Her words squeezed his heart with unfair hope. He shook his head. “I already have. It’s done.”
“Listen to your mate,” Malachi said, a growl beneath the words.
“Aaron,” she said. “I’m ready.”
The warmth in her voice, in her eyes… He must not be comprehending her. “Ready?”
“For the bonding.”
His pulse thudded in his ears. Heat spread through his body as images flashed—the perfect map he held in his head, the map of Ember’s beauty, maybe soon not only a map—and then more images, a montage in his mind, a life together. But he shook his head. The loss of his pack, the loss of his home, the loss of Quinn. These things were inescapable. He couldn’t allow himself to hope otherwise.
“For the bonding,” she said again more slowly when he remained mute.
“What?”
“The rest of our lives? I’ll join the pack? Is any of this starting to compute?”
“But you…you need more time.”
“Would’ve been nice, but I wrecked that option with my battering-ram tendencies.”
“Ember.”
“So this is the option left. And I’m ready, Aaron. But—but before you say yes, I have to even the scales. After everything you told me, I have to tell you what you’re in for. With me.” Ember laced her fingers in front of her and poured a waterfall of shaky words. “I trespassed on the paddock because I—I was terrified. Because I don’t trust the safety of people I care about to anyone but me. I didn’t trust Claire when she said Quinn was better off with a wolf pack. I didn’t trust you when you said he was safe at the paddock. Because when I was little, I was the big sister, and it was my job to make sure we were safe. Trust is a basic thing, and I don’t know how, might never learn how. And you—you should know.”
He let her finish, though every word she spoke against herself burned his gut. Then he said as gently as he could, “Now I know. And you’re still my Ember. Can you trust that?”
“Yes,” she whispered. She pressed her hands to his. She rose up on tiptoe and still wasn’t tall enough, but she angled her mouth in an unmistakable message. “And I’m ready.”
His lips crashed into hers, matching her boldness with his own, with the heat he’d wanted to pour over her when he first saw her in the kitchen this morning. She groaned into his mouth, and he nearly took advantage of the invitation, dying to taste her, before he remembered their audience and pulled back, breathless.
“Quinn,” Ember said, equally breathless, and Aaron laughed.
“Yeah, give the pup a break,” Quinn said. “I’m begging over here.”
Aaron tucked her into the shelter of his arm, and she nestled closer, her fingers curling into his shirt. Sweet spice filled his senses until he was all but lightheaded. He turned to Malachi, who stood watching them with a reserved expression.
“But why?” Aaron said, looking from one to the other. An awful thought clobbered him. He stared down at her. “You’re doing this for me.”
“No. I want to be bonded to you because I love you,” she said. “I want to be bonded to youtonightso the pack’s homes are safe, so you and I don’t lose Quinn, and so you’re not ripped from the community you need to thrive as a wolf.”
“You love me?” She’d said other things too, but…
Ember smiled. “Definitely.”
Aaron couldn’t speak. Tears surged into his throat, and he pressed his thumb to the corner of one eye. A tremor passed through him. Overwhelmed. “You’re sure. You’re really sure.”
“Do I need to offer a second demonstration?”
“No,” Quinn said. “Please, no.”
Aaron laughed, and then his tears fell into Ember’s hair and cleansed the wound of a day spent preparing for losses he’d never recover from. From the depth of his wolf heart the words came along with his tears. “I love you too.”
When his few tears were spent, he opened his free arm and drew Quinn against him. “Looks like you’re keeping us, pup.”
Quinn was grinning. He didn’t let the hug last long, and Aaron let him go.
“We don’t have rings,” Aaron said.
