I made an educated guess. “Do you want to be in the middle?”
He nodded, glancing at us. “If that’s okay?”
“We’ve fallen asleep in various puppy piles at home like that before. Why would it be different now?” I asked gently.
He frowned, eyes unfocusing as he thought about it. “I don’t know. I… I guess I’m more conscious of what I am now?”
Ah. He didn’t want to hurt us.
“You won’t hurt anyone,” Ben said our combined thoughts out loud.
Luca took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Okay. So what do we wear to bed?” Ben raised a brow.
Glad for the subject change, Luca smirked. “Not much.”
I groaned. “Let’s not make things awkward, dude.”
“Don’t call me dude, dude,” he snarked back.
“Children. How about we stick to underwear and a T-shirt?” Ben, the voice of reason.
We took care of brushing teeth and other before-bed related stuff, and then Ben left the bedroom door cracked open a bit to make the vampires feel better about it. We didn’t care, I knew that much.
Soon, we were all under the covers, with Luca in the middle.
“A wolf sandwich,” he murmured, suddenly sounding exhausted.
I couldn’t blame him. I snorted softly and pressed a kiss to his temple.
He curled up, his back to me as he snuggled against Ben’s chest. When I wasn’t sure what to do, Luca reached back to grab my arm and pulled me closer.
He hummed happily. “You’re so warm.”
Minutes later, Ben and I were left staring at each other over the sleeping vampire between us.
We both smiled at the same time, and Ben cupped my cheek, stroking my cheekbone as he mouthed “good night.”
I closed my eyes and let the exhaustion take me, too.
Chapter Three
Ben
Iwatched them sleep for what felt like an hour or so. I just couldn’t fall asleep yet.
For weeks now, I’d been scared out of my mind of Luca not taking the chance Rian had offered him. I’d been afraid that he’d choose death instead. I would’ve been devastated, because I was half way in love with him, but what would’ve killed me was how it would’ve completely broken my brother.
I wasn’t sure if I believed in fate or soulmates—outside the extremely rare werewolf finding their mate kind, because our Alpha had found his—but there was something magical about the connection Max had had with Luca even before they ever met.
Luca had written most of the lyrics and some of the melodies for Kaiju. He’d also been the lead singer and what a voice he’d had. Him delivering his own lyrics about love and death and whatever else had always felt special.
His voice telling us to keep hoping and dreaming in our darkest moments had, quite literally, saved us. Max and I had never put the thoughts of letting go of life into words. But wedidn’t need words. Not when it was about something that was important on that soul deep level.
Being in our father Rusty’s pack, although not betas or enforcer betas like the junkies he’d surrounded himself with, had almost broken us.
We hadn’t needed to be his betas to be completely fucked up by it all. The blood connection being so direct tapped into something in the wolf psyche and made disobedience almost impossible.
