She looks happier than I’ve seen her yet, and fuck, I could get addicted to having that look aimed in my direction. “No one ever gets my references. They all look at me like I’m nuts.”
My brows draw low in confusion. “Because you have good taste in movies?”
A split second later her hands are on my cheeks and she’s pressing an enthusiastic kiss to my lips. I just stand there in shock at first, not really understanding how we got to this point, but definitely not objecting.
When she starts to pull away, I cup the back of her neck and draw her back in, not letting her go. My other hand settles on her hip possessively as I use my tongue to part her lips, absolutely devouring her. Her scent surrounds me, consumes me, and still I want to get closer. She’s quickly become the center of my entire world, everything shifting with such clarity.
I was a mess my entire life because I was missing an integral part of myself. My pride was enough glue to keep me together until I could find my way to her, but nothing, absolutely nothing, can replace this feeling of being whole for the first time. She’s everything I didn’t even know I needed, and it physically hurts to push down the need to shift and mark her as mine.
Her hands slip down to my chest, gently stepping back and looking flushed. Covering them with one of my own, I try to rub some heat into her chilled fingers.
“I might have gotten a little carried away,” I admit, but I certainly don’t apologize.
“Same,” she smirks, winking before going back to forging a path through the wilderness, since we have at least another hour walk ahead of us at this rate.
When we catch up to Osiris, we sit down to give her a break, and he promptly tackles her, paws on her shoulders and licking her face. She laughs, shoving his face away and donning a scandalized voice.
“No, we musn’t! There are laws.” She flutters her hand to her chest as Ares growls.
“They actually passed a law now? When did that happen?” he demands and she waves away his anger.
“No, no, no. Not shifters and humans, that’s just frowned upon, but not illegal. I meant like, you can’t go molest a swan without ending up on some type of registry somewhere.”
I watch the gears in her head turn, guessing at the direction of her thoughts that I sincerely doubt she’ll actually voice.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” I tease and she turns red.
“Am not,” she quickly protests and I burst out laughing.
“I didn’t even say what I meant, so you clearly were.”
Ares barks out a laugh, leaning back against the trunk of the tree and taking a sip from one of the water bottles we packed. “You’d be surprised at the sort of things people get into behind closed doors. As long as everyone’s into it, not our place to judge. Though biologically, that might pose some issues depending on the breeds.”
The rest of the distance flies by, the setting sun barely visible now. Bigger than a pond, but not quite enough to be considered a lake, the chilly water laps at the rocks. In the center, the massive tree stretches above all of the rest in the vicinity, the leaves a myriad of autumn colors. Plenty have fallen and are floating on the surface of the water alone with the closed lilies.
“Damn. I figured as much, but it was worth a shot,” Ares grumbles, crouching by the shore and dipping his fingers in the frigid water. “Going to have to wait for spring.”
Rin has her arms wrapped around herself and I drift closer, standing beside her to try and block the wind a bit. She soaks everything up as best she can in the dim lighting, the moon starting to rise enough to help.
Her voice is wistful as she stays enraptured. “It’s beautiful just as it is.”
She ends up sitting, wrapping her arms around her knees and getting lost in her head as she commits every detail to memory. It’s insane to me that she’s been kept so far removed from nature that this place is having such an effect on her. We stay in comfortable silence, Ares and I sitting beside her, and trying to brainstorm other places we can show her that we’ve taken for granted all of these years.
Whether it’s from her exhaustion or the chill, she ends up leaning into me. Her head rests on my shoulder while Osiris settles between her knees. Rin pauses in her stroking of the top of Osiris’ head, stiffening a bit with tension. Hesitantly, she reaches over and steals Ares’ hand, setting it on her knee before going back to petting my brother.
Ares’ thumb rubs back and forth and the tension dissipates from her form gradually. We stay like that for hours before having to make the call to start the arduous journey back.
Ares yanks me back from staying two steps away from her. “She’s going to just end up tripping over you too. Give her some space.”
Rin catches herself on a tree before she faceplants and I glare at Ares, gesturing at her to make my point behind her back. “What if I stay human and just give you a piggyback ride?” She flips me the bird while righting herself and I chuckle in surprise. “You know, for being some high society girl, you’ve gotten progressively more crass since being here.”
I ignore Ozzy trying to butt in, wanting to hear from my mate herself instead of everyone telling me how I should treat her.
“I think I’m just becoming more comfortable around you guys,” she states flippantly, like her words don’t make my entire night. “It’s not like I’ve been faking it around you, I just…” She swipes a hand down her face, turning to lean against a tree trunk rather than risk getting distracted and tripping again. “You know that feeling you get when you walk into a room? The one where you just have a sense of the sort of crowd you’re in?”
I nod, coming to lean beside her. “When you’re uncomfortable so you stay quiet, as opposed to being surrounded by friends and you’re more yourself.”
She gives me a sad smile. “Exactly. And I’ve spent enough time forced into situations where I just need to be seen and not heard, that it’s become my go-to response for everything. But I’ve always been Rin; not Corinna Harlow. It’s just strange to be in a position where I don’t need to overanalyze everything I say and do.”
