two can surprise me.” She leaned up on her tiptoes, then pressed a kiss to my lips. I sighed into it, as did she, before she darted off and started exploring.
When she strode into Ethan’s room, I leaned against the jamb, watching her.
“Kali Sara, he likes books, doesn’t he?”
My mouth twisted into a smile. “Yeah. He likes them. A lot.” That was an understatement. The walls were lined with books, and every possible surface was stacked high with them—all types, thicknesses, and sizes.
“I hate reading,” I muttered.
She grinned at me. “Sacrilege.”
“It’s just not how I work. If you tell me a story, I’ll never forget it. But if you have me read it?” I blew out a breath. “I’ll hate every second of it.”
“I want to hear a story from you sometime.” She hummed. “Eli was saying you’re great at telling them.”
“Well, that’s not a way to give me stage fright, is it?” I grumbled, surprised that Eli had given me that compliment.
She snickered, but ceased trailing her hand over the books, the myriad tomes that Ethan considered priceless possessions, before she wandered over to me.
“I want to see your room now.”
“Who am I to disobey?”
She grinned, then laughed when I led her in there.
“Austin, really? Did it need to be so big?” was her first response.
I winked at her. “Big is as big does.”
“True,” she mused. “Your dick is as big as the TV.”
“Be grateful it isn’t, sassy monkey,” I chided, but I leaned over and nipped her bottom lip for her pains.
She chuckled, making my heart break in the best possible way, and then come together again at another sign of glee from her, and whispered, “I like this room.”
My brows rose. “There’s nothing special about it.”
“There is.” She huffed. “It’s your room.” A grin appeared on her lips, and it made me want to kiss her hard and deep and fast.
She loved me, that was clear to see, because this room was anything other than special.
It probably even smelled a bit like jock, but hell, I was a jock. An overgrown one who was being forced to grow up fast.
But I could deal with that for her.
A howl sounded outside, and I wasn’t shocked that the pack was running hard and fast. It startled her though. She jerked and almost fell back against me.
I kissed her temple as I hugged her tight. “You’re safe here with me.”
Plus, the she-wolf.
She was outside, roaming around, and the howl she shot back at the running pack was just as annoyed as Sabina’s jolt.
How tied to each other were they?
I wasn’t sure.
It was strange though, damn strange, but so much about this situation was.
I didn’t think we’d ever get some answers to our questions, but maybe some questions weren’t supposed to be asked?
I hated that, because I liked to know shit, even if I wasn’t book smart, but you couldn’t question what was set in stone.
You could know that the big bang boomed the universe into being, but there was no knowing why it happened specifically when it did, was there?
Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, our little plot twists weren’t that big of a deal to the universe by comparison, but to us? They mattered.
Everything had been so strange since the very start.
We’d lost an omega, then we’d gained one.
We’d found our mate, and she’d been forged into a powerful wolf child when that just didn’t happen.
Wolf child and powerful were words that didn’t go together.
“Eli wants to know how it happened too,” she murmured, as she moved around my space, muttering, “Eureka,” when she found the remote control.
I watched as she flicked on the device, her head tilting as a football game blared on. When she turned the volume down, peering at me over her shoulder, she said, “He says he’ll get to the bottom of it. Eventually.”
“Some things you can’t reason away.”
“Sure you can. If you try hard enough.” She reached out a hand. “Come and watch TV with me until the guys get back?”
“Of course.”
So we did. We watched Next Gen straight from the beginning, and I sighed as she settled on my lap in my lounge chair, feeling whole and complete in a way that made me realize I’d been missing a part I’d never known I was lacking.
When, about three hours later, I heard shuffling outside the cabin, then a few yips and snarls, I felt Sabina tense.
She’d drifted to sleep, and when she had, I’d scented it.