Page 60 of Their Mate
Aidan stirred first, his hand tightening briefly before he blinked down at me. His lips twitched into the ghost of a smile, his voice still rough from sleep. “Morning, lass. Sleep well?”
I gave him a flat look. “Apparently I slept closer to the two of you than I remember.”
Declan made a quiet, amused sound behind me, clearly awake now. “Could be worse. Could’ve been Jamie.”
“Oi, I heard that,” Jamie muttered from somewhere near the fire, not even looking up from the knife he was cleaning.
I rolled my eyes, finally shifting to sit up. “Don’t get used to it,” I warned them, brushing dust from my jacket. “I’m not a pack pillow.”
Declan stretched, utterly unbothered. “Sure you’re not,” he said with a grin that made my pulse kick despite myself.
Aidan just smirked, propping himself up on an elbow. “We’ll see what happens next time.”
I shot him a glare that didn’t have as much heat as I wanted it to. The truth was that waking up between them hadn’t been the worst way to start the day.
Not that I was about to admit that out loud.
Declan pushed himself upright, stretching with a low groan, then glanced down at his forearm. The skin where the Elder Lycan had bitten him—raw, red, and angry last night—looked… different.
He twisted his arm to get a better look, frowning. “Huh.”
I caught the change in his tone and turned. The swelling had gone down almost completely, the jagged punctures knitting together into thin, pale lines.
“That was… fast,” I said carefully.
Declan ran his thumb over the marks, his grin widening. “Guess your bite worked, Aidan.”
Aidan chuckled, still flexing his bad leg to test its strength. “Guess so.” He stood up, putting weight on it experimentally, and for the first time since I’d met him, he didn’t flinch. “Bloody hell, feels almost normal.”
“You’ll never be normal, mate,” Jamie called from by the fire, smirking as he packed his gear.
Aidan’s smile was crooked, but there was a swell of pride behind it. “Give me another day and I’ll be running circles around you.”
Declan flexed his fingers, testing his grip before picking up his weapon. “Good to know I’m not going to turn into a frothing rabid monster anytime soon.”
Edward, who had been leaning against the door frame watching us, nodded once. “The pure wolf bite countered it exactly like Sera said it would, but you two still need to be careful. Healing fast doesn’t make you invincible.”
Aidan smirked. “Don’t worry, mate. We’ll try to stay out of trouble.”
Declan shot him a look. “You? Stay out of trouble?”
That earned a laugh from both of them, the sound echoing faintly in the cold concrete room. The barrel fire had settled into a low orange glow, licking at blackened metal and painting everyone in soft, forgiving light.
Edward kept his post by the door. Logan sat on a crate with a faded map spread across his knee, tracing routes with a fingertip like he could will a safer path into existence. Jamie cleaned a blade that probably didn’t need cleaning, humming some tuneless thing to keep his hands busy.
Aidan strolled slowly around the room, flexing and stretching. Declan rolled his shoulder, the puckered bite on his forearm just a pale scar now. Both of them looked too alive for men who should be dead, and the relief that rose in me was… incredibly inconvenient.
“Leg holding up okay?” I asked Aidan, because small talk was better than admitting I’d woken tucked between them and hadn’t hated it.
He gave me that lopsided smile. “Feels good. Almost like someone didn’t bear trap me on purpose.”
I snorted despite myself.
Declan caught my look lingering on his arms. He turned both of them, letting me see where he was bitten by Aidan and the Elder Lycan. “You were right,” he said simply. “Thank you.”
The words snagged on something inside me. I didn’t want them to, but they did.
He tossed me a canteen. Aidan dug around and produced one of those ancient ration biscuits, split it with his thumb, and handed me the bigger piece without comment, then sat down beside me. It was stupidly domestic, the kind of easy rhythm you only earn by fighting and bleeding together. I wasn’t used to that rhythm. It felt dangerously good.
