Page 77 of Gift from the Stone

Every time I feel them sinking into my thoughts about her, I cling to the way her body felt plastered against me as I moved us through the shadows. The way she wanted to tease Draken and wanted me to be a part of it. The look she gave me as I walked through the shadows to leave her and my brothers behind. She doesn’t try to hide her feelings for me. She leaves her soul open for me to see always, even the dark and damaged parts that match mine.

When my mind gets too loud, I picture those silver eyes locked onto mine while Draken fucks her into oblivion, making those perfect tits bounce and beg for attention with every thrust. That day is so deeply imprinted in my brain, I grow hard every time I think about it. I don’t even know the number of times I’ve beat my dick to the memory.

Every night when I come back home, I sneak in here and watch her sleep, run my shadows over her body, just to make sure she’s okay. I know my brothers know I do this, but they’ve let it go. They don’t push me to come join. And every night I try to tell myself to just crawl into bed, hold her the way they do, embrace her light completely, let it swallow me whole. But I don’t.

I’m still fucking scared of how intimate that’ll feel, but my sassy, fiery little Primary isn’t going to let me continue to get away with it much longer. I see the defiance and determination in her eyes grow increasingly each of the few times I’ve seen her in the last two and a half weeks.

Stepping back into the shadows at the sound of one of their timekeepers, I move through the walls to the breakfast room. Tillman isn’t going to make them all train this morning. There’ll be enough of that throughout the day as we finish our preparations to leave tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

The time has flown by. I might’ve been gone the most over the last few weeks, but Corentin and Tillman have been working nonstop. Even Draken’s been put to work getting the E.F. shifters trained up as well, and I can see the effect it’s had on her. She won’t complain. She knows how important this is, but I’ve observed the range of emotions she’s been dealing with from crying to absolutely raging.

My brothers can fool themselves all they want that it’s just the bond pushing her hard, which I know it plays a huge role. Now that she’s fully bonded with one of us, the other bonds lying in her chest are going to ride her hard until she feeds them all, but that’s not the only reason. I know her better than that.

I can see and recognize the darkness clouding her eyes when she doesn’t know I’m watching; it gets thicker and thicker as the days tick on. Those visions of hers have shown her something daunting, and tomorrow isn’t going to go as smoothly as we hope.

I’ve warned them of that, knowing we can’t ask her directly, so they’ve been putting in as much time and effort to gather intel on the pack as they can and have put security and protection in place as much as possible.

I’ll transport to the outskirts of the pack lands in a few minutes and get the final reports on the ten finalists from Rhett; well, nine as we don’t need reports on Lyker. Then meet them back at the academy and go over them with everyone.

Corentin’s the first to come into the breakfast room, and he’s tense as shit. His body is pulled taut, his shoulders are raised defensively, and that little eye twitch he has when he’s on the verge of snapping is working away. As soon as his sees me, his body drops a fraction in relief.

“I’m glad you came here first before heading to Terravile.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask, arching an eyebrow at his worried look.

“Willow’s in a frenzy this morning. As soon as she woke up, she started asking for you. I thought we wouldn’t see you till after you returned with the reports so that’s what I told her, and she lost it. Be prepared, brother,” he warns, but there’s no heat in his words. He’s amused, so I can only imagine a very pissed off Primary is about to walk in here.

Standing from my spot, I walk over to where he is, waiting for the others to join us. I can hear them down the hall. Draken’s voice travels the farthest with his typical cheery damn tone. I give him a lot of shit for his happy-go-fucking-lucky attitude he always has, but really, it’s my second favorite personality of his.

Right behind his murdering one.

“You’re here.” The strain in her sweet voice reaches my ears and I turn, preparing for the tongue lashing she’s about to give me.

Fuck, at least that’s what I thought was going to happen.

Instead, her delicate, curvy little body collides with mine. I don’t even have to catch her or hold her up. The death grips her arms and legs have around me is holding her up fine.

I freeze for a second, taken aback by her reaction, fighting with myself not to push her off. She never comes to me unless I beckon her or I approach her first. She knows I need that control over how and when I’m touched, so for her to throw herself at me, she’s struggling.

“Primary,” I say softly, trying to get her to lift her head and look up at me. All that does is make her cry. Her whole body shakes as her tears soak through my shirt and into my skin.

A panic-stricken look crosses my face as I eye my brothers, silently begging for some help, and all they do is smile at me, silently laughing at my plea. I have no idea what to do right now. This isn’t a panic attack I can fix by just whisking her into the darkness. This is her bond searching for me, pushing her to be as close to me as possible.

I’ve seen her do this with the others before, but never me. I’ve gotten sweet, understanding eyes, sometimes innocent come fuck me looks. Or the opposite, I’ve been called an asshole and had shit thrown at me, but she’s never thrown herself at me in a fit of tears.

“Where have you been? Why don’t you ever come see me?” She hiccups, causing my soul to clench painfully.

Little does she know, I come see her every free second I get. If I’m in that much of a hurry, I just transport in the shadows quickly, watch her, then transport back out.

“You know I’ve been busy traveling the realm, checking on the other territories,” I remind her. I don’t say it harshly, but by the grunt Tillman just let out, I obviously should’ve said something other than that.

“You don’t even want to be around me.” She wails, causing me to flinch and look at the others again.

Their returning gazes scream, you’re on your own, you did this to yourself. And as much as I don’t want to admit it, I know they’re right. If I had just stayed in her room with her nightly, she wouldn’t be breaking down like this in my arms right now.

“I want to be around you more than anything. I watch you from the shadows every free second I have. I come in every night and go straight to your room to watch you while you sleep. Every waking moment is spent with you on my mind, and you’re the last thing I think about when I close my eyes, sweet Primary,” I whisper as I sit her in my lap, cocooning her in my shadows.

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