Page 63 of Claimed By Blood

It has to, right? Surely, we can’t have come this far for nothing.

No. I won’t believe it.

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

FROST

For the first day,all we do is sleep. I’m pretty sure the entire team is fucking exhausted, both mentally and physically. No one is able to summon the energy for more than a quiet day where nothing gets done beyond moving the last of our stuff in and poking around the immediate area. Samuel’s people delivered food and blood to our room, and Silas and Eve sneaked off halfway through the night, only to return stinking of sex and blood.

Any jealousy I had disappeared with the relaxed, happy feelings that floated from amongst the static consuming her end of our bond.

I knew I’d have to share her once I got her back, but it’s only now that I’ve seen her with the others that I’m beginning to accept it. Welcome it, even.

Watching her come apart on Vane’s lap was beautiful. Before, I worried endlessly that I’d never be enough for her. I was a mortal, and she was an ancient creature of legend. No matter how many times she assured me otherwise, I knew there would always be some parts of her that I could never satisfy.

I could never make her relax like Silas does, or draw out the softer parts of her like Finn. Heck, I definitely can’t give herwhateverit is Draven brings to their relationship.

But I don’t have to.

All I have to do is be me, and hope that she can fall in love with me again.

So this evening, I’ve got it all planned out. All I need is for sleeping beauty to wake up. I glance over at where she’s entangled with Draven, having been dragged into bed with him the second the sun came up. The two of them look so cosy that I’m loath to wake them, but if I wait for the rest of the pack to wake up, I’ll never get her to myself.

With that thought firmly in mind, I creep over to them and stroke a lock of her hair out of her face.

She comes awake instantly, without moving or making a sound. Almost like she was never truly asleep in the first place. I have the sudden urge to make sure that she never has to wake like that again. I want to see her bleary-eyed with the perfect comfort of a woman who knows she’s safe in her own bed. I want her to yawn and snuggle back into the covers and mumble about five more minutes.

But our world doesn’t allow for those kinds of tiny luxuries, so I press my finger to my lips and jerk my head at the pile of clothes I’ve prepared for her.

She frowns, her ice-blue eyes narrowing as she tries, and fails, to figure out what I’m up to. She still does as I ask without complaint, twisting out of Draven’s arms like a snake.

When she emerges from the bathroom in the shorts I found in her luggage and turns around to grab something she’s forgotten, I almost come in my boxers.

Fuck, Finn never said he was buying her clothes that would fucking paint themselves onto her body.

I can’t decide if I love or hate him right now, but what aview.

Picking my jaw up from the floor, I usher her quickly out of the door and into the tunnel.

“Where are we going?” she asks as soon as the door closes on the rest of our sleeping pack mates.

Hesitating—because there’s a very real risk she’ll just turn around and leave—I do my best to buy myself time by running a hand through my hair and looking around. Shit, I didn’t realise how nervous I’d be until we got here.

“Frost?”

“It’s a date,” I blurt, then curse. “I mean, if you want it to be, that is.”

Smooth, Frost, real fucking smooth.

“A date?” A shadow flashes through her gaze, and I just know she’s thinking of the corny shit I did when we first started seeing one another. Thoughts of the tiny smirks she used to give me back then—even painful as they were—were the only thing that kept me going while she was locked away.

Those memories are now tainted by the knowledge that our relationship started as a ruse to get closer to her. So I’m reclaiming them for us. Starting tonight, if she’ll let me.

“A date,” I confirm, grateful that my voice is stronger the second time. “That ravine is begging for a moron like me to climb it, and I thought you’d like to watch me fall and break my neck.”

She snorts, and a flicker of hope sparks behind my sternum.

Say yes, Eve. Come on. Say yes.

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