‘So we can talk more easily.’
It was the only thing I could think of to fully understand why he was avoiding me today and why he was acting so cold all of a sudden.
“Cini…” he said, mouthing my name and I wondered what his voice would sound like. Would it be deep like Elio’s? I didn’t have much of a basis of comparison, but I wanted to be able to hear it.
Just like I wanted to be able to hear Dante and Ranieri too. It was one of the only silver-linings to this entire fucked up situation we’d found ourselves in.
Nico’s eyes darted away from mine and I found myself sinking into the feeling of turmoil.
‘So you don’t like me,’I signed, my face a mask of disbelief. ‘Fine.’
I turned to get away from him, wondering how hard it would be to swim back to shore from here. The island we were staying on wasn’t very far, but I also knew my stamina was bad and had been bad even before I received the Russian Roulette of a hormone cocktail.
Strong arms banded around my body as Nico pulled me flush with his chest.
Down the tether of our bond I felt something overwhelming rippling toward me and it took me a dazed moment to realize that it was desperation, not dislike, that the alpha behind me was feeling.
Sharp teeth grazed the back of my neck just above where Nico had tied my swimsuit earlier. He paused for the briefest of moments before I felt a flash of a pain so potent and sudden that my knees nearly gave out.
Before, with Elio, I had been so far gone in my own pleasure that the bite was easy to forget.
But Nico’s bite was different. I could feel each tooth as it popped into the skin of my neck and felt the burn as the special hormone that existed in the saliva glands of all alphas was pushed into my body.
Our thin tether that allowed us to feel each other’s emotions thickened and glowed in my mind’s eye until it was as strong as the one I shared with Elio.
‘Luscinia?’a new voice filled my mind as the flat of Nico’s tongue ran up the back of my neck and made me shudder.
Nico’s voice was much softer than Elio’s, almost like he was unsure of himself as he spoke mind-to-mind for the first time.
It was definitely weird to accept another consciousness into your head, but I thought it would feel much more crowded. Instead, it felt calm, like the other parts were hovering in the background in order to give me and the alpha who had just bitten me some privacy.
‘Yes,’I breathed in my mind, the feeling of relief so instantaneous that I found myself flipping around so I could look him in the eyes.‘Why are you avoiding me, Nico? Do you not like me anymore?’
It was so freeing to be able to ask him the question with ease that I was still excited in spite of my sad question.
‘The voice in your head is pretty,’he said, his dark eyes wide as he examined my face.
‘Nico,’I huffed, irritated that he seemed to be skirting around my earlier question.
‘Fine, I’ll explain myself,’he said as his shoulders lifted in a sigh as he took my hand and led me to the netted part of the boat.
Seventeen
My palms were sweaty and my throat was dry as I laid out the blanket on top of the netting to keep us warm from the updraft of air coming from underneath the boat.
It was still early in the afternoon, and so far our day had been going pretty well—or at least I thought it had until every time Cini tried to kiss me and I got cold feet.
I didn’t even knowhowto explain to her why I’d been packing the day full of activities in order to avoid the inevitable that I hadplannedfor.
During the car ride to the dock I had been raring to go, my inner-alpha impatiently pushing me to touch her. To take her as mine and never let her go.
It had been hard for me to be stuck in such a small space with her sweet, honeydew scent wrapped around me so enticingly.
But at some point while I was steering the ship around the island and Cini was taking a nap on the netting, I started to grow anxious.
‘What’s wrong?’Cini asked as she settled next to me. I knew she could feel my frustration down our newly complete bond, but voicing what I really wanted to say was complicated.
Her voice was more sing-songy than I ever thought it could be, the tone of it similar to when she was forced to speak out loud in her father’s presence, but filled with a confidence and flow that had been missing before.
