Kelsey’s footsteps found the living room, and then she flopped into a chair.
“April’s scent leveled. She seems okay now,” Trevor said.
Malachi nodded.
“So can we talk?”
“I know you’ve picked up the shift in my scent.” He would own the obvious, keep this brief. “I don’t know that it means the same thing for me.”
Trevor’s mouth twitched. “Pretty sure it means you’ve recognized your mate.”
As if it were that simple. “The result of recognition might not necessarily be the same.”
“Because you’re alpha? Or because you’re Malachi, who never allows his feelings to influence his integrity, decisions, thoughts, actions, et cetera?”
Malachi rumbled a low warning. “In this case as in most cases, both.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Leave it alone, Trevor.”
Trevor shoved a hand through his spiky hair. The shower shut off while he and Malachi stood silently, shoulder to shoulder. The unzipping of the duffel bag brought fresh heat to Malachi’s blood. Every rustle of fabric and every pleased little hum drove him closer to unleashing a roar. But he wouldn’t, of course.
Trevor stepped in front of him and set both hands on his shoulders. “Mal, please. Let’s walk at least. Can we do that?”
His jaw was already clenched hard enough to break his teeth. He nodded and headed for the road, but Trevor held up a hand.
“Woods? No super-hearing eavesdropping, like Kelsey said. Plus we’ll be out of their earshot too.”
“I have no intention of roaring at you,” Malachi said. No intention of losing control.
“You say that now. You know how I can poke a wolf when I’m in the mood, and the mood can seize me anytime.” Trevor smirked.
Malachi’s mouth pulled with a smile. He turned for the backyard, his strides long and quick. Trevor kept up easily, legs making up most of his height. When they reached the tree line, Malachi paced up and down the same ground he’d walked while waiting for Kelsey and Trevor’s arrival. Meanwhile Trevor sighed periodically with growing gusto.
“I don’t have anything to say about this,” Malachi said in an attempt to release his friend from suspense.
“I don’t believe you.”
Malachi growled.
“Don’t you even have questions?”
He did. Several, in fact. But releasing them into the air, making all of this real and irrevocable… No. He growled again.
Trevor grew quiet. Utterly quiet, even his wolf voice, which often rumbled in the background of pack get-togethers as his unique expression of himself. His silence in this moment would be fine—Malachi could keep his feelings to himself, button them down and focus on his pack—if only the feelings weren’t so…
So much.
“My priorities are set. I’m alpha of this pack, and I cannot split myself.”
“I’m not saying you should,” Trevor said.
“I know I smell reactive right now, the way each of you did. But it can’t be permanent for me the way it is for other wolves. I’ll control it and work through it, and when April is safe to do so, she’ll go back to her life.”
Before the bonding to his mate, Trevor’s signature scent had been pure sea salt. Now it was blended with Kelsey’s tropical orchid scent and a new essence of pineapple. Somehow, not in concentration but in quality, a wolf’s scent strengthened when his mate’s scent joined it. At the moment, sea salt and pineapple were muted beneath a layer of frustration and worry.
“This is how it has to be, Trevor.”
