Expression sobering, he said, “I want that too.”
“Okay, then I have a suggestion. We’ll say how we feel about both packs, and before we go inside, we’ll make a decision.” Because once we went through that door, I had plans. Ones that included bypassing the living room and going straight up to my bedroom. Plans that to anyone else might seem rash, but to me they felt long overdue.
Max nodded. “Okay then. I’ll go first.” He leant back against the car. “I love Elliot. I love our old pack.”
He hesitated. “But?” I prompted.
“But even with Xen gone, whenever I think about going back there, it doesn’t feel right.” He rubbed a hand over his chest. “In here.”
I was pretty sure what was coming next because I felt the same. “And you feel guilty about that because Elliot’s going to be an amazing alpha, and part of you feels an obligation to join him.”
He chuckled. “That about sums it up.”
“And Rys?”
Max wrinkled his nose. “I know Rys is a great alpha… but he’s my cousin. I’m used to giving him shit and teasing him. I don’t want that to change and things to get weird.”
“You think they would?”
He blew out a breath, looking up at the sky before answering. “No? Maybe? I don’t know.”
“Well,” I said, stepping between his spread thighs. “This is what I think.” I took a moment to organise my thoughts. “As much as I love Elliot, returning to the Rufford Park Pack feels like taking a step backwards. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to separate the pack from what Xen did to us. Loyalty to Elliot tells me we should go back, but every instinct I have says that’s not the right choice for us.”
“And Rys?” Max asked, mirroring me.
“Rys took us in without question. Didn’t hesitate to protect us even when he was outnumbered. I trust him with my life, and yours. He’s one of the best alphas we know. You only have to look at how much his pack love and respect him to see that. I know he’s your cousin, but he’d never let his position as alpha change the relationship you two have. And I think deep down you know that.”
“I do.”
Secretly, I think Max had made the decision to join Rys’s pack the moment Xen broke my leg. In his heart, anyway. He just needed time for his head to catch up. “So, are we going to live in the Dark Forest or the pack house?”
Max wrinkled his nose. “Are our only options to be near Rys and Mase, or Axel and Talis? You know how bad newly mated couples are.”
“Well,” I said, looping my arms around his neck. “Maybe they won’t be the only ones.”
I waited for him to get my meaning.
Saw the moment it registered.
His face broke out in the most beautiful smile. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I grinned back at him, his sudden happiness infectious like it always had been. “I mean it’s probably too soon and—mmph.”
With a low, needy growl he spun me around, pressed me against the car, and kissed me. All that solid shifter muscle holding me in place as he stole my breath and scrambled my thoughts until my sole focus was him.
Always him.
“Not too soon,” he murmured before kissing me again. Slower this time, taking his time to explore my mouth, his tongue meeting mine, lazy and unhurried. Because there was no rush now, no pressing need to grab everything we could before it was all ripped away.
Ahead of us lay night after glorious night of being together in every way imaginable. If we wanted it.
It might only be a matter of months since we’d started this, but it felt like I’d waited a lifetime to make Max mine. And I didn’t want to wait any longer.
And if Max was on board, there was no reason why we should. “Come on,” I said, stepping back and tugging on his arm. “Let’s go inside.”
Max
This time last week, if someone had said I’d be following Jake up the stairs with the sole intention of making him mine forever, I’d have laughed in their face. Nothing had seemed further from our reality, and yet here we were.
