I blinked hard.
Nox reached out and caught a tear with his thumb before it could fall. “I love you too,” he said. “Obviously.”
I let out a laugh. “Obviously?”
“Look at me,” he grinned. “I could have run a dozen times. Before Ireland. Before the Isle of Man. Before coming here to London. I didn’t. That’s how you know I’m serious, because I’m very well practiced at running.”
“You stayed,” I whispered.
He nodded. “I stayed. Because you’re the only one that I’ve ever followed into a burning building and not regretted it. I’m proud of you, Tam. Not just for ending all of this. For refusing to give up.”
My chest hurt.
Bishop shifted away from the window, stepping closer. He placed his hand gently on my knee.
“I love you too,” he declared. “You could’ve left me on that Irish shore and called it fate. Instead, you hauled me up, looked me in the eye, and handed me purpose, and together, we went after it. Together, we saved the world.”
I swallowed hard. “You all helped,” I replied. “I didn’t?—”
Elias’s thumb brushed another tear off my cheek. “We know,” he said. “We helped. You led. You’re allowed to be proud of that.”
“I’m just—” I broke off, shaking my head. “I’m tired.”
“We know that too,” Griff said.
“And we’re going to take care of you,” Eamon said.
My vision blurred with emotion. I let it. For once, I didn’t try to blink it away or harden it into something else. I just sat there on the edge of the bed, surrounded by my wolves, and let their words sink in.
It was almost too much.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I love you all, too. Come take care of me.”
Elias kissed me again, deeper this time. His hand slid to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair. I opened for him without thinking, without planning, the taste of him washing away the last of the council room sourness from my tongue.
Heat unfurled low in my belly, slow and heavy and familiar.
Griff’s mouth brushed the side of my throat, beard rasping lightly against my skin. His teeth grazed the spot where my pulse jumped, not hard enough to break skin, just enough to make me shiver.
Nox slid off the far side of the bed and came around, slipping between my knees, his hands resting lightly on my thighs.
Then Elias eased me back onto the bed, slow and careful, giving me time to protest if I wanted to. I didn’t. The mattress was warm, the furs soft against the backs of my legs. Nox’s hands slid up my thighs to my waist, fingers playing along the edge of my shirt. Griff’s weight dipped the bed behind me as he stretched out along my back, his arm wrapping around my waist.
Eamon joined Nox, gliding his hand up my leg and I sighed softly. Bishop settled near the foot of the bed, one hand resting lightly on my calf. We were a tangle of limbs and heat and familiar scents.
“Let us take the world from you for a single night,” Elias murmured against my mouth. “You just… feel.”
I let out a shaky breath. “You are always so bossy.”
“I’m effective,” he said, lightly slapping the top of my thigh.
Nox laughed softly. “You have to admit, ‘lie back and let us worship you’ is a pretty good plan.”
“I didn’t say I objected,” I muttered.
“Good,” Griff said into my hair.
Their hands moved over me with a reverence that had everything to do with want and desire. Fingers at my buttons. Mouths on my skin—Elias at my lips, Griff at my neck, Nox at the delicate line of my collarbone. Eamon’s hand resting warm and firm over my heart. Bishop’s thumb stroking absent patterns over my ankle.
