Trevor drew a long breath, and some old tug inside him gave a snap and fell away.
Kelsey’s wolf was endlessly happy. Sometimes, while they walked in his woods or ate sushi on his deck, he looked at her a long moment, and then a rumble burst from his chest, not a laugh but certainly not a growl. A bark of joy. That was the sound.
The Sterlings had some sort of tradition about bringing their mates home after the bonding ceremony and not before, so Kelsey spent nights in her old room at Maggie’s rather than at Trevor’s. But she did stay late. Very late. Her memory of his body as a sixteen-year-old hadn’t prepared her for the reality of his body as a man, as her mate.
And neither of them was shy anymore.
Five weeks after surgery, Maggie couldn’t bend over yet but could take care of her basic needs without help. Soon Trevor and Kelsey would head to Raleigh for a week or so, time to end her lease, pack her apartment. A few of the wolves had volunteered to be her movers.
First though, on Saturday, they woke up at dawn and drove to Chattanooga armed with provision-stuffed backpacks and double the amount of gear Kelsey had imagined. In preparation she had purchased a helmet and a pair of approach shoes. Having kayaked and snorkeled all over the world, she already owned a drybag, a wetsuit, neoprene gloves and socks.
Kelsey couldn’t wait to try a new sport. She hoped he wouldn’t have to moderate his pace too much for her though he wouldn’t mind if he did. She hoped this was only their first of many canyoning exploits.
Trevor’s attempt at preparing her was to say, “We’re going to do a non-technical wet canyon.”
“I have no idea what that means,” she said.
“Well,wetmeans—”
She shoved his shoulder while he was driving because it had no impact on him whatsoever.
His chest rumbled, a sound she couldn’t seem to get enough of. “Non-technicalmeans we can complete the route without rappelling, scramble over or around any vertical drops, so we can complete it top-down or bottom-up. A technical canyon pretty much forces you to go top-down; rappelling’s the only way to complete the vertical stuff.”
“Unless we werebothwolves, in which case we could complete a technical canyon bottom-up without ropes because we’d be just that strong.”
He rolled his eyes. “Not always.”
“Sometimes though.”
“I’m a wolf, not a spider. No adhesive fingertips.”
The day proved to be one of the most exhilarating of her life. The physical challenge, the adrenaline rush, the scrambling and splashing while Trevor kept a pace that let her know he wasn’t about to coddle her. She drank it all in along with his occasional grunts and growls as he tackled a blocking boulder, an unexpected drop. She thought the route would be obvious through a canyon—one end to the other—but several times Trevor had to call “this way,” and his confidence that he knew the right path made him easy to follow. He looked absurdly sexy in a wetsuit, muscles exaggerated by their artificially sculpted appearance. While she dashed and scrambled behind or alongside him, Kelsey tried to think of a wardrobe in which her wolf would not look sexy. Nope. There wasn’t one.
Near the end of the day, sweaty and invigorated, they reached a wide pool fed by a thunderous white waterfall. The cascade began high above their heads, crashed to a narrow rock face and then fell over a second edge into the pool. Trevor leaned down to speak into her ear.
“The way out is around it. But we can swim a minute if you want.”
“Definitely,” she said, grinning at the prospect and at the fact she didn’t have to raise her voice for him to hear her. Probably not before but certainly not now. The last few days had restored the last of his faded senses, and he winced every once in a while when something hit his ears more loudly than he was used to. She knew he would acclimate soon. After all, he’d done so as a teenager.
Together they slid into the pool and watched each other tread water under the spray of the falls. Trevor squinted against the spray and couldn’t seem to stop smiling. Then he hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her close, and time fell away like drops of the waterfall while they kissed.
By the time they exited the canyon, Kelsey had never been so pleasantly exhausted in her life. A shower, a change of clothes—she’d brought a lavender wrap dress and wedge sandals less practical than her usual choice of shoe—and then dinner at a Southern restaurant she loved, a restaurant she’d mentioned to him only once in passing. She’d never absorbed the comfort of Southern food as an untraveled, untried kid the way she did now: potato cracklins, fried green tomatoes, collards, chicken and waffles, shrimp and grits. They ordered it all, ate in contented quiet. They chose dessert to go, a full-size portion of banana pudding.
Trevor had booked two rooms; this must be Sterling tradition too. Together they entered his, and Kelsey grabbed the to-go box and popped it open.
“Only one spoon,” she said.
He grinned. “We’ll take turns.”
They did, feeding each other bite by bite, kneeling on the bed facing one another, laughing at the nonsense of it. And suddenly she knew the time was right.
She said, “I’ve been researching like you asked me to.”
Trevor went very still, spoon halfway to the giant pudding cup. “Oh yeah?”
“There are countries that make it hard for a wolf. Countries we’ll want to steer clear of.”
He nodded.
