“Whoa. But if you got hurt the dayafterthe full moon, you’d have to deal with it for four weeks.”
“Yep.”
“That’s…wow.”
“When he was fourteen, Trevor got it into his head that he wanted to see how far he could leap. He sneaked out one night and tried to jump from one treetop to another, came home with a broken arm.”
“Oh, Trev.” She stared at Trevor as though needing to assure herself his arms were intact now.
“When Mom got on him about carelessness, he said he’d been carefulbecause he’d scheduled his stunt for the day before the full moon.”
Willow’s mouth fell open. “Your brother was really something else.”
“Still is, and proves it regularly.”
A quick smile found her eyes, then faded to a thoughtful frown. “Okay, and what’s with ‘my word to my alpha’? It sounded like a vow or something.”
“That’s basically what it is. A wolf won’t break it, and he won’t refuse to give his word if his alpha requires it. So Malachi almost never does.”
“But he had to require it of Trevor.…” A worried pucker formed between her eyes. “Ez, what if we go to the police station, and Dad’s right there trying to get them to come back out here, and it works, and you or Malachi or your dad gets arrested?”
Ezra tucked her close to him and walked with her around the cabin to the backyard and its contrasting quiet—for her, at least. He set his hands on her shoulders, leaned down, and kissed her. It was a brief kiss, an attempt to relieve the fear growing in her scent as she spun possible scenarios in her head. He tried only to give comfort, not to take pleasure. He tried to withdraw before he lost himself in the taste of her. But Willow threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back with frantic desperation.
Everything poured out of both of them into this kiss. Willow sought his mouth with a hunger he’d never felt from her, curled her hands in the back of his shirt and pulled. In the roughness, the aggression of her lips and her hands, Ezra felt her anger and her fear, her shame and her sorrow that what had been bright between them now must shine around a dark vein of judgment. She was trying to reclaim them, to dig out that vein.
Ezra joined her in the reclaiming, poured heat and desire into the kiss as it deepened and went on, let his mate feel the way he craved her. But this couldn’t be the only reclaiming for them. Gradually Ezra softened his mouth on hers. Then he grazed his lips to her cheek, the shell of her ear, the sweet place her neck always reddened most when she was fired up about some research topic. Her shiver of pleasure found his deepest soul.
“There we are,” he whispered. “This is us, Wil. We don’t rage back. Instead…this.” He set his lips on hers with the faintest, gentlest brush. She gave a soft moan. “Mmhm,” he rumbled close to her ear, and she shivered at this too.
“I’ll rage if I have to,” she said. “Ezra, I’ll fight to keep you. Always. I’ll fight the world.”
“I’ll fight too, if I have to,” he said. “I’ll protect you with my life. But too much raging and we’ll hurt each other along the way. Look, my dad says there’ll always be humans who don’t give us a chance, and it’s not up to us. So…forget the world, Wil. Let’s just be us.”
“Ezra and Willow Sterling,” she whispered.
A rumbling laugh of joy escaped him. “I’m ready when you are.”
Her neck went predictably, adorably red. “I can’t believe I said that out loud.”
“We don’t have to rush just because you accidentally said it.” Maybe her reaction should disappoint him, but nothing about her could. Not his Willow. He dropped a kiss in her hair, threaded his fingers through her curls and pushed them back from her cheeks to frame her dear face between his hands.
“I might surprise myself,” she said, mischief in her smile. “Nothing feels too soon now, after all this. I’m pretty sure I could elope tomorrow.”
“Well, I couldn’t. Ann Sterling would never forgive me.”
“Fine, be that way. You know it just makes you hotter, caring about your mama’s feelings.” Her scent grew lighter as she teased, lime rising, the sludge of worry and fear falling away. She rose on tiptoe and left the ghost of a kiss in the corner of his mouth, quick and shy, an amusing and endearing contrast to their last kiss. “In which case we’d better not get too physically involved before Ann has the chance to plan our wedding.”
He groaned and rolled his eyes, knowing she would laugh at him, cherishing the unrestrained chime and the warm happiness in her scent.
“Better consider all the angles, wolf. But also…” She grinned. “Trust me when I say I’m worth the wait.”
A low growl infused his words. “I know you are, Wil.”
“Oh yeah? And how could you possibly know?”
To live in this moment, whatever came next, knowing only that his mate would be with him…oh yes, Willow was worth it. He abandoned the deadpan game and allowed himself to grin. “All the data supports my conclusion.”
Twenty-Five
