Chapter 6
Damian
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Slight movement pullsme awake, and I groggily peel one eye open in confusion that swiftly morphs into surprise. Sabrina is stretched out on top of me, completely naked, and fidgeting in her sleep. Two seconds later, reality comes crashing back into me, the events of yesterday replaying in my mind in rapid succession.
She claimed me. I shifted, but there was something... wrong about it. Toxic. Monstrous. A twisted version of the wolf I should have been.
Sabrina was supposed to be the key to fixing everything, but instead, she’s putting out fires with gasoline.
“Five more minutes,” she mumbles, squirming to get comfortable.
When her face is tucked beneath my chin, she sighs in contentment, immediately lost to the world again and snoring softly within minutes. A shiver snakes down my spine at the feeling of her breath against my throat, but where anyone else would have had theirs torn out for the suicidal move, with Sabrina? Fuck, it feels like she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.
Still more wolf than human then.Mentally scoffing with wry amusement, I run my hand soothingly over her spine and relish the feeling of my-My mate. Fuck, maybe Iamstill dreaming.
For the first time in my life, I don’t feel like a stranger in my own body. The constant gnawing sensation I’m accustomed to living with, like an angry void where my heart should be, is quiet for once. Peaceful. Content. Like Sabrina’s mere presence is enough to keep my demons at bay, at least for a while.
The first time I saw Sabrina, I knew she would be something I'd kill to possess. The second, that there was no longer any reality in which she wouldn’t be mine. Now that I finally have her in my arms, though, it’s abundantly clear that I’m a complete idiot.
She’s not mine, I’m hers, and always have been; long before I ever met her.
I already failed her once by not realizing how utterly unworthy I was to be by her side. Never again.
Sliding my hand up, I cup the back of her neck and thread my fingers into her dark mass of hair, tangled to hell after our night in the woods. “Don’t you have work today?”
Pulling away from my throat, she pins those hypnotic, now fully coral eyes on my face, currently wide with alarm. Even though I’ve seen firsthand that she isn’t helpless, right now she looks so godsdamned fragile that my wolf rises swiftly in response, demanding blood from threats that aren’t even here.
It's okay. The Slaughters will be thrilled that she took me as a mate, and I can start the proceedings for a modified treaty between our packs. It'll appease them, give us more people that will protect her, and everything will work out.
"Shit.” Closing her eyes, she sighs. “I could go for a hell of a lot more sleep, but yeah.”
“Not like Reid won’t understand if you call off,” Boden mumbles on my right, one arm thrown over his eyes, and the other hand settling on the back of Sabrina’s thigh, thumb languidly stoking her bare skin.
“I’m not worried about getting fired, I’m worried about not finishing on time,” she groans. Crossing her arms, she rests her chin on top of them. “Just need a few minutes to psyche myself up into getting out of bed and some coffee, then I’ll be fine.”
A grumble from my left proceeds Slade sitting up. If looks could kill, I’d be a dead man, but the moment his gaze falls on Sabrina, it immediately softens. I may think that he’s ill-equipped to protect her with a nearly extinct pack and surrounded by people after their heads; hell, Iknowhe is simply by the state she was in when I arrived. Still, I can’t hate the man. Not when he looks at our mate like she’s the only thing in this world or the next worth seeing.
“How much more do you have to go?”
She takes a second to do a mental countdown before replying, but it means nothing to me. I know the deadline date, but I’m not sure how what she has left to accomplish compares to it.
“Sounds like you’re on top of it and nothing to worry about, then,” I praise, to which she rolls her eyes, seeing right through me.
Yawning, she counters, “You’re just excited to whisk me across the country and try to convince me that you’ve got a cooler house.”
Two rumbles of displeasure surround me, and honestly, I get it. If someone were to walk in here and tell me that they wanted to take my mate away from my home, right onto the doorstep of men that have a reputation of ‘murder first, ask questions never’, I’d be pretty pissed off too.
“Why areyougrowling?” she asks, tilting her head curiously to assess my face.
