"I was heading back to my room," I whispered, my voice thick.
Vidar didn't open his eyes. A low, warning growl vibrated in his chest. The sound was more wolf than man.
"You told me you don't like to sleep with anyone," I reminded him, my hand resting on his forearm.
He didn't argue. He didn't even speak. He simply rolled me over until I was face-first against him. He tucked my head into the hollow of his chest and threw a heavy leg over mine for good measure. He anchored me there, a silent command that I wasn't going anywhere.
Within seconds, he was asleep again, his heartbeat a steady, thrumming rhythm against my ear. For the first time in ten years, the howling in my head was quiet. I closed my eyes and placed my hand on his heart. The organ thumped against my fingertips.
Fuck, was I in trouble.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
VIDAR
Iwas a light sleeper by design. I slept like a stone last night, deep and dreamless and heavy in a way I hadn't felt since I was young enough to believe the world was simple and everyone was on my side. I knew the cause of that restful sleep. Addie's scent was all over me. My pillow, my skin, my cotton sheets she had cocooned herself into, as if she was trying to disappear inside them and take me with her.
I'd held her through the night. That was an anomaly. I had never woken to a woman pressed to my side.
I lay still in the light of the new day. I let myself have thirty seconds of it; the weight of her, the warmth, the silence that comes after the wolf has finally gone quiet. She had quickly become the only variable that cut through the static of numbers and figures and facts in my head.
My sweet Addie was awake. Had been for a while, probably. Her eyes tracked along the line of my shoulder. The curve of my neck.
The mate bond registered the direction of her attention before my brain did. A low, bone-deep frequency started in my sternum and spread outward. I knew the trajectory of her thoughts, her desires. She wanted to mark me. I wanted her to do it.
My mate carried my claim on her throat, raw and pulsing and visible against the pale skin of her neck. A brand that would never fade. I turned my head and let her see that I was watching her watch me.
She met my gaze steadily, that fine color rising in her cheeks. She said nothing. She pressed her palms into my chest, pulling herself closer, right over the pulse point at my throat.
I lifted my head, giving her access. To my clavicle. To my Adam's apple. To my throat. She could take whichever she wanted.
Addie licked her lips and?—
A knock landed on the door. Three quick fist-poundings. Then an irritating series of knuckling-knocks.
"It's me." Ivar's voice filtered through the heavy oak, sheepish and slightly muffled. "Magnus sent me. He said you were less likely to bite your baby brother's head off. He said to tell you it wasn't optional."
I stared at the door. The urge to punch my fist through the frame wasn't exactly brief. Fratricide did flit through my brain.
"Hi, Addie."
"Hi, Ivar," she said cheerfully.
I growled.
Addie pressed her face into my chest. Her shoulders were shaking. The sound she was making was, unmistakably laughter.
"Give me five minutes," I said to the door.
"Okay." Then. "Hey, Addie. Did my brother satisfy you in the way a husband should?"
"He did just fine, Ivar, thanks for asking."
I growled loud enough that the door did shake.
"What? I'm being polite."
"Run away, or Ma will find you in pieces."
