Page 16 of The Sacred Wolf

There you are.

Chapter Eight

Thankfully, the tram was empty this time. No middle-aged couples bickering over whether or not I existed to make me rage against Sebastian for keeping secrets. No young couples canoodling between the windows and their lifted phones to make me daydream foolish things about Sebastian’s arms around me. And best of all, no human pups running around our feet to make me feel even more awkward about the incredibly awkward thing I’d said to Sebastian about having his child in front of every Alpha in New York City.

Okay, fine, the absence of all those people didn’t actually matter. I was still angry, wistful, and mortified all at the same time. This male had been pretending he couldn’t see me for the better part of a month now, but the second he put on his useless spectacles, I started looking at him like… like… Well, let’s just say I was glad we were surrounded by windows not mirrors so I didn’t have to face my own flushed face.

There’s no shame in the urge to mate.

Stop! I barely know him.

Then ask him questions while he can’t get away. Isn’t that how humans do it?

Since when do you care how humans do it?

Since your obsession with their rituals started keeping me from going through with ours.

And on that note, I tuned her out and turned my attention to the towers gleaming alongside the sparkling river so as not to indulge her fixation on the male towering behind us. Looking north, I could just make out the upper levels of my old home—future home?—and looking south, I could see all the way past the UN building to Bellevue Hospital. The top of the Empire State building peeked above its neighbors, and it occurred to me that it would be spectacular to see it from this angle at night, when the spire was lit with blues and reds. In fact, an evening event at the Sanctuary would be amazing. The lights all along the FDR reflected in the swirling surface of the water.

Perhaps a sunset mating ceremony?

With an outdoor reception… I blushed and inched away from Sebastian’s electric energy at my back. Stop putting ideas in my head.

I am an idea in your head.

What? My face scrunched up, but I quickly smoothed it out, not wanting Sebastian to catch me being quite so strange. Except… My memories of our movie date had buried themselves in brain sand after the trauma that followed, but one shyly poked its head out now. Sebastian eating popcorn from my hand like a dog and then telling me his wolf told him to do it. Telling me his wolf had bad ideas. Though it had actually been a very good idea because I found his top-secret silly side utterly irresistible.

Ask him about it.

Sebastian abruptly crossed the tram and sat on the bench facing Roosevelt Island. I worried he had caught me acting strange. Still, he immediately got up, came over to stand beside me this time, and took hold of the ceiling strap next to the one I was already holding onto. Our elbows collided as the tram swayed, and Sebastian winced. Without opening his eyes, he switched to a strap on his other side.

Well, fine, if that’s how it is...

I switched straps, not wanting to be closer to him than he wanted to be to me. Why did he come back over at all if he didn’t want to accidentally brush up against each other? Not that I wanted to either—one of my swirling emotions was still anger—but I wasn’t the one acting like a dog who couldn’t decide where to do his business. He could’ve just stayed on the bench far, far away from my offensive elbow. Maybe I should go sit on it, and then he would have to feel repulsive.

I waited for my hand to let go of the strap so I could do just that, but it seemed to be taking orders from my eyes, which couldn’t stop staring at the stretch of Sebastian’s suit over his bicep as he adjusted his grip, or the strain of his white shirt at his waist where a bit of black shiftskin peeked through. He switched to his left hand, and the material tugged a little higher, revealing the outline of the muscle above his pelvis. My breath stopped, my knees forgetting how to be knees. My hand tightened on the strap to steady me.

His eyes opened then—of course they did—and the sunshine bouncing off the buildings turned his irises into pools of raw honey. I’d never seen him in this much natural light before; our hurried walk to the station had been shaded with buildings and trees, and all of our previous run-ins had occurred at night or indoors. Those glittering eyes swept down my shapeless human costume and slid away, leaving me feeling like Laura Linney’s frumpy character in Love, Actually blowing it with her impossibly hot co-worker Carlos. Probably because Evan had specifically made me watch the Christmas movie out of season to point out the resemblance. And it was uncanny when Sebastian dropped his Alpha guard. The wire glasses, the fluffy hairstyle, the earnest passion simmering behind his stoic features…

“You know, you didn’t have to completely humiliate me in front of all the other Alphas,” he mumbled. “When you came in like that.”

My wolf roared to the surface, filling my human mouth with her fangs. She had her lust, but she also had her pride, and he seemed to be insinuating… Well, when we apologized to each other outside The Sanctuary, it felt like we were quietly agreeing to never mention either of our abysmal behavior inside again, so what else could he mean but...?

“Sorry I wasn’t hot enough for you,” I snarled around my enlarged teeth. “Maybe if I’d actually been invited like the Alpha I’m supposed to be, I would have had time to pick out something nice—”

“Elyse.” The princely authority in his tone cut off the end of my sentence as surely as if he’d brought down a sword. “That is not what I meant. That is so far from—”

The tram went over the rollers at the crest of our trip and swayed, slinging our bodies toward one another. He grabbed a second strap with his right hand just before we crashed. His jaw clenched, and his eyes scrunched shut—probably holding back his own angry wolf. That would be just what shifterkind needed. Two giant wolves photographed killing each other on the Roosevelt Island tram.

“I only meant—” He growled without opening his eyes. “—that it was the first Alpha meeting where my father let me take the lead, and then you barged in screaming at me like an angry mate, all while making it very clear you think I’m lying about being your fated. That’s a very serious accusation.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but the words caught in my throat. He was right, of course. No one else in that room knew the nuances of my feelings for him, and so my vehement denial had made him out to be something I knew he was not. Even at his Alpha worst, I knew he was just a pompous, privileged jerk not a predator. He had acted in good faith when he claimed me, according to our customs, believing whole-heartedly that whatever he was feeling, I was feeling too.

My fangs withdrew, and I swallowed the foul taste of my own righteous fury. “I’m sorry, Sebastian. I never meant to call you a liar. About that, anyway. But you have been keeping a lot from me, so when Tony and Gigi started in on the fated mates thing… I wasn’t thinking clearly. I should have played along.”

“It’s not a game.” Sebastian let go of the straps and lurched over to the bench again. He plopped down with a hollow plastic thud and buried his face in both hands, pushing the brim of his cap up his forehead. After a moment, he splayed his fingers and peeked through, saying, “You’d be hot if you were wearing a trash bag, Elyse.”

A shiver of pleasure rolled through my core. Hot was a human word. Hearing it from his mouth that had just been full of fangs… I crossed my arms over my burning chest and shrugged. “I’m pretty sure Gigi thought I was.”

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