wolf looked back out at them. She dropped to her knees as her bones broke. The first shift was always the slowest, which made it the most painful. She cried out, and Kenny moved over to her side, licking her face.
Dezi was there too. “It’s okay. Deep breaths. It’s painful, but embrace it. It is a part of us.”
Ava nodded her head, not audibly responding as more bones broke and reshaped. She dropped farther to the ground, grabbing handfuls of grass and mud as she let out a scream. Indigo was nervous she’d stopped the shift. That could result in a lot more pain, but he should have known better. Ava was stronger than that. She continued to shift until a panting, dusky-colored wolf lay on the ground. Kenny’s snow leopard was near Ava. He licked her face before nudging her up.
“Let’s hunt,” Dezi shouted as he shifted last. His shift was fast. He was soon in his large lion form letting out a roar that Indigo and the others responded to with ease.
***
The run and hunt were exhilarating, and the affection shared between their animal sides only made Indigo want his mate more. Indigo wrapped his arms around Logan. Lately, he was finding it harder and harder to make his way to his own bed. Not when it felt so right to have Logan in his arms.
Indigo held Logan close against him. It was becoming a ritual, and he longed to have Logan in his arms all night long. He never wanted to let Logan go. Never again, he promised himself.
“Why won’t you let me love you?” Indigo finally said, interrupting the silence of the room.
Logan’s breath hitched. “Because I won’t survive this time if you walk away.”
Indigo tightened his arms around his mate. He opened his mouth, but Logan beat him to it.
“Don’t, please,” Logan said. It sounded as if he was crying.
It broke Indigo apart. He continued to hold his mate even as Logan fell asleep, and he stayed longer than usual, watching the man he wanted to love and cherish. The man who completed him.
“I promise I will never leave you because I love you more than life itself,” Indigo whispered. He placed a kiss on Logan’s ear. “I’m going to make you believe me one of these days.”
Slowly, Indigo withdrew from embracing Logan. He made his way to the door and glanced back at his mate, who turned, trying to get comfortable in his sleep without Indigo there to hold him. Everything in him begged him to crawl back into bed and wrap his mate back up in his arms. One day he won’t have to leave the bed. One day he will be able to hold Logan all night and wake up to him still in his arms.
It was time. Logan was tired of limbo, even if he was scared shitless of moving things forward with Indigo. But how much longer could he keep things the way they were before they each ended back up like before?
The night before when Indigo had asked why Logan wouldn’t let him love him flashed through his mind. Fuck, he’d been caught off guard, and of course his brain had stuck on the word “love.” Did Indigo love him? Even though Logan had made none of it easy. Logan didn’t even know if he could let Indigo love him. He’d been honest when he said he wouldn’t survive a second time around. But if Logan was going to try, and a huge part of him wanted to, then he needed to get some things off his chest and get some answers.
Pacing wasn’t helping, and the question was utterly stupid, but he needed to ask it anyway. He caught sight of Indigo, and for a split second he was ready to run the other way and forget the whole thing. But before he could really decide and hightail it out of there, Indigo looked over at him and headed his way. He ate the distance with long strides, way too quickly.
“Hey, Bean,” Indigo said.
Bean, uh… The pet name shouldn’t be so damn cute, and yet it made Logan’s heart flutter every time Indigo used it. Logan looked away, bringing the coffee cup up to his lips and taking a sip of the pure magic from the cup.
“Hey,” Logan said.
Damn it, he wasn’t trying to sound so disgruntled. Logan was seriously in need of a how to communicate your feelings 101 class.
Indigo didn’t seem put off by it. He leaned