“This helped a lot,” Ember said. “Hearing everyone’s thoughts, seeing you’re well enough for a council, Mal… Well, I don’t know about anybody else, but I feel less angry, for whatever that’s worth.”
“Yeah,” Willow said. “I’ve been spiraling about what to do next, how we can be ready…and Ezra was too. We talked about it, but it’s good to hear from our pack.”
The effect was indeed widespread. At the adjourning of the council, Trevor and Ezra headed out on patrol to relieve Arlo and Corbin. Then almost everyone else began heading to bed, their scents subsiding under a collective blanket of weariness.
April especially seemed worn thin. Malachi crossed the room to sit beside her. On the coffee table sat a random paperback. This book was, like the one Aaron had been reading, nearly beaten to actual pulp.
“You were reading?” Malachi nodded to it. “Or was that left by someone else?”
“Oh, that was mine. A few hours ago.” April pulled it into her lap and stared down at the cover.
“Interesting choice.”
“Rhett doesn’t have more than a dozen books in the whole house, and not one of them is older than 1990.”
A rumble filled his chest. “He doesn’t strike me as a classics lover.”
“Well, this is decent, if you like military thrillers.” She tapped it with one finger.
“Is that a favorite genre you’ve failed to mention in our book discussions?”
She smirked. “Not so much.” Then she yawned while trying not to.
“April.” He set his hand on her shoulder. “Have you slept at all?”
His mate bit her lip and looked away.
“Please try.”
“I…I don’t know if I’ll be able to. There’s a lot in my head right now.”
He offered her a hand up. “I’ll walk you to your room, and we can talk before you sleep.”
April set the book aside on the nearest coffee table. She ignored his hand up and stood on her own, then led him down one of the hallways to a room with one full-sized bed.
“Sleeping arrangements got sorted earlier.” She gestured at Kelsey’s duffel bag resting at the foot of the bed. “Rhett brought me everything from your place.”
Of course he had. “He’s a good wolf.”
“I figure he must be, given your choosing him.” She smiled. “He can be terse, but his decisions are solid, and he respects you a lot. If—if he had to take your pack as his own—” She bit her lip but braved forward. “He would make you proud, I think.”
Malachi cupped the back of her head just to feel her soft hair against his palm. She walked into his arms and pressed her face to his chest, and he held her close. She made a little sound like a sob.
After a moment she leaned back from his embrace so she could meet his eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to keep doing this, but you—you were—I’ve never seen pain like that, and it wasyou. My wolf.”
He allowed himself for one moment to imagine a reversal of their places. April’s body torn by those bullets, April in that kind of agony. He could endure it for only a moment. Then he had to steel his mind against the thoughts, because the wolf inside him began to scream.
“Don’t be sorry, April. Please.”
The sudden harshness of his rasp gave too much away. Her eyes widened as she understood his thoughts. She drew close again, pressed her cheek to his shirt. A low rumble began in his chest. They stood in Rhett’s guest bedroom and held each other for several long minutes. Malachi didn’t step back until she did. The sweet citrus essence he loved had become fainter, muffled by a thick blanket of fatigue.
“Can you sleep now?”
“I think so,” she said.
“Good.” He leaned down and left a soft kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be here when you wake.”
“Nightmare-free, I hope.”
