Slowly his hands lowered from his face. Slowly he nodded.
“And for the record, I also slept just fine. Not a single bad dream. I think with you so close by, my brain could really relax. You were big and safe and warm and soft…I mean, your fur was…” Her turn for a heated face.
Malachi’s mouth turned up. “I’ve never been calledsoftbefore.”
“You know it’s your fault if I’m stammering. Your other form is stunningly beautiful.”
He blinked.
“Didn’t you notice I couldn’t stop looking at you last night?”
His eyebrows rose toward his hairline. He truly was clueless to both—his attractiveness in human form and his wild beauty in wolf form. She shook her head, but right now a more important discussion was needed.
“The battle inside you,” she said. “Did it help at all to let the wolf out for a full night?”
He blinked, and his eyes held the glow she had seen only once before, when he had wrestled his wolf. But he was under no strain now, and the shine of his eyes was somehow different. Less a lamplight sort of glow. More a blazing fire.
“May I tell you about it?” he said.
“I want to hear everything.”
“We’re in accord. The wolf that I am and the wolf I contain are one will, April. I never imagined—” His voice broke, and he swallowed hard. “I never imagined I could experience peace like this in my mind. No more lunging against the leash, only calm acceptance. The wolf knows I’m in control, as it always has, but…now it also knows I’m willing to exercise my other form again.”
“And…that’s what the fight was about? That’s what the wolf wanted?”
He nodded. “A chance to see the daylight, to obeymeinstead of obeying the cycle of the moon. And a chance to see my mate.”
She couldn’t speak. She processed all he had said, mourned a moment for his battle, his belief he had to grip that leash with all his might all the time. When she had words again, they came with a hush.
“I was the catalyst.”
“Yes.”
“For better or worse.” He had struggled so hard because of her.
“Ah. No. Nothing ‘worse’ about this. You didn’t create the battle, April. I did, for years. I thought control was the only way. If I hadn’t talked to you…if you hadn’t convinced me otherwise, I’d still be at war with it. With myself.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
He went to her, took her in his arms, and she pressed her cheek to his shirt. “You’ve said I’m your safe place. I need you to know that you’re mine too, beloved. It’s beyond words, what you’ve done for me. What you are to me.”
April managed only with effort to hear all his words. To hear any words at all past a certain one he had uttered as easily as saying her name.
Beloved.
“Malachi,” she said.
His chest rumbled against her cheek. His arms encompassed her, powerful and warm, protective and cherishing.
“There’s something I’d like to ask for, but I don’t want to hurt you by asking,” she said.
“Go ahead.”
“I want to see your scars.”
He stiffened.
“Please. I saw the wounds. Then I saw them half-healed. Let me see you fully healed and strong, Malachi. We’re mates.”
