“What? No.” I winced at how fast the word whipped out of my mouth. The strange tether in my stomach writhed like a snake. However petty, August couldn’t stay. I had enough to contend with without our weird fated-mate connection. “Don’t change your plans on my account. Everything’ll be fine.”
“I know you want me gone because of Liam, but do you really think I could live with myself if I left and something happened to you?”
“Nothing’ll happen. I made it out of the trials alive, didn’t I?”
He grunted.
“Look, I’ll promise you something. If at any point I’m worried about my safety, I’ll go to your parents’ house.”
His hazel eyes were murky with doubt.
“I promise.”
“I want this in writing.”
“August Watt”-I slapped a palm against my chest-“you don’t trust me?”
“You’ve been known to backpedal on promises.”
The playfulness I’d gone for withered away. “What do you mean? What promises didn’t I keep?”
“When you left for LA, you said you would write.”
I nibbled on my bottom lip. “Mom didn’t want me to make contact with anyone from Boulder. She said cutting my ties with everyone here would help me move on, but in retrospect, I wonder if she did this so Heath wouldn’t find out where we’d gone. She was scared of him… after what he did to her.”
“What did he do to her?”
Right… Only a select handful of people were privy to this. Not once did I regret that Everest killed Heath. Liam’s father deserved what he got.
“He raped her, August,” I whispered, as though saying it softly could somehow dim the horror.
August’s eyes rounded. “Shit… ” he whispered, voice as rough as sandpaper.
We didn’t talk after that.
The tight coil of mountain roads lengthened and straightened as we approached the glowing inn. I was thankful there were guests. I wouldn’t have wanted to go back to a silent, dark place. I had enough silence and darkness inside of me.
After parking in front of the revolving glass doors, August draped my uncle’s limp arm over his broad shoulder and heaved him into the lobby. I grabbed the master key from the small office behind the bell desk and led the way up to my uncle’s private apartment on the first floor. Jeb’s place wasn’t as grand as Everest’s attic dwelling, but it was still vast-my uncle and aunt’s closet alone was the size of my entire bedroom.
After August laid my uncle in bed, I pulled off Jeb’s shoes, tucked a blanket around him, and then turned off the lights. My nostrils itched with the scent of Lucy’s prized potpourri. How could Jeb stand it? I’d had to put mine out on the patio, which angered my already pissy aunt.
I wondered briefly what sort of accommodations Eric had given her in his basement. Did it make me a terrible person to hope she was lying on the cold, hard floor? The image of her standing over Evelyn tied to a chair made me ball my fists. How I hated Lucy…
“You can talk to me, you know.” August’s voice made me look away from the mason jars filled with desiccated rose petals adorning the stone chimney mantle.
I wasn’t going to ruin August’s one night with his parents. “You should go.” I started leading the way back toward the door.
“Ness-”
“Please, August. I don’t want to talk anymore. I just want to watch TV until my eyes bleed.”
He exited the bedroom, and I closed the door and pocketed the key. We walked back down the flight of wooden stairs decorated with an evergreen-colored runner.
At the foot of the stairs, I stood on my tiptoes and pressed a kiss against August’s stubble. “Have a safe trip. And call me from time to time, okay?” I smiled at him before hurrying toward my bedroom, feeling the invisible rope thin out.
“Ness,” August called out again, but I didn’t stop.
The tether weakened some more, becoming as insubstantial as a spider web filament.
I took it August was gone.
A pang of sadness hit me as I realized I wouldn’t see him again for months. But it was better this way. Better for everyone.
Liam arrived at one in the morning. I’d been just about to drift off when I heard him knock and call out my name.
The second I let him in, his arms came around me, his head dipped to the curve of my neck, and he inhaled me. “You smell like him. I hate that you smell like him.”
I was startled to hear him say this considering I’d soaked in a scalding bubble bath until the water grew cold. I’d even washed my hair. I guessed soap couldn’t remedy the magical mating scent. Come tomorrow, it would no longer be a problem, though. I couldn’t smell like someone who was thousands of miles away.
Liam licked the spot he was nuzzling and then dragged his tongue up the column of my neck, making me shiver. Was he trying to layer his scent over August’s?
He backed me into the room, lips crashing down against mine, hard and demanding. Even though I was worn out, I answered with as much fervor as I could muster.
When my calves hit the side of the bed, I pressed my hands against his chest and unglued my lips from his. “I might smell like August, but you smell like every male in our pack.”
He glanced down at his bloodied shirt, tore it off, chucked it on the floor by my flannel armchair, kicked off his jeans, and finally dropped his underwear. Naked, he turned and headed toward my bathroom.
Water gushed, and the rings on my shower curtain clinked against the rod. I didn’t move. Barely dared breathe. Even my heart held perfectly still. Liam was naked-not for the first time-and taking a shower in my bathroom.
I still hadn’t moved when he came back out, a towel wrapped around his carved waist. He smiled brazenly as he observed my perplexed expression. And then he cradled my face in his hands and kissed me deeply, sweetly, thoroughly.
His hands left my face and raked up and down my arms that were hanging limply at my sides. I should probably have gripped his waist or clawed his back or done something with my fingers, but I couldn’t get them to move. I’d never been intimate with a man and was feeling a ton of conflicting feelings from edginess to fear to excitement to guilt.
All of them made sense, except the guilt. August’s face flashed through my mind, and my stomach tightened. I squeezed my lids shut, willing his face to vanish, willing the tension in my gut to recede.
“I can’t do it, Liam,” I said, breathless.
“Can’t do what?”
My cheeks burned. “Have sex. I can’t. Not tonight.” My breaths were coming out in short spurts. I was having a full-fledged anxiety attack.
“Shh.” He rubbed my arms. Up and down. Up and down. “We don’t have to do anything, Ness. Shh.”
His arms went around me, and he pulled me against him, where he held me until my chest stopped pumping with fevered breaths.
“Can I stay the night, or do you want me to leave?”
I swallowed. “You can stay.” I raked my hair back. “I want you to stay.”