A minute after Bea had predicted Liam’s arrival, the cabin door opened and in he stalked along with Lucas and Reese.
Liam’s already drawn features tautened further when he noted my presence, but he thankfully didn’t ask me to leave, probably sensing it would be a waste of breath. He ambled over to where I sat and dropped a warm palm on my shoulder.
I reached up and covered his hand with mine. He didn’t kiss me, and I didn’t kiss him. We weren’t quitethereyet, but his hands always strayed to my body. And once they found purchase, they stayed.
Bea’s elegant throat bobbed with a swallow as she tipped her head back, the silk scarf gleaming like a strand of emeralds in the milky light streaming through the window. The tempo of her heartbeats, which usually matched ours, quickened.
“If we do this, and it works, you’ll be a Boulder until the day you die. This means, you live with the pack, you work with the pack, you breathe with the pack. We are your family; we are your everything.” Liam’s deep voice rumbled through the high-ceilinged space. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“You’re certain you’re ready to commit, Bea?”
“Yes.”
Where Lucas leaned against a nearby wall with his arms crossed, Reese stood in Liam’s shadow, ready to spring forward. Ever since he’d made her Beta, she’d been sticking to him like gum. I was really glad she wasn’t into men. I was much too jealous to accept another woman getting so close to my man, even if it was for professional reasons.
Liam removed his hand from my shoulder to pull off his jacket and T-shirt. As always, the sight of his bare torso made my stomach morph into a beehive. He slid out one of his claws and slashed the skin over his heart, right over the thin pale scar that remained from his first and only Alpha pledge when he’d taken over the Boulders.
Bea froze. Even the vein in her neck seemed to have stopped pulsing.
Clasping her hand, Nate pulled her up and around the table. “Ready?”
She nodded, following the dribble of blood streaming into the grooves of Liam’s six-pack. I was staring too, but not quite for the same reasons.
“Repeat after me,” my brother said. “I pledge myself to thee, Liam Kolane, to guide me for as long as I shall walk this earth.”
When Bea’s fangs lengthened, Reese stepped forward, fur already darkening her arms and corded neck.
Liam extended an arm to keep her back. “It’s all right.”
Bea sank her teeth into her wrist and twisted her head, creating a wide gash, probably so it wouldn’t zip up before she could finish speaking the pledge, and then she lifted it to Liam’s chest and repeated his words, her voice thick, her pupils enlarged.
Even though her blood hadn’t harmed my brother, it hadn’t come in contact with his heart. I held my breath and focused on each beat of my Alpha’s thudding organ, willing it not to speed or slow. It did neither, and when Bea dropped her arm, his skin, like my brother’s was unblemished.
Suddenly, her irises flared, bright as taillights, and a single bloodied tear ran down her cheek.
My brother paled. “What? What is it?”
“I heard him,” she murmured. “I heard him.”
A peal of delight rang, shearing my eardrums. Nate grabbed Bea and swung her around like a child, his laughter spilling over her sobs.
I raised my palm to Liam’s chest, to the bloodied smear, and touched his skin, needing to feel his heartbeats pour out of him. “Are you okay?”
He wrapped his fingers around my wrist.I am.
Lucas, who must’ve walked over to the kitchen at some point, dangled a soggy ball of paper towel. I took it from him and delicately wiped Liam’s torso.
Got any plans this afternoon?he rasped into my mind.
My eyelashes fluttered as I met his luminous gaze. “None whatsoever.”
He pulled the pinked paper towel out of my hands and tossed it on the table, then slid his fingers through mine. Not bothering to put his clothes back on, merely slapping them over his shoulder, he turned toward the others. “Reese, get Bea’s anklet off.”
“I’m free?”
“Yes, but no leaving the compound. Is that clear?”
