The walls he kept reinforced around his past had crumbled to the ground, and with them the rest of his guard came down. He said, hardly hearing the words, “My April.”
“If I can be anyone’s April,” she said, fresh tears falling, “I want to be yours. But I don’t know, Malachi. I don’t know how broken I am.”
“You were hurt. You’ll heal.”
She shook her head. “I want that to be true. But you might be wrong.”
“Your scent is not crushed. It’s still there, still strong.”
She was quiet a long moment, then whispered, “What is my scent?”
“Don’t you know?” Humans couldn’t often identify their own essence, but surely in the last week some other wolf had mentioned it. He hoped none of Drew’s pack had.
“I have no idea,” she said.
A smile found his mouth that he could tell her. “You’re citrus and sweet. Mandarin oranges, a hint of lemon.”
“I like that.” She smiled. “I guess you know your own, huh.”
“I’ve always been intensely musky,” he said, allowing himself a smirk.
“And gingery.”
He blinked. Ginger. Trevor’s description on the day April came to him. “I don’t believe my essence contains any ginger.”
“Well, it does,” April said. “It’s a nice blend, actually.” A blush surged up to hide her freckles. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I just said that.”
His chest rumbled his amusement, and her blush faded as she laughed too. He said, “There’s no embarrassment in enjoying a wolf’s scent. It’s another way of enjoying who he is.”
“Mmhm,” she said, and her lips twisted with mischief, then slowly parted. She tilted her head up to him, and her eyes looked into his. Sweet and citrus rose with a buoyant flavor of pure trust. His mate said softly, “Malachi…would you…kiss me?”
“Kiss you? Are you…very sure?”
She twined her arms around his neck, and trust was in her eyes too. “No. But I want to try.”
He didn’t take her mouth with the molten desire that coursed through him, with any sense of urgency or insistence. He must not do that. Instead he took her face between his hands as gently as he would hold a butterfly for Gigi’s awed scrutiny. Yes, that was apt. Awe filled him that this sweet, beautiful woman might find any desire for him after what she had survived. His palms on her cheeks, his fingers in her sunset hair, Malachi bent his head and settled his mouth over hers. Careful. Cautious. Prepared to withdraw if she panicked. He poured into the kiss all the gentleness he had in him. For April he could be as gentle as she needed, for as long as she needed, and he let this first soft kiss tell her.See, you are still safe.
The kiss was brief. Her mouth didn’t move against his. But as she pulled back after a few seconds, her uncertainty washed away in a tide of sweet citrus essence.
“I can kiss you,” she said with a little smile.
He growled his affirmation, and her smile bloomed.
“How’s my scent?”
“Strong and sure and yours.” He kissed the top of her head.
“That’s how I feel,” April said quietly. “Strong and sure and myself.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed close to his side, and this time Malachi’s growl held all his gratitude and hope. However long the road of his mate’s healing proved to be, he would walk beside her.
Fourteen
Sincehewaselevenyears and two months old, Malachi’s brain and body had tracked the moon. Not the way a person’s brain kept track of the days of the week or the time of day, a habitual awareness developed over years of living in the world. An odd week could mess with one’s sense of the date or the day; but for a wolf, nothing disrupted his sense of the moon. No app was needed, no checking of one’s phone or calendar. As he woke in the dark, two nights after opening his past to his mate, Malachi knew the full moon was twenty-three days away.
But he knew something else too with almost the same strength of instinct. He knew April had been with him for sixteen days. He wondered when his brain would stop counting out from this event and then knew the answer: when she was safe. When he had dealt with the rogues that had hurt her.
He sat up on the couch. From its charger in the kitchen, the walkie-talkie was squawking.
