“Liam, the elders and I need to go over many things with you,” Frank said.
“I’ll just drop her off and then-”
“I can drive them. I was leaving anyway,” August said.
Liam narrowed his eyes. The friction between the two males was so heavy that if I stuck out my finger there would probably be static.
“That’d be great. Thank you, August,” Frank said.
I clasped Liam’s hand, spread his fingers with mine, because his jagged expression told me he didn’t find this arrangement great.
“And, Ness, Evelyn’s at my house. Just so you don’t worry when you get back to the inn.”
Thinking about Evelyn, the woman who’d taken care of me during the six years I was living in LA with my mother, stole my thoughts away from Liam and August for a welcomed moment. Did that mean she and Frank were rekindling what they’d had at the time she was still married to the werewolf-hating hunter who’d shot my father? I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that Evelyn had once been a woman named Gloria Michaels, wife of Aidan, lover of Frank, citizen of Boulder, Colorado. I wondered if I would ever come to terms with that.
“Tell her I’ll come by to see her tomorrow.”
Frank nodded as he slipped between August and Liam.
Liam let go of my hand and wound his arm around my waist, pulling me against him possessively.
“I’ll get Jeb and wait for you in the car.” August backed out of the room.
Like a spool of thread, I felt him retreat. But then I felt something else, a hand travel up my spine, settle on the nape of my neck, tip my face up.
“It’s just a car ride. And like he said, he’s leaving tomorrow.”
“I’m aware of all that, but I’d rather be the one taking you home.”
I kissed the puckered spot between his eyebrows.
Finally he sighed and caressed my cheek, nails scraping gently over the pale scars left behind by his claws during our last trial. I could tell that, although unintentional, hurting me still tormented him.
He hovered his mouth over mine. “You are still mine.”
Was he reminding me or himself? “I am.”
His tongue skimmed the seam of my lips, prodding them open, while his deft fingers massaged the back of my head, eliciting a groan from me. The sound had him deepening the kiss, deepening the kneading. After a delicious minute, our mouths came apart.
“I’ll stop by as soon as I’m done here. Leave your balcony door open.”
“‘Kay,” I breathed.
He lowered his hand to the base of my spine and guided me back into the main room. Although people were still chatting boisterously, I felt gazes dart our way, saw pupils pulse with intrigue, caught nostrils flaring.
“Everything’ll be okay, Ness,” Liam murmured.
I glanced up at him, wishing he hadn’t uttered those words, because they felt like a curse. If fated mates were real, then curses were too, right?
When I walked out of Headquarters, August was closing the door to the backseat of the pickup. He must’ve secured the seatbelt across my grief-stricken uncle’s chest, because Jeb was wearing it and looked in no state to have put it on himself.
I slid into the passenger seat and clipped in my own belt. “Thanks for the ride.”
August kept his gaze on the windshield, on the dark slope of pines bathed in white moonlight. Yesterday, the moon had been full and all of the wolves, young and old, had run wild through the forest. August hadn’t been among them. At least not when I’d been with the pack.
After turning the key in the ignition, he drove down the dirt road, past the rusted fence and the large wooden sign emblazoned with the words Private Property.
“Will you go for a run before you leave?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
Old August, the one who’d looked upon me like a little sister, would surely have asked me if I wanted to run with him. This new August… he didn’t ask me to join him. Not that I would’ve gone. I hadn’t left the party early to go for a run. Besides, what would Liam think if he showed up on my balcony and I wasn’t home?
I reached over and touched August’s knuckles before realizing that I probably shouldn’t touch him at all. What if it somehow strengthened our bond? I removed my fingers, feeling my navel pulse as wildly as my heart.
“I’m really sorry about… about all this, August.”
“Not your fault, Ness,” he said in a rough voice. “No one’s fucking fault.”
I winced.
After a beat, he said, “I’ll have to add a penny in Mom’s curse jar now. Closer to a quarter actually.”
For the first time since August had driven back to Headquarters, I smiled. “She still has it?”
“Oh, yes. She calls it her retirement fund.”
I smiled wider. “I miss your mom.” Preoccupied with making a place for myself in Boulder, I hadn’t paid Isobel a visit yet.
“She misses you too. You should go see her once I’m gone. It’ll make her happy.”
I nodded. “Good thing I’m signing up to get my driver’s permit tomorrow.”
August glanced at me, his face much more relaxed than earlier. “You don’t have your license?”
“I didn’t really need one back in LA. Besides, we didn’t have a car, so it wouldn’t have served much of a purpose.”
Jeb made a little sound, between a wheeze and a sob, which had me spinning in my seat. His lids were shut, though, and his neck craned at an awkward angle-he was asleep.
“Still can’t tell me where you’re going?” I asked August, turning back toward him.
“It’s classified.”
“But I’m your mate.”
He almost swerved off the road.
“Sorry. That was supposed to be funny; it wasn’t.” I wrung my fingers in my lap, wondering what had gotten into me to even joke about our new bond. “I can’t believe I just said that. Can you just delete it from your memory?”