Page 94 of Nest Of Lies

How can I resist? We dance until my cheeks are hot, and I’m sweating. Only then do I slow and wrap my arms around his neck.

I lean my face against his shoulder and sigh.

“You all right?”

“I’m happy. Really, really happy.”

Valen spins me around and around before sending me into a dip. I hang there, laughing until he pulls me up and starts singing at the top of his lungs.

I recognise the old love song, some boppy tune from the era of my mother’s reign. Valen cries out his devotion and ardor, and I laugh until tears run down my cheeks, especially when he jumps up on the coffee table. Kyle and Nick come out all glassy eyed, laughing, and decide to sing as his back up.

Jolie throws him a dollar, and that starts it. He’s soon singing to a room full of drunken bikers and taking his clothes off piece by piece.

A hand touches my side, and I turn and find Ranger and Zaden watching. Ranger holds out another one of those pink alcoholic drinks.

“I can have one?”

He raises an eyebrow, looking at me quizzically. “Sweetheart, you can do whatever the fuck you want. No one here would stop you.”

I take the drink and turn it in my hand before I throw myself at Ranger and kiss him.

A loud woo starts around us, and when we break away, I’m breathless, and Valen is on his knees on the table in a pink g-string singing about how he’s been abandoned.

My eyes bulge at the sight of my underwear on this huge man. My cheeks burn, but I can’t stop laughing. I grip Ranger’s hand, holding on as I cackle.

“Um,” I glance back and forth, unsure what to say, but he looks damn good.

Zaden puts a hand on my shoulder. “It’s a thing. Just let him be. The more you make a scene, the more he’ll feel the need to do it. And he stretches the elastic.”

“Prior experience?” I ask and roll my lips to hold back a laugh.

“Yep. He likes my tighty-whiteys.”

I burst out laughing and find that Ianto, Mills, Ranger, and Valen are watching us. They have a warm, happy look in their eyes. Contented. The dangerous edge to the pack is slumberous, and I realise I want to be that for them. I want to make them smile and give them happy moments, the way they’ve given me happy moments.

“What?” I ask and arch an eyebrow. I finish the pink drink and put the glass down.

“You just…” Ranger trails off, shaking his head. He turns and sits down on Ianto’s lap, kissing him in a long, slow, lingering kiss that gets me hotter than I’m ready to admit in public.

“They are happy, Lia,” Badger says when my pack has wandered off, talking and chatting with people. “You make everything around you a little bit brighter. I’m not sure you even realise.” Badger gestures to me, and I follow him outside and onto the porch. I sit beside him on the steps.

The night is full of stars, but it’s warm and seems mysterious. Like anything could happen.

“They lived for your pranks. You have made them so happy for so long, and now I’ve never seen them like this.”

“Like what?”

“Content. Happy. It’s hard to explain, but those alphas were turning hard, year after year. But with you here, the shells are coming off.”

“I love them, too,” I admit in a whisper. “It’s scary, but I think I have for a long time.”

“Good,” Badger says and lights up a smoke. “Love them, be fierce, be what they need, and don’t betray them.”

“I would never do that.”

He pats my knee and looks up at the stars. “When I look at the stars, I miss my wife.”

“What happened to her?”

---