I almost tripped over Tim and the other goat as I sped the last few metres to the cabin. I slammed the door open and stormed across the living room.
Aster stood in the bedroom, his face beet red. I held out my hand.
‘Can I please have my phone?’ I heard the growl in my voice, and hoped Aster would chalk it up to being out of breath from charging into the cabin.
‘It’s, um, Bonnie.’ He passed it over. His eyes flicked to mine, and if I didn’t need to get this phone away from where he could possibly overhear any more of Bonnie’s stupidwords, I would hold him to my chest until his heartbeat calmed and his face cooled. I had to settle for gripping the side of his neck before stomping out of the cabin.
‘I heard what you said,’ I snarled through gritted teeth aching to elongate into fangs.
Bonnie laughed. ‘Did you also hear that I didn’t get an answer? Are you going to give me the goss, little bro?’
I paced a few more steps away from the cabin, then closed my eyes and took long breaths. ‘What do you want?’
‘I can hear you doing that deep-breathing shit so you have the patience to deal with me, you know.’
I took a longer breath. ‘What do you want, Bonnie?’
She huffed, like I was ruining her fun. ‘It actually does relate to the question I asked Aster, if you must know. The full moon’s coming up. I wanted to check you’re going to be able to control yourself up there all alone with your lover boy.’
My mouth dropped open. So much was wrong with what Bonnie said, it was hard to unpick what to challenge first.
‘We smelt you all over him when he came down for lunch. Which, by the way, will happen again soon. And it would be oh so nice if you would deign to show your face this time, treasured sibling of mine,’ Bonnie barrelled on, apparently unaware of the speechless indignation she’d caused. ‘I wanted to check in, as your beloved Alpha, and see if you need a buffer up there when all your instincts go wild and the moon makes you extra wolfy.’
‘No help needed,’ I snapped. ‘Thanks for calling.’
I ended the call and pressed hard on the power button. I didn’t like turning it off, since I wanted Bonnie to have a way to contact me in an actual emergency that wasn’t a spine-tingling howl, but I needed an hour or two when she couldn’t mess up anything good I’d built for myself.
I dropped my phone in my jacket pocket and grabbed at my hair.
I couldn’t believe Bonnie would question my self-control. Even as kids, I’d always been restrained, the one who didn’t start stupid fights when the moon was bright and its pull impossible to ignore. Dad said that might be why I struggled to shift fully. That required a raw and unharnessed connection to our more animalistic side I was too in control to allow.
I scrubbed my hands back and forth over my head. Bonnie wasn’t concerned about my self-control. Not really. She knew it was impeccable. No, she was using the moon as an excuse to pry. She must have been burning with curiosity since Aster had lunch with the pack, my scent overlaying his. I was surprised it took it until now for her to stick her unwelcome nose in. She’d expected a reaction when she’d scented Aster, and had been looking for an excuse to butt in ever since.
The full moon changed nothing. I was desperate for more of Aster, but I would never force him to do anything he wasn’t ready for. He’d laid out his previous heartbreaks, and I wasn’t about to push him just because the thought of getting my hands on more of his skin had occupied far too much of my time in the week since we’d confessed our feelings.
The door to the cabin opened behind me. I lowered my hands as I turned around.
I expected an embarrassed Aster. I didn’t expect, as I walked slowly towards the cabin, for his hands to be balled at his sides and his shoulders bunched. His light eyebrows were low, his eyes narrowed. I’d only seen him this mad when Tim and the other goat ganged up and ate a sleeve of his favouritepink fleece. I stopped walking towards him just out of arm’s reach.
‘I’m sorry about Bonnie,’ I said, sure she must be the source of his obvious rage. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’
Aster gave a jerky shrug. ‘I don’t care about her.’ His heart didn’t flutter.
‘What’s wrong?’
Aster scrunched up his nose, vibrating with the words building up inside.
‘Why the fuck haven’t you kissed me yet?’ he demanded.
Bloody Bonnie. She always found a way to ruin everything.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ASTER
The natural progression—at least in my mind—after revealing romantic feelings for someone else was that there would be kissing. Humping, eventually. Hopefully. Please.
In the week since mine and Callum’s little talk, there had definitely been more touching. Our hugs had gotten epically long, often only broken by the bleat of a tiny goat or the rumble of my tummy—both demanding food. I’d become intimately acquainted with the skin at the side of Callum’s neck and my collarbones sported a permanent beard burn. Our hands entwined while we watched TV and my toes slotted under his warm thigh each evening.
