A couple more tears raced down her quivering cheeks. “Yes.” She swallowed. “Thank you.”
Liam gave a sharp nod.
As I hooked my bag and grabbed my travel mug, my nerves finally settled, and I smiled. Liam’s heart was intact, as was my brother’s, and although Bea’s entry into the Boulders had been far from smooth, she’d made it in.
“Welcome to the pack, Bea,” I called out as Liam towed me out the front door.
She wiped her cheeks and mouthed anotherthank you. And then she turned toward my brother, wrapped her arms around his waist, and bloodied his blue shirt with her joy.
Chapter 54
The pack didn’t accept Bea overnight. They didn’t accept her after several nights either. But talk eventually veered to Adalyn and Nate’s upcoming nuptials, and the oddity that was Nate’s fiancée—the ring was back on—skidded to the backburner of everyone’s minds.
“So what will you do if Lycaon binds you to someone?” Adalyn and I were scrolling through Pinterest boards filled with elaborate hairdos, because she was still unsure of what she wanted for her big night.
My veins filled with ants at her question. “I don’t know.”
“Good thing you’ll have six months to decide.”
I glanced at Storm, who sat in between my legs, hard at work composing a symphony on his colorful plastic piano. The mere thought of a mating link made me sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to lose Liam, but I wasn’t naïve enough to believe he’d stick around if we couldn’t be physically intimate. It would merely precipitate the inevitable.
I rested the back of my head against my mattress and shut my eyes. “I hope Lycaon forgets about me this solstice.”
Adalyn was quiet, but I could hear her thoughts. Well, not actually hear them, but feel them whirring, loud like Storm’s toy instrument. After a long while, she said, “Mating links happen for a reason.”
My lids flipped up. “Please don’t, Ads.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I know what you’re saying. I also know you think I’m too attached to Storm and to his father.”
“I’m just looking out for you, Nik.”
“Good thing I’m a phoenix, huh?”
Sighing, she gathered my hand in hers and squeezed. “You are.”
Storm twisted around and gazed up at me, his chin shiny with drool. I smiled at him and stroked the frame of his still-round face.
He turned and pressed his two palms into my chest, lifting his wobbly self up. “Mama.”
I wrapped one arm around him to help him balance. “No, baby.” I pointed to myself. “Nih-kee.”
“Mamama,” he babbled.
“Nih-kee.”
Adalyn released a whistling breath. “You see? Evenhe’stoo attached.”
I side-eyed my friend. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“He’s ten months, Ads. He’s just mimicking everything he hears and since he spends so much time with me and Mom, he hears me call her that.”
Storm offered me one of his signature lopsided grins as though he sensed I needed a smile. I offered him one in return.
“How does Liam react when his son calls you that?”
