Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,35
half-life or shell or whatever was currently going on with her.
When a shifter transformed while fully dressed, clothes could be unharmed, maimed during the process, or completely disappear depending on how powerful the shifter was as well as their state of mind.
Eli’s anger was clear to behold in that, even if he wasn’t showing Sabina his irritation.
Though I knew she was aware of that rule, it wasn’t as natural to her as it was to us. Ethan and I shared a wary look, fully apprised of the state of Eli’s temper, before we both shifted too.
Surprise, surprise, we were naked as well.
Fuck’s sake.
I heaved a sigh, because I’d liked those boots, then muttered, “Love, our world is made up of dudes who shift with clothes on and return to their skin naked because they’re pissed off. What about that makes sense?”
She scowled at me, but I noticed her checking me out as she gave me the side eye. I arched a brow at her when she finally met my gaze, and I bit back a laugh when she gave me a heated look, but one that told me if I approached her with anything other than caution, she’d bite me.
And on the soft and dangly parts.
Mother, I loved a bitch with a temper.
Trying hard not to drool, and well aware she knew I was close to said drooling, I watched her as she stiffened her shoulders and ground out, “The Mother can’t keep doing this. Just throwing this shit at us, expecting it to stick, and then for us to have to clean it up somehow.”
“That’s what She does. Ours is not to reason why,” Eli said softly, reaching for her and pressing his hands down her arms, rubbing them carefully, soothingly.
She didn’t want to be gentled though, I could see that plain as day, but she allowed him to touch her, to stroke her because, all things considered, Sabina wasn’t actually a very moody woman. Nor did she have much of a temper.
I wouldn’t say she was passive, just that she preferred to have things remain calm than to sweat over the small stuff. And in our world, there were plenty of small things that existed to put us in a bad mood.
After a shitty day, she would plunk herself beside me on my recliner and we’d watch TV together in silence. Or she’d read a book with Ethan, or lie on Eli’s sofa in front of his desk and play on her phone or draw while he worked.
Silence was her means of coping with agitation and annoyance. Not action. In her own way, she was a wallflower. Very content to stay with her back to the wall. That she was storming off to the totem, a place that gave her a lot of comfort, told me how upset she was on our behalf, and I had to admit, my heart soared at her care.
At her love.
I’d never known a love like it before, and while that might have seemed plausible considering she was my one and only mate, a mother’s love was just as powerful. Just as capable of moving mountains.
Only my mother, my two mothers, hadn’t loved me like that.
To be cherished was a different matter entirely than to being loved by a partner, but Sabina somehow managed to do both.
It was no skin off her nose if Merinda was in she-wolf form or not, yet here she was, riled up for us.
Because of us.
And her temper honored us.
With each clench of her fist, with each tick of her jaw, and each gentle throb of the nerve in her temple, she showed us her love.
There was no alternative for me other than to stride forward and to shove Eli out of the way so I could hold her. Eli, not surprisingly, growled at me, but I didn’t care. I just had to hold her, and in her ear, I whispered, “Thank you.”
I was an alpha born and bred. I didn’t need softness to exist. But to live? Which was completely, utterly different than existing?
Yes.
I needed that.
I kissed her cheek, sucking in a breath that was loaded in her scent, and I repeated, “Thank you.”
She bristled a little, clearly not expecting my thanks in the middle of her temper tantrum, then muttered, “What are you thanking me for?”
“For being hurt for us.”
Her anger died down at that. “Berry could have told me,” she muttered eventually. “She didn’t have to let us find out that way.”