dragged his fingers through the purple globs in King’s fur, hissing immediately before flicking a shard of glass into the nearby trashcan. “Gods, I don’t know if that’s better or worse than what I was thinking. Looks like jelly and part of the jar it was in.”

“Jelly? But, how?” She thought she would have known if her pet of forty years had a sweet tooth. “And what were you thinking?”

“Sparks shit you don’t need to worry about,” Blue through clenched teeth.

“But—”

“Don’t worry,” he said, putting a finger over her lips as though that would solve anything.

She nodded, though, not knowing what else to do.

“And I think I know who tossed the jar.” Voicing a growl that raised the hairs on Willa’s neck, Blue bounded to his feet and streaked down the hall.

“Blue?” Willa was torn between two choices—tend to King or follow. Either way, she was going to fret.

“Just stay there. I’ll deal with it,” he called out.

He let her off the hook, and though she immediately grabbed a rag from the sink and started to carefully wipe away the smears of fruit from King’s coat, she wasn’t any less curious.

Her backyard had a high enough fence that King wouldn’t think about jumping it, and for the most part, the dog went about his business and padded back into the coolness of house. He’d never been hurt in his own backyard.

There was shouting outside, Blue and other muffled voices she couldn’t quite make out. She hadn’t found any broken skin on King. He was fine, other than wounded pride and stained coat, so she headed toward the action.

She had her arms inside her robe and was just about to step through the patio door when Blue came back in wearing only his sweatpants. Quickly, he donned his socks, shoes, and shirt, found his wallet, phone, and keys, and also her standing there.

He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. “Leave the same time you were going to. I’ll find you later. Might not be lunchtime like I said, though.”

“What’s happening?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Blue,” she warned. “We’ve been through this. You can’t shield me from my own life.”

“I can when your life isn’t supposed to be like this.” Rubbing her shoulders down to her elbows and looking down at her with such focused concentration, he took a breath and let it out. “Let me worry about it.”

“That’s not the way my brain works.”

“I’ll tell you this much, then.” He raised her chin and kissed her lips. “Coyotes are opportunists. If it’s not someone from Sparks coming to challenge me—and that may very well happen, sweetheart—it’s going to be somewhere here who needs to be gone. I know I can handle both, but you’ve got to trust me. Your neighbor wants to draw me out for a fight, I’m going to give him one.”

“A fight? No!” She shook her head hard. “You can’t just—”

He pressed his fingertip to her lips. “Yes I can, and I’m going to win, no matter how many dogs he’s got waiting to ambush me. Do me a favor and call Kenny and Lance. Tell them to find me on the tracker app. They’ll know the one.”

“I won’t let you do this. You’re going to get hurt.”

“This is what alphas do, sweetheart. I keep the order. I set the standards for what’s acceptable behavior and what’s not. Just because we’re animals doesn’t mean we can’t be civilized. A few months from now, this kind of shit won’t happen anymore.”

Knowing what she knew, she couldn’t help but be skeptical. The Maria Coyotes were known to be susceptible to groupthink. They were easily impressionable if the person “leading” them was charismatic enough or who promised all the right things. They could turn into a dangerous mob at the mere insinuation that a keg was drying up.

And people from Sparks wanted to hurt him? She wished he hadn’t told her, because somehow it was all her fault.

“Blue . . . ” She didn’t know what she could say to convince him to leave things be—to just stay a little while longer. Deep down, she knew there was no good thing. He was doing his job. The fact that was unfamiliar was proof that the pack had gone too long without good stewardship, and she was to blame.

He kissed her again and dropped his hands from her. “Call them. Now, please. I’ll be fine. Trust me.”

She wanted to, but it didn’t seem fair that she had to.

Didn’t seem fair that she couldn’t have something unfold gently. That she couldn’t have a relationship like normal people. Instead of a slow-burning getting-to-know-you, she got intrigue and danger and . . . fear.

She was used to the fear, though. She just wasn’t used to her being so selfish in it.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Blue.”

Sighing, she found her phone, dialed Kenny’s number, and launched into a rocket-propelled recap of the Coyote issue before he’d even finished saying hello.

He listened to that meandering saga without a word and then, calmly, said. “There’s a bagel special at the coffee shop this morning. Maybe you should pick something up before work.”

“Kenny—”

“Business as usual, Willa,” he interrupted.

She heard car horns and the vendor shouts of Main Street’s Saturday farmers’ market. He was already on the move.

“This situation isn’t so rare that we don’t know what to do,” he said.

“What’s going to happen?”

“I’m going to pick up Lance. We’re going to meet up with Blue. We’re going to have a reckoning. Don’t worry about it.”

“Why is that so easy for you to say?”

“Because I’m with Blue.” She imagined Kenny shrugging. “I lived in Vegas long enough to know what a safe bet looks like, and Blue’s it.”

She hoped so. Even with as long as she’d been alive and everything she’d seen, she was convinced that sure bets and unicorns were in the very same league. Her luck wouldn’t have won her even a dollar in Vegas.