Page 18 of Break The Ice

My eyes widen as he moves closer. He lifts his arms and wraps them around me. I wheeze, everything in me trembling in the wake of the simple gesture. A hug shouldn’t be this powerful. It shouldn’t rip me apart inside. It shouldn’t decimate me.

“You looked so sad. I just thought you might need one,” Callan murmurs.

I lift my arms, clinging to him, and bury my face in his chest.

Yeah, he’s right. I do need this. More than he knows.

Chapter five

Callan

Kit turns for thefourth time in a minute and finally sits up on an elbow and peers at me in the dark. He knows I’m awake, just like I’ve known and have waited for him to start talking. My Kit’s got something on his mind, but it’s better not to push him. He’ll speak only when he’s ready, otherwise, he shuts up like a clam. For all that we’re almost joined at the hip, there are things we just don’t tell each other. I wish we could, but those scars are still raw.

“I like Ryann. She’s really nice.” His voice is soft in the dark, filled with something that might be longing.

“Mm.” I wait, but I have a feeling I know where this is going.

“She’s smart, and she upsets the kids.”

I repeat my noncommittal sound.

“She’s really pretty, too, right?”

Now I pay attention; this is what’s eating at him.

“I think she’s lovely,” I say carefully but honestly.

“We discussed finding an omega, but we never talked about a beta.”

No, we hadn’t. I wish we had. I wouldn’t feel so conflicted right now.

“She fits us.”

This is dangerous ground now. Kit is different from Raider and I. He jumps in head first and to hell with the consequences. Raider may be impulsive when he’s emotional, but the rest of the time, he’s Mr Caution himself. I am always cautious and organised. I know where everyone is and where they need to be.

Ryann is a curve ball. A beautiful one, but I’m not sure what to make of her. She’s got secrets that are obvious, and she clearly travels light. I may have looked in her bag. A pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a wet coat. Her camera equipment, and nothing else.

Who travels to stay anywhere without as much as a toothbrush?

“We need to spend some time getting to know her.”

“I didn’t with you.”

That is true. When I transferred to Ashgrove High School, in that tiny town, where everyone knew everyone except us. All the kids were a little weird and aggressive, but Kit was my first friend. He walked up to me, a full head shorter than me, and smiled. I was thirteen and smitten. I knew I’d spend the rest of my life following him around. My conviction was instant and that strong. Perhaps it’s because I’d just presented, but I just think it was fate.

Raider found us being bullied in the locker room two years later. It, again, was instant. We were fifteen and a pack. No one would have believed us, so we didn’t tell anyone. To the rest of the world, we are Raider’s best friends. Kit is my lover. But no one knows about the pack bonds except that strange beta who walked in and could see it clear as day.

And it was instant. The same way I felt when I met Wren for the first time. Like lightning up my spine. A heightened awareness, the world flooding with colour and sensation. But with Ryann and Wren, it’s complicated. We aren’t fifteen anymore.

“How did she know?” I murmur out loud, irritated that I don’t understand what was so obvious.

Even our parents haven’t picked up on the fact we’ve been in a pack since we met.

Raider pushes open the door and creeps in, crawling up in the middle of us. Kit makes room for him and wraps an arm over his hip.

“You like her, don’t you?” Raider whispers.

I don’t answer because I don’t want to hurt him. Our silence speaks for us.

---