do not know where to look first with the two of them standing so gloriously naked.
“River?” Brandon asks.
“River,” Gage agrees. “It is fucking freezing. I thought my balls had dropped off!”
Brandon chuckles, and it warms my heart that they are not growling at one another. “I will go and clean up too.”
He heads down the stairs.
In Brandon’s absence, I feel suddenly shy. I do not know Gage well, although my heart has claimed him as mine. He is a huge, stern Alpha in some ways, yet he is also gentle with me. Turning, he tests the water temperature before pouring some back into the bucket.
I am trying to heave my weak body out of the nest when he turns and levels me with a glare.
“Stay there,” he says. Striding over, he puts the bucket down beside me. “We will get you a proper bath once home, but this will help some.”
He heads over to the table, returning with a soft washing cloth. Dipping it in the warm water, he leans over me.
“What? Oh!” He wipes it over my face, growling when I try to take it from him.
“I wish to do this,” he says, voice brokering no discussion. Meekly, I let him clean me up, feeling my cheeks heat from shyness all over again. He purrs, and it is like a soft, comforting blanket settling over me, taking my concerns from my grasp and leaving a sense of peace.
“Where is home?” I ask. My cheeks are hot, but my body soothed as the cloth is dipped, wrung, and wiped over me from fingers to shoulder. He repeats on the other side.
“With my clan,” he says. “I am the king now, lass. My late father did a piss-poor job of leading them. My brother is a prisoner of the Halket clan. I must accept that he is unlikely to return home alive.”
He stills before dipping and wringing the cloth again, this time brushing my hair aside and cleaning my chin. “I would not abandon them again. It would not be the right thing to do.”
I feel like a great cloud has passed over me, and he stills again, pausing to tip my chin. “It is not so far from your family. You can visit them as often as you like.”
“I always imagined I would take a home in Ralston close to my ma and pa where I could still see them every day.” Moving from the people I have known all my life is daunting.
“I can see you would need to be a true king to your people who have been troubled for so long. But I am also nervous,” I admit. “About meeting them… and about what will happen when Jack finds out that I am gone. I do not want to start a war.”
“It will not start a fucking war unless Jack acts like an ass. He is a level-headed leader. He will not start a war. Happen he might be a bit pissed about how it came about, but he will see sense.” He goes back to cleaning me, down my throat, lifting me forward, and sliding the soothing cloth from my nape to the base of my spine before settling me back to rest.
It feels intimate and tender.
“I did not expect you to clean me, thus,” I say.
“Well, I am partly to blame for you being in this state. It seems reasonable that I should help to make you as comfortable as I can. It feels natural for me to do this. You are small and weak compared to me. A mate should be cherished. But you are an Omega and smaller and weaker than most.”
I don’t like that I am small and weak compared to a Beta lass, although I have never let my size stop me from doing anything I wanted to, nor would I be lazy and expect to be coddled. But he is my mate now, and his actions do indeed make me feel cherished.
He dabs gently at the claiming mark. It throbs and makes me wince.
“The womenfolk of the clan will have some balms as will help with this and the other soreness you have.”
My cheeks turn to flames again, just as Brandon enters the room… dripping. He could have shifted to dry, but he wears his battle scars from his conflict with Gage proudly.
“Oh!” I say as Gage rips the pelt covering me away, snapping my attention back to what he is doing. “I can clean there myself!”
“You will lay fucking