“Let me have a go at him. Let us wear him down, and thenmaybeI’ll come to get you,” Felix says. He makes no promises, and Willow obviously picks up on that.
“Felix,” Willow pleads with him too. She pulls away from me, as much as I’ll let her, because there’s no way in hell I’m losing contact with her. I keep her hand in mine, but I let her turn to face Felix to get the pressure of being the bad guy off my shoulders. She’s facing away from me, but I bet her eyes are all wide and cute as she slightly pouts her lips, trying to convince him to take her with them. Damn, she is adorable, but in all honesty, I want to keep that look for myself, not for Felix to see.Pulling her arm, I yank her body back, which instantly curls into mine, and I wrap my arms around her. She’s mine.
“No,” Felix says, running a hand through his long hair and furrowing his brows. Her fingers shake as she stares at me with tears welling in her eyes, and her cheeks are a shade of red that crushes my defense down. Fuck. I hate seeing Willow upset. I sigh, knowing she’ll go without us, and she’ll probably succeed at doing so, and the decision I thought I made was never really made by me, but by her. She’s going, and I’d rather she goes with me than without.
“I selfishly need you right now. Let Dylan do the grunt work, and in a few hours, Felix will take us to question him, okay?”
“That’s all I was asking,” she says with a tiny smile growing on her face. The tears don’t go away but they don’t fall. On some level, that’s a win for me.
“What? Eddie?” Felix asks, furrowed brows and awhat the helllook on his face, but he doesn’t get it, and probably won’t until he finds his mate.
“It’s okay, Felix. Call Dylan and let him know.” It’s settled. I get up and take Willow’s hand, not checking to see if she will follow behind me as I lead her to my room. There, Willow slips off her shoes, and I plop onto my bed. My room consists of graphic prints all over the walls, a desk for work, and a game center with a missing game console that is currently at Willow’s.
She comes over and gently sits next to me. Her weight presses down on the bed, making me hyperaware of where she is and how easily I could reach out my hand to yank her to me. Her foot taps on the ground. She’s working up to ask me something, and while I would try to alleviate those nerves, today I’ll wait for her to work up the nerve to ask. I grab her arm and guide her to lie with me ’cause one thing I’m serious as hell about is taking a damn nap.
“What’s wrong, Eddie?”
“Nothing, just a long day,” I mumble, snuggling closer to her. We haven’t necessarily laid in a bed together, and now that we have, I know the best kind of sleep I’ll ever get from this day on will only be next to her.
“Don’t think I’m forgetting about Ghost, ’cause I’m not, but how... how did your meeting go?” The million-dollar question I don’t want to answer. I’m confused about where I stand on the situation. I’m almost happy to be free of the chains of working forThe Man, but I’m also upset that my company didn’t care my idea was stolen.
“I’d rather talk about Ghost.”
“That bad?” Hearing the sadness in her voice cracks through me like lightning. As much as I want to bounce up and at least pretend everything is going to be okay, I can’t. Not around Willow. I can’t pretend around her, no matter how badly I want to.
“Yeah, that bad, Buttercup,” I mumble, moving so that I can hold her in my arms. She is warm and soft. Her smooth legs rub against mine and her sleeve-covered arms wrapping around my waist. This is what I need, and for now, something I’d selfishly take. She smells better than buttercream and warm pancakes. She smells like home. As much as this house and my Pack are my home, Willow is growing to be too. If I could set up a meeting with the Moon Goddess to ask to why this woman wasn’t my mate, I would.
“My pin didn’t give you any good luck, huh?” The paw pin was still in my pocket. I hadn’t changed from my work clothes and wasn’t planning to leave Willow’s embrace to do so.
“It did, just not in the way we imagined it would,” I say as her fingernails lightly trace random patterns on my forearm. I surrender the stress of everything to the promises of a nap, leaning back against the headboard and pillows.
“Have you figured out what this means for you yet?” she asks, her warm pancake smell wafting through the air around me. Inhaling her scent as much as I can without her catching me, I nestle my nose in her hair. I’m becoming enraptured with her, and there is no stopping the heartbreak that will follow. I have no idea what my failed proposal will mean for me career wise. I’m too tired to care.
“Nope,” I say, closing my eyes. “Chance stole my idea and presented it last week, and even still, I think they would’ve rejected my proposal.” It’s a reality I didn’t want to believe but knew was more than likely to be true.
“Chance? Was he reprimanded?” she questions, fire snapping from her tone. Her brows angrily furrowed, and her lips turned downward.
“Probably not. I didn’t stick around to find out. I rushed out.”
“I’m sorry about that. I forgot about your meeting. I didn’t ruin anything, did I?”
“You couldn’t ruin a damn thing if you tried.” She’d always make things better. She shines and grinds for others as if her life depends on it. Her light can’t damage anything besides my heart, and even then, I’d happily let her destroy my pumping organ if only it meant I’d get to keep her longer.
“What are we going to do next?”
“Lie with me, Willow,” I say, lying back and finally giving into the urge to drag her body close. “Let’s lie here till we can’t anymore.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Willow mumbles, cuddling into my arms even more. I drag my thin navy-blue blanket over us and take a well-deserved and much-needed nap.
It’s only for a few hours before Felix’s impatient ass storms into my room with the green light from Dylan to head on up.
Felix is pissed he had to wait around with us as Dylan did the initial questioning. I’d take a grumpy Felix anytime if it means Ican nap with Willow right beside me. Damn, I loved that. I can almost ignore the fact that we are meeting with Willow’s almost killer with how damn happy I am. We arrive at Dylan’s secluded cabin in the woods, and Felix takes us to the basement. The fact that Dylan has this whole torture basement is chilling, but what’s even more frightening is that it’s being used.
“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, meet James Herandez,” Dylan says, waving his hands towards the man as an introduction.
“Is that all you got?” Felix asks, as he rounds the man in the chair, circling him as if he’s bait. I’m not sure when Felix’s aggressive side came to be or what pulled it out, but I’m worried about him.
“No, he isn’t hiding anything—hasn’t told a lie, hasn’t refused an answer, and hasn’t pissed himself,” Dylan says with a shrug. Willow remains quiet by my side as we stare at the lanky man with a black bag over his head. He has tattoos lining his arms down to his fingertips, similar to Felix. James is tanned and muscled like the rest of us.
