Page 41 of Broken Arranged Mate
“Yeah,” I shrug, then bite my tongue, realizing I might be asking too much. “Can you still shift?”
She lets out a watery laugh. “Yeah, of course I can still shift.”
“Do you…not want to leave?”
“I’m just not used to it.”
“I’ll protect you,” I say, and she doesn’t even hesitate, already standing up from the table, something like hope moving into her expression.
“I know.”
Ten minutes later, we’re slipping out the back door of the house and shifting, and Ash lets out a little hybrid whoop-laugh that makes my heart sing, the sound of our paws hitting the dirt and sand echoing through the vast land.
From what other alphas have told me about an omega’s heat, it’s this experience of being trapped inside, not leaving until the waves of pressure subside for them. But I should have known better.
I should have known that together, Ash and I would make something entirely new for ourselves.
Chapter 24 - Ash
Oren leads me far from the house, so we’re running together under the light of the moon, which hangs heavy over the dry desert landscape. Cacti reach up into the night sky like they’re trying to touch the stars, and we dart around them.
I nip at his heels, and he playfully pretends to snap at me, and for a long, suspended moment, we’re tumbling together down the side of a dune, a ball of limbs and fur and sand.
Then, for the first time in my life, I hear a Grayhide’s voice in my head.
Be careful, Oren sends, and the touch of his mind against mine sends a shiver all the way through my body. Then, his words follow, and I digest them the same way. He wants me to be careful—I am something he wants to protect.
Already, this feels like the longest night of my life, surreally so, in the most amazing way possible.
There are so many things that the two of us have left unsaid, but in that house, Oren wasn’t touching me like a man who’d only married for political maneuvering. He touched me like I was something precious, like something he’d waited too long to taste again.
Sand kicks up behind us as we go, the land moving from dense, scrubby ground to the looser, rolling dunes. I’m unused to the land and laugh as I scramble, trying to find my footing.
Okay, Oren sends.This is what I wanted to show you.
He bounds easily to the top of one of the dunes, and I’m reminded that this is his home—that he’s been traversing this sandy terrain since he was a little boy, just a pup. I imagine,when he had his first shift, he was getting the sand between his paws.
At the top of the dune, Oren’s wolf is something from a movie—his soft black fur ruffling in the dry desert breeze, that undercoat of deep red only just gleaming beneath. His muzzle is lifted to the air, and for the first time, I see the tiniest patch of white just under his chin, a little spot that I’ve never seen on him before.
This, more than anything else, feels intimate. To know someone’s wolf as well as I know his body. And with a sudden, sure clarity, I realize this life might be right for me. I can picture the many times Oren and I will shift together, coming out to the dunes to run and play at night.
I picture all the times I’ll get to see him like this. Alive, his true self.
With a flourish, he turns and sort of shimmies down the side of the dune, then leaps away, cascading the sand so it slides down the slope like an avalanche.
Then, the strangest thing happens. A sound, rising up from what feels like the sand itself, a sweet, low harmony.
If you have just the right touch, Oren says, appearing beside me once more,the desert will sing to you at night.
I can’t stop myself—I turn and launch myself onto him, feeling the way he shifts to absorb the impact from me as we tumble down the side of the dune.
Around us, the land sings, and when we land at the bottom of the hill, we’ve shifted back to our human forms. Oren’s hands are light on my hips, and he gazes up at me with warm eyes.
Time slows when I lower my lips to his, and we melt together once more, my homesickness completely gone.
***
I wake up in the morning aching for Oren.
