Swallowing, I nod rapidly into Cin’s chest. As that sense of calm spreads throughout my body, I pull away, mentally punching myself in the face.
You’re a master of going with the flow and adapting. You’ve already had your mental breakdown over this whole surprise marriage and being a defective wolf thing, so pull yourself together. You don’t have to be a badass, but you need to at least not be a burden.
If I’m going to be a weak-ass not-wolf, I’ll need to get creative on how to pull my weight so that I’m not such a weak link. Hell, look at Emmy. She’s a master manipulator, able to navigate social cues like a second language and play people to her advantage. She can shift, but can’t fight, and has been coddled her entire life. That doesn’t mean she’s useless, even though she needs protecting.
It doesn’t matter if I’m defective if I can file one of my broken pieces into a shiv.
“Of course we are, Emmy loves to surround herself with sociopaths.”
Cin chuckles, brushing his knuckles down my cheek and pinning me with pale blue eyes that flawlessly conceal his anxiety, stowing it behind a trained mask. “You didn’t even look to see who was shot. Maybe it was our foreign invaders, or Emmy’s other mates so that he could have her all to himself.”
Slade’s touch suppresses the last bit of fear that I couldn’t reason away myself, and I finally feel more like my old self. The one before these men came into my life and tore it apart, stitching it back together with genuine affection, and wicked sex. Add in a stiff drink, and it’s everything a girl could ever wish for.
Leeching off of Cinjin’s energy to cope, I bat my eyelashes innocently. “Maybe if we stay perfectly still, he won’t notice us and leave.”
He bursts out laughing. “Like a t-rex?”
It’s always easy with Cinjin, and I feel like a real jackass for being so caught up in everything I was losing, I wasn’t giving enough credit to what I gained. I don’t regret taking the time to get my head on straight so that I could look at everything objectively instead of letting my thoughts be dictated by emotion, but I do regret how much it must have hurt him and Boden when I walked away, though that’s exactly why I needed to.
Their pain didn’t outweigh mine, and it wasn’t my responsibility to make them feel better while I was falling apart, too. I’ve seen enough people fall into that guilt trap; shoulder the burdens to keep everyone else happy like their feelings weren’t as important, and it slowly killed their spark.
And I get not one, but two husbands? Potentially four? There’s going to have to be some hard lines to ensure it’s an equal relationship so that I don’t become crushed under the weight of expectations that I’ll never be able to meet. Recognizing my own limits is a big part of that, because no matter how much I like them, or their acceptance of hierarchy because of how they grew up, that’s not how I was raised.
The world does a fine enough job reminding me that I’m not important, that all of us are replaceable. So I refuse to be treated like I’m lesser in my own home, which may very well be why none of my previous relationships lasted long. Well, that, and my slumbering canine parasite, but nobody’s perfect.
Forcing myself to turn around and face my fate head on, I watch Maddox stride past eleven bodies like it’s any other day, joining Emmy and her other mates. She simply smiles, not saying a word. Shockingly though, once he’s before her, Maddox shifts on his feet, a faint crack appearing in his indifferent mask.
“He would’ve been more of a threat if I let him leave,” he declares, as if defending his actions, or maybe seeking her approval. “It would have been stupid to wait around for him to retaliate.”
“Very proactive and wise, I agree,” Emmy praises, rising up on her tiptoes to peck a quick kiss on his cheek that has the man going rigid. “I’m admittedly biased though, because I’ve hated the man for years and was over here hoping that your finger might ‘slip’ for the past five minutes.” Maddox simply huffs out a breath, clearly uncomfortable and at a loss for how to deal with her attention.
And then there were four.
Now that everyone else has either left or been killed, only Adrian and the three strangers remain. Between Slade’s influence bolstering my nerves and Maddox’s display, I’m feeling ten times more confident in our place in this situation. While I know that these men are dangerous, they aren’t the only ones here who are. Fuck, I watched my guys kill, what, sixty or so people a few days ago? And I shot two, for sure killed one, so I’m going to lump myself in with the dangerous crowd for bragging rights, if nothing else.
Shifting my weight to my good leg and disregarding Adrian, I meet the newcomers’ gazes head on rather than flinching away from their intimidating trio. I wouldn’t have a chance in hell in an actual fight, can’t even run right now, so I need to be smart. Emmy plays her weakness to her advantage, capitalizing on their protective and possessive instincts; I can do the same if necessary.
Hierarchy. Dominance. These men aren’t like the ones that I’m used to dealing with, and I need to stop thinking of them as such. They aren’t men with dark secrets, they’re an entirely different breed of human that I’m only starting to scratch the surface of understanding. While I naturally expect to be treated with respect in any relationship that I find myself in, it’s not freely given elsewhere in this world. I have to earn it, and that’s not going to happen cowering behind my... mates.
That’s still going to take some getting used to.
“So, what do you mean, ‘here for Sabrina?’”
Beneath short-shorn chestnut hair, dark green eyes narrow on my face as one of them crosses his arms over his chest. That accusatory stare flits from me to the men surrounding me, not bothering to hide his hostility. “Exactly what it sounds like. We’re here to take you home.”
I scrunch my face up in confusion. “I’m gathering you don’t mean my apartment, so what are you considering ‘home’? With you three?”
Low growls surround me, and I place a hand on Bo’s back as he steps in front of me, inching out to the side so that I can carry on my conversation while appeasing him. Cin isn’t faring much better, taking up a position flush against my back and banding an arm around my stomach with Reid on my free side. Slade keeps his distance, but by his deceptively casual stance, it’s intentional.
“Not quite,” he replies, locking his sights on Slade. “Back home to your fathers, where you’ll be safe until they declare your match.” He raises an eyebrow with a smug smirk. “And it would appear she bought herself as much time as she could for help to arrive, since there’s less clean up to be done than we anticipated.”
It takes me a second to decipher his meaning, but when it clicks, I take a step forward, scowling. “Oh, fuck off! You know damn well that I have no clue who you are, and how quickly I claim my mates isn’t any of your business.” A grimace replaces my scowl as I shift back to my good leg, and I don’t stop Reid when he pulls me into his side to support my weight, fighting to conceal my heavy breaths from pushing myself too far. “We’ve been a little busy burning corpses, and the stench is a bit of a mood killer, thank you very much.”
The one with pitch black hair and eerie, red ringed, silver eyes takes a step closer, canting his head as his nostrils flare. “What’s wrong with her?”
Emmy fakes a cough into her fist. “Where to start?”
Shooting her a withering look, she simply winks, and I take a deep breath at her subtle reminder. I’m getting as worked up as everyone else, and rising tensions won’t bode well for any of us. Picking fights only works if you’re ready to put your money where your mouth is.
