Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,91

angry now. “I don’t know if I’m going to make a choice. Like I said, we’re just sitting together. I think that’s about as much as I’m interested in for the time being. I’d be happy to sit with you too. There’s plenty of room on the sofa. Why does it have to be such a big deal?”

August has been sitting rigid with tension through the whole conversation, but at that question, he gives my hand a gentle squeeze that soothes some of the terror that’s coursing through me beneath the anger.

Sylas blinks, apparently lost for words. His gaze slides to the younger man and back to me. Then, to my enormous relief, the corner of his mouth twitches upward.

He lowers himself onto the sofa at my other side and gives my knee a light squeeze. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

“There. The world didn’t end.” Now that my fury is fading, I’m a bit dizzy from the sudden surge of emotion. And maybe also from being tucked between the two sexiest men I’ve ever met, the heat of their bodies enveloping mine.

I drag in a breath, composing myself. “Is there another controller? You’ve got to have at least one three-player game, right?”

August’s grin comes back, wary and then widening. “I can scrounge something up.” He glances at Sylas. “If you’re not afraid of getting your ass whooped by a human girl.”

Sylas glowers at him but without any real rancor. “I don’t know about her, but you can count on being thoroughly whooped yourself.”

“I accept that.”

He gets up to switch games and comes back with a third controller. Sylas accepts it happily enough, and the tension in the room ebbs.

As the game starts up, I snuggle deeper between the two men, resting my feet against August’s thigh, leaning my head on Sylas’s shoulder. I don’t know what’s going to come out of any of this, but I’m struck by the sense that as long as this moment lasts, I’m exactly where I want to be.

26

Whitt

The berries burst between my teeth, their sweet-and-sour juice trickling down my throat and vibrating through my senses. I let the dizzying rush consume me, knowing from a multitude of experience that the initial tsunami of a high will temper into a milder exhilaration if I give myself over to it.

The stars that dot the night sky sparkle brighter. The three-quarters moon glows so starkly it burns my eyes. Music and buoyant voices surround me. I turn on my heel, ingesting it all like a decadent feast.

I don’t ever lose myself for very long. I’m exorbitantly familiar with my limits and how to avoid crossing certain lines. But these fleeting moments when nothing exists but the glittering sensations of the present are the only times the constant tautness wound through my chest ever dissipates completely. Without them, I might find myself stretched so far I’d break right in half.

And that wouldn’t do, now would it?

The dark thought signals the dwindling of the high. I exhale in a careless huff and return my attention to the business at hand. Because these revels are as much business as they are entertainment—for me, at least.

Brigit drifts closer to me, peachy smoke wafting snake-like from her lips. A stoned haze clouds her eyes. She offers me a lopsided smile as if she can’t quite remember how to curve her mouth into the right shape and then giggles at herself.

“You’ve outdone yourself tonight, cadre-man,” she says. “Such a celebration for the pack.”

“Such a pack to celebrate,” I return, the play on her words slipping glibly off my tongue. “I thought you deserved every pleasure we could afford after the work you all put into preparing for our visitors.”

“Stuffy lordly ones,” she mutters, and I immediately perk up to a sharper alertness I don’t show. The first rule of success is to never be more than half as inebriated as you appear to be. Already I’m filing away the knowledge that Brigit is definitely not someone we should be including in any revels that include visiting lords or their cadres. If her tongue can slide into disrespect around me, it could around anyone.

But I was hoping to hear that disrespect from a few of my pack-fellows. I’ll get the most truth from those bold enough to show their true feelings.

“Well, they didn’t stay all that long,” I say, carefully not approving of her choice of words while tacitly encouraging them.

“I’d say they wore out their welcome.” She takes another gulp of smoke from the