I pulled her into my chest, burying my nose in her soft hair, enjoying the feeling of just holding her, after the long, exhausting day. She was everything. My rock, my safe place, the softness I needed after endless hard decisions, hard days. She completed me.
“You made the right call. And you don’t have to stress about it.” I pulled back to press a slow, deep kiss to her lips. Her eyes were a little dazed when we separated. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than with you, as long as you’re willing to have me.”
She smiled softly, a rare moment of shyness for my warrior woman. “Thank you. I just finished with my shower if you’d like to wash up?”
“More than just about anything,” I admitted, looking down at my grime-coated arms. It had taken hours to get all the weapons added to the armory here, organize and catalog everything, and then I jumped straight into the construction with the crews already working. We’d sealed up another two dozen rooms and cleared out most of the knights’ hall to make more room for people to work and sleep. The castle was absolutely crawling with people, and so many more were still on the way.
That was a problem to grapple with tomorrow, though. Tonight, I was going to shower and hold my mate through the night.
I paused with my hand on the bathroom doorway, though. “How are you feeling? Any more pain cropping up? We haven’t been as physically close today, and I don’t want you to suffer. If you need me tomorrow?—”
She shook her head, cutting me off with a pretty blush on her cheeks. “I had a rough moment or two, but it passed quickly enough. I think as long as we spend the nights in physical contact, we can both be useful during the day. Our packs need us.”
I studied her intently, searching for any sign she was hiding distress, but found none. “Okay. But you have to promise you’ll tell me if that changes.”
“I promise.” She smiled and shooed me into the bathroom, so I went.
Chapter 45
Elodie
Istared around the big, empty bowl clearing behind the castle, wiping the sweat from my brow as I surveyed everything we’d managed to put together. Frankly, it was impressive what a whole passel of she-wolves could do on short notice. The space had been transformed from an empty space to an outdoor theater. Hundreds of benches and a dais had been constructed, and it was all lit by torchlight.
Tonight was the gathering, with more than half the world’s wolf packs already having descended, Kane was ready to make his opening remarks.
We still had just over a week until the night of the battle, but he wanted to thank everyone for coming together, to try to make this a bonding experience for all the wolves in the meantime.
Personally? Waiting on a war where quite a few of us could die? Not my idea of the time for singing Kumbaya. But people were weirdly sentimental. I’d seen dozens of emotional reunions just this morning, as wolves from all around the globe arrived and saw distant friends, family, and even acquaintances. We were a long-lived species, so there were some who hadn’t seen each other in hundreds of years.
Frankly, it made me itchy. I fucking hated waiting, knowing the other shoe was about to drop and drop hard. It was funny because, as a maiden, most of my life had been spent waiting. Waiting for a call to go out on, waiting for someone to need my skills. You’d think I would be really damn good at it.
This was a different kind of waiting.
My stomach cramped sharply, and I resisted the urge to bend over and put my hands on my knees.
It was happening more and more frequently, especially as Valens and I had both been so busy during the days, with none of those casual touches, the pheromone exchanges that had been keeping my hormones in check since he found me that day in the knights’ hall.
No, I’d been hanging close by the marked females, working in lockstep with Galyna and Dakota to keep our girls safe. I might have been on leave, but duty didn’t take vacations. And frankly? I didn’t want it to. Valens had confided in our closest Blackwater circle about his newfound brand, his new talent for reading magical enchantments. He’d been working around the clock, searching for any and every advantage he could bring to our side of the fight ever since, and matching wolves with magical weapons for the coming battle. And when that day’s work was done, he dove in with the builders to put in even more hours on providing safe accommodation for everyone staying on the grounds.
It felt like the tasks before us were never-ending, exhausting, and not at all going to get done in time. So, I threw myself into the familiar with all I had. I woke up before sunrise to do my exercise forms with Galyna and Dakota, sparred until we were all breathless, and then jumped into protection detail, helping with whatever the women were working on until we were all safely tucked into the family wing at night, with one of us taking rotating guard duty at the mouth of the hall.
They gracefully didn’t harp at us for being overprotective, even though Leigh looked like she wanted to bite the head off anyone who breathed in her direction. Okay, not everyone. One late night when I’d walked down with her to the kitchen for a snack, she had confided in me that she was glad they’d stayed.
We’d achieved a kind of rhythm amid the chaos. It was comforting, even if I was itchy.
Another sharp pang nearly doubled me over, and I finally gave in to the urge to drop my hands to my knees.
I pretended I didn’t notice when Fiona sidled up next to me, as if I was just stretching my back.
She wasn’t blind or stupid, so it didn’t exactly work.
“Do you want me to get Oli? She wouldn’t want you to be in pain. Bri either, for that matter, but she’s been swamped by constant visitors most of the afternoon. For you, she’d make an exception.”
“No, I don’t need either of them to stop what they’re doing.”
“Okay, let me rephrase that. If I were feeling whatever you were just feeling that made you double over, would you go and get one of them for me?”
Damn her, she knew I would.
