He brushed my hair while I rested between rounds, his massive fingers working through the tangles with impossible patience. The sensation was soothing, grounding, pulling me back from the edge of heat-madness.
"You're so tangled," Caleb rumbled, his deep voice soft. "You thrash around a lot when you sleep."
"I don't sleep," I muttered. "I pass out. There's a difference."
A low chuckle vibrated through his chest. "Fair enough." He worked in silence for a while, his hands gentle on my scalp, the rhythmic strokes of the brush almost hypnotic. I found myself relaxing against him, my eyes drifting closed, the ever-present burn of heat settling to a manageable simmer.
"Can I ask you something?" I heard myself say.
"Anything."
"Your scars." I felt him tense slightly behind me, but he didn't stop brushing. "You said before that I looked at them like they didn't matter. But you never told me how you got them."
The brush stilled. For a long moment, I thought he wouldn't answer.
"I was sixteen," Caleb finally said, his voice rough. "There was an attack. A rival family trying to take what was ours. David was the target." His hand resumed its gentle motion through my hair. "I got between the attacker and the door. Took a knife meant for someone else."
"You almost died," I whispered, understanding dawning.
"Almost. Mason found me in time. Ethan stitched me up." The brush moved in long, soothing strokes. "The scars healed ugly. Most people flinch when they see them. But you..." His voice softened. "You were twelve years old, and you just looked at me and asked if they still hurt."
Tears pricked at my eyes. I remembered that moment—remembered the massive, scarred teenager who had seemed so terrifying to everyone else. I hadn't understood why people feared him. He'd always been gentle with me.
"Do they?" I asked, my voice small. "Still hurt?"
"Sometimes." His lips pressed against my hair. "But it's worth it. The scars mean I protected my pack. And now I get to protect you." Before I could respond, the heat surged again, and I was turning in his arms, reaching for him, the tender moment dissolving into need.
He caught me, held me, laid me back against the pillows with infinite care. Then he bit me, his teeth sinking into his mark on my shoulder, and I came screaming his name.
Leo made me laugh. Even in the depths of heat, even with his cock buried inside me, his knot swelling at my entrance, he couldn't help himself. He kept up a running commentary that was so ridiculous, so perfectly Leo, that I found myself giggling even as I moaned.
"You know," Leo said conversationally, his hips rolling in a lazy rhythm, "I always wondered what it would be like to fucksomeone who was actively trying to kill me. Turns out, it's pretty great."
"I'm not—" I gasped as he hit a particularly good spot. "I'm not trying to kill you."
"Not right now, no. But give it a few days." He grinned down at me, gray eyes dancing. "Post-heat clarity is going to be a bitch, Red. You're going to wake up and remember all the filthy things you begged me for, and you're going to want to murder me."
"I didn't beg?—"
"'Please, Leo, I need your knot,'" he quoted in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like me. "'Please fill me up, I need to come on your knot?—'"
"I hate you," I groaned, but I was laughing, actually laughing, even as my body climbed toward another peak.
"No, you don't." His expression softened, something genuine flickering beneath the teasing. "You want to hate me. There's a difference." He leaned down, his forehead pressing against mine. "I know the difference, Ava. I spent a long time wanting to hate the world before I realized I was just scared of loving it."
The unexpected vulnerability stole my breath. "Leo?—"
"You still want to read my poetry?" he asked, cutting off whatever I'd been about to say. His voice was softer now, the teasing edge gone. "You said you did. Before. During..."
"The denial," I finished for him. "I remember."
Something flickered in his gray eyes—surprise, maybe, that I'd held onto that moment through everything that followed. "You remembered."
"I remember everything you said." The admission slipped out before I could stop it. "All of you. Everything you told me. I remember." Leo stared at me for a long moment, something raw and unguarded in his expression. Then his hips snapped forward, driving deep, and his knot popped past my entrance, locking us together.
"Then remember this too," Leo growled, his teeth finding his mark on my neck, biting down as he spilled inside me. "You're mine, Ava. My Red. My chaos. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life proving I deserve you." I came with his name on my lips and his teeth in my throat, and for once, I didn't try to pretend it was just the heat.
Ethan was clinical even in intimacy. But I was starting to realize that was its own form of care. He monitored my temperature, my hydration, and my heart rate. He adjusted the room's thermostat when I got too hot, added blankets when I shivered. He kept water by the bed and made sure I drank between rounds, his green eyes sharp behind his glasses as he watched for any signs of distress.
