Page 80 of Depraved
I reach out and caress his face, bopping the dimple in his chin.
He gives me the world’s softest, sweetest, most perfect kiss.
“Hello, mate,” he whispers, repeating that delicious word back to me.
I’m unable to contain my smile, which is as giddy as a little girl with an Easter basket racing against her brother. My hand moves upward, and I trace the soft fuzz of his short blond hair, sighing contentedly as he leans into my hand. For a minute, we just drink in the joy of being together. Being together peacefully, without threats or alphas looming over us.
Of course, moments like that were made to be ruined.“Where’s Black?” Jonah asks, glancing around the old-fashioned bedroom. My smile stiffens slightly; Black’s been avoiding me since my declaration yesterday. Or, maybe I’ve been avoiding him. Still, I know exactly where he is. Where he always is. Burying his feelings and worries underneath a mountain of paperwork. I haven’t bothered to stop by.
“He’s in his office,” I tell Jonah.
My beta gives me a look—one that tells me he knows I’m being stubborn about something. I deflect it by standing. “You must be hungry,” I say, “let’s go get you some food.” My mate can’t argue with that. No male shifter can; they’re always hungry. So he peels off the covers, tosses on some house shoes and a robe Matthew provided, and lets me lead him down the hall. We pass by a healer coming out of another room.
“Who’s in there?” Jonah asks, craning his neck.
“Warcraft,” I say in a low whisper as we come to the staircase. I push back the flowing seventies-style sleeve of my shirt and slide my fingers along the handrail as I tell Jonah, “He’s not doing well. One of those Night Wolves nearly severed his spine.”
“Fuck. He’ll recover, right?”
I shrug because I don’t really know. The healers’ faces were always taut and drawn whenever they left that room. “I fucking hope so.” Guilt might crush me otherwise. “We’ll catch the fuckers who did this,” Jonah declares.
I glance back up at the stairs to see him stopped, his normally calm demeanor taking on a hardened edge. It’s strange and unnerving to see Jonah that way; it reminds me of a show I watched where a criminal turned a butter knife into a shank. He used to be all softness, but now, there’s a different side to him too—a hard confidence that wasn’t there before. I think it suits him because it seems like he can finally see his worth.
“Okay,” I agree.
When we get to the kitchen, it smells like bliss. Jonah and I eat some brilliant breakfast burritos with Matthew, who tells us all about the gossip in the human world that’s the fallout from yesterday’s giant fight.
“The news is calling it a mafia fight. They suspect Black is some kind of mafia don and is running a drug ring or something.”
I roll my eyes and finish a bite of my burrito, savoring the egg, bacon, and potato mix for a second. After I swallow, I wag a finger in the air as I lean toward the other two. “First, never tell him that. He’d love that comparison way too much. Secondly, does that mean we’re going to have FBI agents or something sniffing around?”
Matthew shrugs. “Maybe. But the pack has a couple of alphas that work there, so I don’t think anything will come of it.” He gives me a sly look.
“You know everything.”
“Yup. There’s also a lot of videos bopping around social media of werewolves.” Matthew speaks demurely as he brings his coffee to his lips.
I cringe at that. Dammit. There is no bomb-sniffing dog explanation that would cover that up.
“What’s the damage?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Luckily, with all the tech today, there are two camps: the conspiracy theorists who love it and think it’s real, and the disdainful who think it’s all doctored video.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. “Goddess bless all the fake videos out there.”
Matthew nods. “Nobody was still shifted when the police got there, thank goodness. So it’s just a couple traumatized witnesses.”
I set my elbows on the cold marble countertop and prop my hand under my chin. That’s just another idiotic mistake I made with this plan. It was midday. I wish I’d have thought it all through better. I wish I could have trusted Black. My eyes drift toward the door of the kitchen, thinking about the fact that the alpha is just down the hall.
I’m sure he hasn’t slept.
Probably hasn’t showered.
The fucker doesn’t stop to take care of himself enough. It will all be damage control. At least he isn’t planning funerals this time.
Jonah stares steadily at me for a minute before rising from his stool and holding out his hand. “Come on.”
He doesn’t say anything else, but I let him take my hand and lead me because I want to get out of my own head. I’m willing to do whatever he wants just so I can stop feeling this strange mix of uncertainty and regret in my stomach. They don’t taste good; it’s like I’ve swallowed a pairing of cinnamon and broccoli. Add on top of that the fact that I kind of put things out there with Black, put on the line the type of relationship I want to have … yeah, I might need a run. I might need a four-hour, brutally exhausting sprint to stop whatever’s going on inside of me.
