I can help there.
I push at the Alpha’s arm, but it’s fucking heavy.
I sigh. “Are you awake?”
I reach to slick back Phantom’s ice-white hair.
He doesn’t open his eyes, but he sleepily signs:Sleeping.
I huff a laugh.
Before Phantom, I hadn’t known that it was possible to both lie and be darkly humorous so fluently in sign.
It only took me two days to learn the mix of army signals and privately invented sign language that Phantom and Joker created to communicate with each other. It took Bird slightly longer because he wasn’t used to being drilled in information. He was committed, however, and he has learned it now.
Over this last week, we’ve all learned many things.
Phantom has trained Bird in combat fighting and the use of the wolf dagger like he promised he would. He hasn’t been slowed down by only having the use of one arm.
He’s more patient than I guessed he would be, or I could have been.
I’ve sparred thrillingly with all of them out in the forest in between the storms that have lashed the mountain.
We have grown increasingly comfortable with each other, enough that I have almost forgotten that we are waiting for an attack.
Is this domestic bliss?
Joker sews our clothes, when we rip them with our over enthusiastic sparring.
Phantom cooks delicious meals, aided and abetted by Bird.
I am becoming used to the opera and musicals, which Phantom loves to play, while he reads curled in a chair in the cabin’s lounge.
Phantom appears entranced by Bird’s long hair, combing out its tangles each morning for our Omega. Bird falls into a blissful state at the attention, purring.
Joker and I have discovered someone with equal strength, attitude, and kinkiness in each other.
We’ve christened every room in the cabin.
Several times.
Joker is endlessly creative.
I adore that when he walks into a room and shoots me a heated look, I never know if he will be a Beta or an Omega.
It is like unwrapping a new gift each time, and I love each side to him.
It is like learning to love all of myself as well.
“Sleeping, huh?” I stroke lightly along Phantom’s cheek like he enjoys.
Then I make one final valiant effort to escape from underneath his arm.
Phantom tightens his hold on me. His sensual lips curve into a smile.
It’s the only warning I get before his luminous green eyes snap open.
Adrenaline spikes through me.
