“There’s something I should tell you.”
“Should?” I’d seen him talking to Dathal before he came up here, the music too loud to make out what they’d been saying, but I caught enough to know it hadn’t been in any language I understood. And if they felt the need for that kind of secrecy, was it something he wanted to share, or had Dathal coaxed him into it? “You don’t owe me anything, Axel.”
“But—”
I tried to explain myself and keep the bitterness out of my voice. “You’ve made your feelings perfectly clear. You don’t want me in any capacity other than as a friend. And yes, the way you went about it pissed me off, and yes, you hurt me. But it is what it is.
“You don’t have to keep explaining yourself for not wanting this, in the same way I don’t have to slip back into our friendship just because you want me to.” As desperate as I was to hear what he’d been about to say, I didn’t want him pressured into it. Underneath it all, we were pack. It might take me a while to get back to thefriendspart, but pack was forever. “Whatever you and Dathal were talking about down there, you don’t have to tell me just because he said you should.”
It took a moment, but then Axel’s mouth curved into a small smile. “So you were watching us, huh?”
“Rys put me on guard duty. It’s literally my job tonight to keep you safe, so if you wander into my eyeline, then yes, of course I’m going to watch you.”
We were still holding hands.
I should’ve let go of him, but I just didn’t want to.
He noticed at the same time I did. His gaze lingered on our entwined fingers, the barest sigh escaping, and I wondered if he’d remembered the same thing I had earlier. I stroked my thumb over the back of his hand and his breath caught.
“Come home with me,” he said, voice soft.
I wanted to. Wanted it more than anything in that moment, but we’d been here before. “The last time you said that to me, it didn’t end so well.”
Axel winced. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
“So you’ve said.” I believed him, but it didn’t change anything.
“Please, Talis.” He looked up, and Goddess help me, the desperation in his eyes, in his voice, broke through all my walls. Smashed them into smithereens. There was every chance I’d be left picking up the pieces again, but instinct drove me to slide a hand along his jaw, his skin smooth under my palm.
I shuffled closer, wanting so badly to pull him into my arms and kiss him, all the while clinging to the last shreds of my resolve to keep my distance.
“Yes,” I murmured, gaze dropping to his mouth. I could do this. I could go home with him, totalk, and not make the same mistakes we made last time.
Arousal laced the air between us, and not just mine.
I growled, low and rough, my wolf restless beneath my skin.
Mine.
Except he wasn’t, and that was the problem.
Despite everything, I still wanted him to be. Closing my eyes, I rested my forehead against his. This close, his scent filled my lungs with every shaky breath I took, the smell of the forest all too familiar.
He smelled likehome.
“Axel.”
Warm breath ghosted over my lips on his every exhale, teasing me with the thought of what would happen if I closed that last bit of distance between us.
It’d be a mistake.
I knew it now, like deep down I’d known it all those months back. And just like then, I didn’t care enough to stop.
I inched closer, my lips brushed Axel’s in the barest of kisses, and it set my body on fire. Heat flooded my veins and I sucked in a breath, wanting to drown in his scent, in him, but I froze in place as another scent invaded my senses.
Fuck.
My head snapped up, eyes searching out the only person who I’d allow to interrupt this.
