But.One small word from him and I got ... even more still, somehow, kneeling there before him.What I told you before still stands. When you’re ready for me, you come to me. You understand?
It was what he’d said all those years ago. And I did understand, but in a completely different way than I had then.
I nodded, then wondered if the reason I did that was so I could feel those blunt, hard fingers of his on my chin even longer.
When you do,he told me, and there was a warning in his voice then. I could see it all over that stern face of his. I could feel it, deep inside me, like the ringing of a bell I hadn’t known was there.When it’s you and me, Maddox, there isn’t going to be anyone else. That’s when the fucking around stops. You get me?
My fucking around or your fucking around?I dared to ask.
He tilted his head just a little, just enough to remind me how powerful he was. How foolish I was to think I could make bargains with this man. But there was also that gleam in his gaze.
If that’s how you want it, babe.He’d never called me that before. I liked it.But I got to tell you, it’s going to take a lot of work on your part to keep me satisfied with some long-distance shit. You think you can handle that?
Maybe I won’t be ready for a long, long time.
He laughed at that, but it was low and dangerous, a match struck.I’ve never lied to you. Do me the same favor.
I’ve never lied to you,I replied, stalling.
Enjoy your freshman year, baby,he said, and I thoughtbabywas even better thanbabe.I suggest you enjoy it fully, because between you and me, I have a feeling that’s all the party time you’re going to get.
He was right about that, too.
Now, years later, all I can think is that from his perspective, I’ve been a gigantic disappointment.
“I know all the packs are coming,” I say, looking back at him after that unwelcome trip down memory lane. “And I know that no one understands this thing between us—”
“Including me,” he growls.
I shoot a glare back at him. “You understand it, you just don’t like it.”
“Again, end of the line, babe.” He gets to his feet then, moving much too fast and much too gracefully for someone his size. He’s breathtaking, is the trouble. If I’d been fated to a goblin, my whole life would be different. I’d be on an island in the South Pacific even now. “You say you know all the packs are coming, but are you really prepared for what that means? You didn’t like it that much five years ago when we were back east and no one could understand why I was letting you make a mockery of me down in New York City.”
He was right. I’d hated it. “You told me you didn’t care what they said.”
“I don’t,” he shoots back at me. “But I do care about what they mightdo, Maddox. Sooner or later a hundred-year king with no queen looks like a weak-ass bitch. A liability. The fact that we managed to take down a death goddess from hell won’t matter much if enough of the wrong people decide that a move against me makes sense.”
“I can’t believe anybody would dare.”
“Maddox.”
I can hear the impatience in his voice. It’s all over him, and it’s different this time. The all-pack gathering changes things. I should have been more prepared. I can see that he is.
He glares at me. “Stop stalling.”
“I just think that there should be more than this,” I say, flatly. Boldly.
I’ve never said it before. Not quite like that. I’ve hinted at it. I’ve come toward it but never quite got there.
Mostly because I suspected that he would look exactly the way he does now. Like I’ve slapped him. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”
“I mean that the world ended three years ago and everything changed, except us.” I throw out my hands to encompass this hill, the den beneath it, the entire pack. “We live exactly the same way that our ancestors were living one hundred years ago. But you can remember that yourself. It was the same two hundred years before you. A thousand years before then.”
“That’s called history,” Ty growls. “Our history.”
“Is it?” I shake my head, not sure why I feel like there’s an earthquake inside of me. “Why are we still hiding below ground when everyone else is walking around free? Why are we adhering to archaic rules that have nothing to do with how this pack—howyou—can change things going forward?”
“Talking shit isn’t going to change the situation.”
