"Everything all right?" I asked.
I watched his face carefully. As a raven, my sense of smell might not have been the best—okay, if we're being honest, it was total crap—but I did have sharp senses in other categories. My vision was probably better than his and everyone else in this pack. I used it now to focus on his expression, to capture any secret flickers of emotion that he was trying to hide.
"Just fine," Red said.
I knew right away it was bullshit. The tightness around his eyes and his mouth may as well have been a glowing neon sign. It wasn't just my keen eyesight that told me so. It was also experience. My ex-mate had a habit of bottling up his feelings until they exploded. Unfortunately, this often manifested in little ticks in his expression and behaviours that were dead giveaways to his shady moods.
But Red wasn't my ex-mate. Just because he was hiding something from me that didn’t mean he was a bad person. Maybe he was just having a bad day, even though, to be honest, this multi-species, kid-loving pack kind of seemed like paradise. At least, it might have been for anyone else. My idea of paradise was flying freely in the open sky, not here on the ground.
"Hey," I said gently. "If it's something about me, feel free to fire away. I have a thick skin and I know when to suck it up and apologize when I’ve done something wrong."
"Apologize?" Red said suddenly, as if shocked. "Nah, you haven't done anything to bother me. Sorry if I gave you that impression."
His words were genuine, but I still sensed he was holding something back. The guy's business was his own, but I'd grown to care for him even in this short amount of time. I didn't want to see him upset.
Now Red's fingers tipped over the bump of my palms and into my hands as he spread the poultice. I sucked in a soft breath, barely audible. Red's touch felt electrifying. I knew it couldn't just be the medicine, because he'd been applying it in other places on my body this whole time. This was a brand-new sensation. One that excited me, but also filled me with fear—and I was not a guy who was afraid of anything.
The conversation died. Red didn't elaborate and I was too busy focusing on the explosions in my nerves to think properly. Did he know what he was doing to me? I didn't think so. His face had the same focused, guarded look as it did before. Even if he was in a bad mood, he still took his job seriously.
He just had no idea that his job was making me horny as hell.
It was a good thing Remington had long since brought me a pair of clothes. It turned out me and the omega wolf shared a taste in fashion. I wore a long black jacket that split in the back like a pair of tailfeathers, and my bottom half was composed of a tasteful pair of dark jeans. They went a long way in making sure my reaction to Red's touch was kept a secret. At least, as long as he didn't look in that direction.
But he was too distracted to notice. I wanted to know what was bothering him so badly. Since conversation had failed last time, I decided to try a different approach.
I shakily reached out and brushed his face with my hand. I tipped his chin upwards so that he was looking at me. His eyes widened slightly in surprise. Not for the first time, I noticed the striking black markings around his eyes. At first I thought he was a fan of human makeup and that he constantly applied mascara every morning, but when I looked more closely I saw that there were no clumps or any other indication that it was makeup. Maybe it was a fox thing to have natural eyeliner. Just one of the many intriguing things about him.
As I continued to stare at him, a soft blush coloured his cheeks. "You got a camera?"
"No, why?"
"Because if you take a picture, it'll last longer."
The sassy remark took me off guard and I laughed. It didn't hurt to do that anymore, which was a good thing because Red often made me do so. And if it wasn't him, it was one of the many kids patrolling the grove. I'd laughed more here than I ever did back with my ex-mate.
"Can I really help myself?" I said, attempting a shrug and succeeding. Apparently those poultices were good stuff. "You have beautiful eyes."
Red regarded me for a moment in silence. A tiny smile played at the edge of his lips. If complimenting him was all it took to improve his mood, I’d do it nonstop.
"You act like this with everyone?" Red asked.
Was that a hint of jealousy I heard in his voice? I'd come to associate jealousy with negative feelings, thanks to my ex-mate, but I wasn't uncomfortable now. In fact, it filled me with a strange sort of happiness to know that Red was jealous. Of whom? I had no idea. It wasn't like I had anyone else in my life as beautiful and compassionate as him.
"Well, I don't flirt with the other members of the pack, do I?" I asked.
Red smirked. "That's because they're all taken, and if you tried it, their respective partners would turn you into chicken nuggets."
"As they should," I said with a grin. "Then you're talking about other hypothetical people?"
When I put it that way, Red looked a bit embarrassed but he didn't back down. Some of the guardedness in his expression had disappeared, so I assumed this was part of the reason he was upset. In that case, I wanted to pursue it and resolve it.
"Sure," he said. "Let's go with that."
I realized at this point that I was still touching his face. I didn't want to stop, but it was an awkward position to hold, especially with the shakiness in my arm. I settled for lowering it gently and placing it on top of Red's hand. That elicited a deeper shade of pink in his cheeks. Score.
"Well, seeing as how I haven't met anyone else after splitting up with my ex-mate, then the answer would have to be no," I told him. "You're the first."
Red’s eye twitched, and I immediately regretted my choice of words. That made him sound like he was the first of many, just a drop in the bucket. But that wasn't the way I felt about him. My feelings were hard to pinpoint. I just knew that they were complicated.
