regret it as I’m flooded with images from each of them of exactly what they’d like to do to me in my current state.
“You sneaky fuckers!” I shout out as I tear away from the connection and have to immediately start talking my libido down.
Torrez cracks up when I shoot out of his lap and speed walk to the bathroom. “You have some very creative mates,” he calls after me. “I’m just bursting with all kinds of new ideas and plans now.”
I slam the bathroom door behind me and lean against it, breathing heavily. I swipe at my face with my hands and chuckle at just how unhinged I am from their delectably dirty minds. I flip on the light and turn to the sink to splash water on my heated face. It doesn’t help. Fuck, maybe I need to take a freezing cold shower in order to deal with the hormones that are currently surging inside of me. I look up at my reflection and immediately my eyes land on the new runes I have on my left shoulder.
“What the hell?” I ask absently, as I lean forward to get a better look at the new symbols that are now marked in my skin. There are eight of them, and they form a sort of half-moon shape. I realize quickly that it’s not actually a half-moon that they’re forming, more like there’s a rune in each place where every tooth pierced my skin when Torrez bit me. I turn around and find eight more runes on the back of my shoulder, too. I open the door and poke my head out.
“Just out of curiosity, how does it work when you mark me?” I ask, going for nonchalant, but coming across squeaky.
“Um, it’s kind of complicated, but the simple version is that shifters sort of partially shift, or at least our mouths do, and we bite our mates. Why?”
“Um, because this happened,” I tell him, stepping out and pointing to the new runes on my shoulder.
“Yeah, those showed up a couple minutes after you passed out. Do you know what they do?” he asks, and I do what I always do when I have no fucking clue about anything, I shrug. I look down and run the pad of my index finger over one of the new runes, tracing the symbol as I contemplate.
“I guess we’ll find out, but I don’t know that this place is the best environment to do that,” I tell him as I motion to the cabin we’re currently holed up in.
“Do you think you might be able to shift?” Torrez asks, and I don’t miss the eager glint in his eyes.
“Honestly, your guess is as good as mine at this point,” I admit and then rub at my temples. I look around the room, and as much as I want to crawl back into the bed and have a little nakey-nap, the others are waiting for us, and we’ve gotta go. “Any chance you have my jeans and sweater?”
“Oh, you mean the ones you stripped out of before the challenge?” he asks, his tone clearly stating his disapproval.
“I wouldn’t have been able to move like I needed to,” I defend. “You could be in here right now with Brun, so you just think about that before you go trying to get all territorial on me,” I scold, and he laughs.
Torrez walks over to a chair in the corner and picks up my neatly folded clothes, handing them to me. I’m not sure what time it is, but I’m hoping it’s late enough that the pack is asleep, and we can just sneak off without having to do a walk of shame. I snag Torrez’s jeans off the ground and reach inside to steal his underwear. I pull out a pair of black boxer-briefs and shake them at him.
“If I have to go commando, so do you,” I declare, and annoyingly, Torrez seems more amused by this than he is upset. He smiles at me the whole time we’re both getting dressed. I pick up my shredded under clothes and stuff them in Torrez’s pockets. He breathes me in deeply as I manhandle him and pulls me in for a soft kiss before I can step away. I almost give a contented sigh against his lips, and then I remember that I’m irritated that I have no comfy and supportive undergarments on. I narrow my eyes at Torrez, and he laughs. It’s clear he knows the