“I’m telling you now. You’re welcome.”
She caught me following her to the stream afterward.
“Percy. You were at the stream twenty minutes ago.”
“I’m hydrating. There’s a difference between hydrating and hovering.”
She turned and the afternoon light caught her face and the bump pressed against my forearm when she stepped closer and my body went stupid. Full system failure. Every thought evacuated my brain except the memory of last night, her delicious taste in my tongue, the sounds she made when I hit that spot, the way her nails raked my skin hard enough to leave marks I could still feel.
“Percy.” Her voice dropped. “You’re staring.”
“You’re beautiful. Standing in direct sunlight while carrying our children. Staring is a reasonable response.”
The blush crept down her neck toward the claiming mark and my wolf tracked the color with an intensity that made my fists clench at my sides.
“Stop looking at me that way.”
“What way?”
“The way that makes me want to drag you behind the supply crates.”
My brain went blank. Then restarted and went blank again.
“That,” I managed, “is a very dangerous thing to say to a man who’s been involuntarily courting you all morning.”
She smiled. The one that was just for me. Saved for moments when the sass dropped and the real Mira peeked through.
Then she walked away.
Deliberately.Hips swaying by a fraction more than necessary. And I stood at the stream with my fists clenched and my cock straining and the absolute certainty that this woman would destroy me and I’d thank her for it.
Sunset came soon. I hated that time passed.
Compound maps reviewed one final time. Farmon administered the last supplement round. By night, she needed to be back inside those walls.
But night was hours away.
The den settled into warmth. Mira at the center, Solomon’s arm across her ribs, Lucian at her back, my hand finding her ankle again because apparently that was my thing now.
“I should stay awake,” she murmured. “I need to leave tonight.”
“We’ll wake you,” Solomon said.
“Promise?”
“I have never failed to wake you.”
“You’ve also never failed to make it weird by watching me sleep first.”
“I was monitoring you.”
“Creepy observation.”
“Sleep, Mira.”
Her breathing evened out within minutes. The babies pulsed beneath Solomon’s palm. The bond coursed through four bodies in a rhythm that matched the heartbeats underneath.
I pressed my thumb against her ankle tendon. The same spot I’d woken up holding this morning. Courting behavior, Farmon said.
