“I hate bars and parties and people,” Briar says flatly. “I am one hundred percent up for low-key. Like, to the point that if we all fell asleep and forgot about it, that would be fine too.”
I laugh. “We won’t forget about it. Mind you, that doesn’t mean I won’t be asleep by nine.”
Then we throw some money on the bar and follow the waiting vampire king out into the cold night so he can whisk us back home.
Like the most magical and deadly Uber around.
24.
Full Wolf Moon
Ty wakes me on the morning of the full moon by surging deep inside of me, rolling me over him on the bed and then clamping his arms around my back so he’s controlling the angle and his own depth even though I’m on top.
He makes me turn bright and hot. He makes me come, crying out his name.
Then he does it again, just for good measure.
The third time, he flips us over and takes it slow. So slow that I’m writhing beneath him, actually sobbing. And interspersing that with the most creative curses I can come up with, because I know that he’s torturing me on purpose.
“Good girl,” he murmurs when I come again, falling completely apart beneath his hands. “Happy claiming day, Maddox.”
I want to bite him but instead, I melt. I wrap myself around him and hold on tight when he rolls us up and carries me like that into the shower.
Unlike every full moon that I can think of in recent memory, I wish that we could get to the moon’s full height immediately. I don’t like that this one features the death goddess’s potential rise in the middle of it all, when on Halloween I was delighted to divert attention from Ty and me.
This is how I know that if Vinca does show up, I’ll figure out a way to take her down.
Because nothing is going to keep me from running tonight.
Ty insists that we grab breakfast in the grand cavern, and I know why he’s doing it. He wants us to come out together exactly like this, both of us smelling scrubbed clean and clearly not just intimate with each other, but united. Connected despite the Connor thing, and my weekend at Savi’s, and our entire tortured history.
He’s not going to make an announcement, but he’s still letting everyone know how things stand. I have to respect it.
My mother finds me as we’re eating and performs her little bow to both of us. Then she sits, her head lower than mine, because nobody knows protocol better than Johanna.
I listen with half an ear as she fills me in on all the gossip of the den and makes sure that I know the implications in every possible direction.
“Do you ever think,” I ask her, holding a piece of bacon, “that a lot of these interpersonal issues would cease to be a factor if we didn’t all live on top of each other?”
Johanna laughs. “All the time. But what wolf do you know who allows his pack to live beneath the sky instead of in a cave?”
Beside us, Ty grunts, though whether in support of skies or caves is unclear. I open my mouth to tell him and my mother that I would like to start thinking that way. That I think a little privacy would do wonders for pack relations.
Not today,I caution myself. Not when there are so many other things that need to happen between now and morning.
Living arrangements can wait.
Meanwhile, I can’t help but think that it would be smart, and awfully helpful, if Ty and I were already fully mated for Vinca’s new resurrection tonight. It would only make us stronger, especially when we have a bond that’s already so intense outside of the claim. It would allow us to communicate better, because I can already sense him. Hecan already sense me. My understanding is that once we’re truly mated, that connection will be even more intense and reliable.
All useful tools to have in the fight against a powerful, horrible being like Vinca.
But that’s not the day we have ahead of us. So I try to enjoy the day that we do have.
After we give our quiet breakfast performance, Ty assembles all of his returned lieutenants in the mapping room and I sit in, taking notes about the things they saw. I’m particularly interested in those things as they relate to the lines of supply and demand Ty intends for us to open and monitor.
I might have gotten a little lost in the Vinca stuff and the claiming that will finally happen later tonight—because I refuse to let anythingbutthat happen—but as the men talk about what they saw out there I find myself thinking about the kingdom Ty is building. About how different everything will be, so different from how it’s always been. Wolves striving, not hiding. Wolves controlling their environments instead of reacting to them.
I like this future. I like it a lot.
