“And then what do we call you?” he asks, wiping tears from his cheeks.
I think about it for a minute and then lose myself in hysterical laughter. After a couple minutes, I get myself under control enough to say, “You can call me The Greedy Vagina.” I crack up again, laughing so hard my cheeks and stomach hurt. “Watch out, world, here comes The Greedy Vagina and The Geriatric Wolf.”
Torrez throws his head back and bellows out his laughter, and I join him, not able to help it. “Worst…fucking…superhero…names…ever!” he pants between chortles of laughter.
“I know,” I agree. “I should never…be allowed…to name anything…ever again!”
Realization hits me, and I slap a hand to my forehead. “I am the worst mate ever!” I call on the runes for all of my Chosen behind my ear.
“Are you guys okay?”
“You’re a little late, Squeaks; we’ve all been recovering for a good forty minutes,”Ryker announces, and I instantly feel like shit.
“I’m so fucking sorry, you guys! I sort of passed out and woke up a little loopy,”I admit.
“It’s all good, Killer. It freaked the fuck out of Enoch, Kallan, and Nash, so totally worth it.”I laugh at the glee in Knox’s tone, but I feel bad for Kallan and the others. Watching all of my guys drop in pain for no reason would be scary as hell.
“So I take it the transference went okay with Torrez?”Bastien asks, and before I can answer that it did, Torrez speaks up.
“Yup, I’m officially part of the crew,”he announces, and my mind fills up with“welcomes”and“congratulations.”My soul feels like it’s practically glowing with the exchange, and I realize that even though I’ve been terrified to label the things that I’m feeling, it doesn’t change the fact that those feelings have taken root and are blooming on their own. This little flower doesn’t give a fuck if I want to look at it or not; it’s growing, regardless of my desire to acknowledge its existence.
“Everyone have new runes?”I double-check, needing to make sure that nothing is missing.
“We sure do. Everyone is connected to Torrez now, and what’s even better is that Enoch and his boys are still rocking the runes they had before, which further confirms that they’re not Chosen.”I can hear the relief and happiness in Valen’s voice, and I hope that this realization helps all of them get their heads in the game and has them spending less time worrying about shit that’s out of our control.
“Well, we’re going to, um…get dressed, and then we’ll head your way,”I tell them awkwardly. I know they don’t seem to care about which one of them I’m fucking, but it still feels weird to be so casual about it.
“You’re evil, Vinna, making all of us think about you naked right now,” Sabin mock-scolds.
I laugh. “Sorry, not sorry,” I tease and then instantly regret it as I’m flooded with images from each of them of exactly what they’d like to do to me in my current state.
“You sneaky fuckers!”I shout out as I tear away from the connection and have to immediately start talking my libido down.
Torrez cracks up when I shoot out of his lap and speed walk to the bathroom. “You have some very creative mates,” he calls after me. “I’m just bursting with all kinds of new ideas and plans now.”
I slam the bathroom door behind me and lean against it, breathing heavily. I swipe at my face with my hands and chuckle at just how unhinged I am from their delectably dirty minds. I flip on the light and turn to the sink to splash water on my heated face. It doesn’t help. Fuck, maybe I need to take a freezing cold shower in order to deal with the hormones that are currently surging inside of me. I look up at my reflection and immediately my eyes land on the new runes I have on my left shoulder.
“What the hell?” I ask absently, as I lean forward to get a better look at the new symbols that are now marked in my skin. There are eight of them, and they form a sort of half-moon shape. I realize quickly that it’s not actually a half-moon that they’re forming, more like there’s a rune in each place where every tooth pierced my skin when Torrez bit me. I turn around and find eight more runes on the back of my shoulder, too. I open the door and poke my head out.
“Just out of curiosity, how does it work when you mark me?” I ask, going for nonchalant, but coming across squeaky.
“Um, it’s kind of complicated, but the simple version is that shifters sort of partially shift, or at least our mouths do, and we bite our mates. Why?”
“Um, because this happened,” I tell him, stepping out and pointing to the new runes on my shoulder.
“Yeah, those showed up a couple minutes after you passed out. Do you know what they do?” he asks, and I do what I always do when I have no fucking clue about anything, I shrug. I look down and run the pad of my index finger over one of the new runes, tracing the symbol as I contemplate.
“I guess we’ll find out, but I don’t know that this place is the best environment to do that,” I tell him as I motion to the cabin we’re currently holed up in.
“Do you think you might be able to shift?” Torrez asks, and I don’t miss the eager glint in his eyes.
“Honestly, your guess is as good as mine at this point,” I admit and then rub at my temples. I look around the room, and as much as I want to crawl back into the bed and have a little nakey-nap, the others are waiting for us, and we’ve gotta go. “Any chance you have my jeans and sweater?”
“Oh, you mean the ones you stripped out of before the challenge?” he asks, his tone clearly stating his disapproval.
“I wouldn’t have been able to move like I needed to,” I defend. “You could be in here right now with Brun, so you just think about that before you go trying to get all territorial on me,” I scold, and he laughs.
Torrez walks over to a chair in the corner and picks up my neatly folded clothes, handing them to me. I’m not sure what time it is, but I’m hoping it’s late enough that the pack is asleep, and we can just sneak off without having to do a walk of shame. I snag Torrez’s jeans off the ground and reach inside to steal his underwear. I pull out a pair of black boxer-briefs and shake them at him.
