Page 64 of Rivers and Roads

I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I simply met his gaze until I was sure he was aware of me, and then I turned my head to the side.

When he pulled his claws back, I felt blood trickling down my skin, and then he gave a distressed whimper deep in his chest. When he tensed, ready to throw himself away from me, I reached up and curled my fingers into his shirt.

“Don’t,” I whispered.

He stiffened and closed one hand around my wrist. When he looked at me again, he was there—he was my Alpha. The love of my life. “Orion, I…”

“You were having a nightmare,” I murmured.

He shook his head, so I reached up with my other hand and grabbed the back of his neck, dragging him down until our noses were pressed together.

“Don’t pull away,” I whispered against his lips.

“I hurt you.”

I turned my neck again, letting him drag fingers over the sticky spot. “It’s already healed. And it’s worth it if it means I got you out of that place.”

He started shaking after a second—not a new occurrence, though each nightmare where he woke with his hand around my throat seemed to affect him more and more. There had only been a few in the cabin, but I had a feeling now that we were home, they were going to get worse.

It was the way of things. It had been like that in war. We stayed together because we needed to in order to survive, and then when we were home—when we were safe—the trauma and pain crept in like a ghost, possessing us until we were no longer ourselves.

I wasn’t going to let him slip, but I’d been through it myself enough times to know that there wasn’t much I could do except be there for him as he worked through it.

“I’m so tired of waking up with your blood under my nails,” he whispered.

I shifted to the side, easing him back down, then I wrapped my leg around his and held him as close as I could manage. “It’s not my favorite thing to wake up to. I can think of at least a dozen more interesting parts of your body pressing into mine than your claws.”

He snorted, but there was no amusement in the sound. “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“Mm. Some would beg to differ.” I grinned at him in the dark, then nipped at his jaw. I knew that stirred something primal in him, teasing his wolf. But it was more than that. It was obvious that Zane hadn’t been able to shake that animal side of him—the way it hovered much closer to the surface than most of us. And I know he was humiliated by it, but every time I engaged it, he relaxed a little more.

I was desperate for him to know that whatever shape he took, when all was said and done, I was going to love him more than I had ever loved anyone before.

“Can I ask you something,” he said after a beat.

I kissed his shoulder. “Anything.”

“Do you ever miss it? Being…ignorant?” he said, hesitating like he was searching for the right word. “When we were heading into war, and you were engaged, believing you were going to come back and have a family some day and settle down. Raise the next generation of soldiers.”

I shook my head, thinking of my ex. It had been almost an engagement of convenience. I had known her most of her life, and it just seemed the thing to do. And the look in her eyes when she scoffed at me and left for the capital, it should have hurt. It should have gutted me. But the only thing that had been wounded was my pride.

I had never loved her, and she had never loved me.

We had been acting the part, and the ending of the war had forced us to come to terms with the fact that everything was changing. And neither of us were ready for it.

“It wasn’t a life I wanted. When she left, I was relieved,” I told him. “I didn’t really think I’d ever find someone who loved me the way I wanted to be loved, but I knew I didn’t want to settle.”

“And now?” he pressed.

He was fishing, and I was willing to let myself be caught. I pushed up on my arm, hovering over him, and I used my free hand to trace a touch over his features. He relaxed into it, his lips parting, then opening as I pushed my finger over his hot, wet tongue. He sucked me down—a promise of what he’d give, if I just asked for it, and my cock twitched in my boxers.

“And now, I’m head over heels for the most gorgeous Alpha I have ever seen. One that loves me even though I’m a…”

“Don’t,” he said, echoing the word the same way I’d said it to him. He pulled my hand away, then gently eased me onto my back before swinging one leg over me and pressing his groin to mine. He was just as hard—his cock gently throbbing as it rubbed through the fabric along the cut of my hip. “You’re nothing short of perfect.”

I closed my eyes and felt something rising between us—a sort of hot, aching desire. It had echoes of the heat, and when his nostrils flared, I realized he could smell it.

“Do you think you’ll ever go into heat again?” he murmured. His hand drifted down my middle, grazing my stomach, then curling around where my cock was straining my boxers.

---