Chapter 28
When I make it down to the dining room, Thane is already seated at the far end of the table, so I go ahead and take my place opposite him, appreciating the ridiculous amount of distance between us.
The man, who I now know is named Percy, strides into the room with two covered dishes in his hands.
He delivers Thane’s first before making his way to me.
When he sets it down, he flashes me a gentle smile before scurrying off.
Thane and I eat in silence, the clink of silverware echoing around us.
I guess whatever momentary lapse of sanity had him talking to me so openly an hour ago has passed.
I quickly finish eating and head back to my room without a word.
If that’s what the rest of our dinners together are going to be like, then maybe I can convince Kole to join us every now and again.
If anyone can break up the awkward silence, it’s him.
After I practically shrivel up in the bath, I slip into one of the floor-length nightgowns, making a mental note to ask Sienna to go shopping with me whenever we decide to go to Seattle this month.
Just the idea of getting to be out in the world again makes me giddy.
Of course, I’ll have to get over the fact that there are vampires and werewolves walking around, but going to a restaurant or movie is something I never thought I’d be able to do again.
“You ready?” Thane asks from outside my room.
I swing the doors open to find him dressed in a pair of grey sweats and a white tank top that shows off his massive arms. He runs his eyes down my nightgown and then turns around and heads down the stairs without a word.
“This is gonna be fun,” I mutter to myself, closing the door behind me.
“It’s not supposed to be fun,” he growls from three steps down. “It’s supposed to satisfy the bond so that I don’t lose my shit and accidentally hurt you.”
“Jeez, ever heard of sarcasm?” I huff, following him down the stairs.
He turns around and stalks back up, stopping on the step I’m standing on. “This isn’t going to work if you don’t lose the attitude!”
“You’re one to talk,” I bite back. “If anyone has an attitude, it’s your grumpy ass.”
I continue down the stairs, but just as I reach the second to last step, he appears in front of me, bouncing his eyes back and forth between mine.
“Are you drunk?”
“What? No,” I say, squeezing between him and the railing. Before I get fully past him, he grabs a hold of my waist, spinning me around to look at him. “What’s your problem?”
“You are!”
“And you’re mine!” I fire back. “So it looks like we’re even. Now, can we go get this night over with?”
“You’re insufferable,” he grunts, taking the lead to the east wing.
“Right back at you,” I add flatly.
When we finally make it to his room, I head straight for the bed and toss the covers over my head.
“That’s it? You’re just going to sleep?”
I throw the covers back and sit up. “What did you think I was going to do? Braid your hair and have a pillow fight?”
“No!” Thane snarls, glaring at me like I’m the sole cause of his suffering. “But you simply sleeping several feet away from me isn’t going to satiate this need I have to be close to you.”
He says it like he’s in physical pain, and something about that makes me feel hot all over.
“Well, you’re not sleeping next to me.”
“And I don’t want to!” he spits back with enough disdain to make my heart sink.
“Then what do you want?” I ask, slapping my hands down on the mattress.
He tosses his head back, scrubbing a hand down his face.
“What I want is to not think about you every second of every day! What I want is to not feel like there’s a hand clutching my heart to the point I can barely breathe!
” He shoots over, grabbing my face in his hand.
“And what I want is to forget you ever existed.”
Rage flares in me, and I knock his hand away, jumping up to stand on the bed so that he can’t tower over me anymore.
“And what I want is to stop thinking about how good your hands feel on me. What I want is for your scent to stop making me want to melt into you. And what I want is to wipe every moment I’ve ever spent with you from my memory!”
Thane suddenly sweeps my legs around him, making me fall back onto the bed with him towering over me once again. His fangs snap out, and he nuzzles his face into my hair.
“Tell me not to bite you,” he breathes into the curve of my neck. My legs pull him closer to me as my will weakens every second he’s in my orbit. “You have three seconds to stop me, Grey. Three, two…”
Before he gets to one, I push him back. “No, don’t.”
Thane backs away from the bed with a wild look in his eyes. His fists are balled at his sides, and his breathing is ragged like he’s fighting to control himself. All of a sudden, he rips through his clothes, shifting into his black wolf.
My heart lunges when he takes off, breaking through his double doors as he bounds down the hall, releasing a guttural howl as the beast in him breaks free. I’m still lying on the bed, in shock, when Kole appears, fear burning behind his white eyes.
“What happened? What did he do?” He assesses my body, and I quickly push on my silk nightgown that had bunched up when Thane pinned me to the bed.
“I told him not to bite me and he… I don’t know. He just lost it.”
Kole lets out a breath of relief and reaches out to pull me up from the bed. He runs his fingers through my hair as his thumb strokes my cheek.
“And he didn’t hurt you?”
“No,” I reassure. “I’m fine.”
“He’s going to have to bite you at some point. It’s the only way—”
“I know,” I say, cutting him off. “But if he… it just wasn’t the right time.”
Kole glances over his shoulder at the shattered doors. “He’ll cool off, but you should sleep in your room tonight, just in case.”
I agree and head back to my room, more than happy to sleep in my own bed.
It takes a while for my heart rate to settle, but when it finally does, I decide that what happened tonight is tomorrow’s problem.
There’s nothing more I can do about it right now and replaying it in my mind won’t do any good.
For at least two blissful seconds this morning, I was able to forget about everything that happened last night. But as I stand outside of the dining room, hearing Thane and Kole’s voices coming from the other side, I’m wishing I had stayed in my room and gone back to sleep.
“Are you going to just keep standing out there, or are you going to come in?” Thane’s voice cuts through the doors separating us, and my heart sinks.
The two of them are standing in front of the fireplace, looking at me like I have two heads.
“I’ll go whip something up for you,” Kole offers.
“You know I can make my own food, right?”
He glances at Thane and then back at me. “It’ll give you guys a chance to talk.”
Great.
I slowly make my way over to Thane and stick my hands out to the fire, letting the warmth of it seep into me. As the heat spreads across my skin, I’m transported back to the time he held my arm over the fire to burn me. I jerk back, running my thumb over my forearm as the memory flares to life.
Thane grabs a hold of my wrist, pulling my arm toward him. I watch as he rolls up my sleeve and gently strokes my skin, making goosebumps sprint across my flesh.
“I’m sorry for ever hurting you.” I’m taken aback by his words and the pain lacing them. Even if he only feels that way because of the growing bond, it’s still nice to hear. “And for losing control last night.”
“I know you have to bite me,” I tell him, as I pull my arm back and roll my sleeve down. “I just wasn’t ready last night, but I am now.”
His head snaps up. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I move my hair to one side, and Thane swoops me up, setting me on the dining table. He steps between my thighs, wrapping one hand behind the small of my back and the other just behind my ear. The bite instantly immobilizes me, and my head falls back into his palm.
There’s a gentleness to him this time. Almost like he’s scared he’s going to break me.
His thumb moves to my jaw, stroking it so lightly that it feels like he’s running a feather over my skin.
Normally when he bites me, it feels like an electric current is coursing through my veins, but right now it feels like there’s a warm blanket wrapped around me like a cocoon.
There’s an odd sort of comfort as his hand burns into my lower back, forcing my body to arch into his.
A quiet moan slips from my lips, and a low rumble sounds in the back of Thane’s throat in response.
“Oh shit, sorry.”
I barely hear Kole’s voice, but Thane retracts his fangs. “You can come back, brother.”
Kole dips in, wearing an apologetic look. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You didn’t,” Thane says, grabbing a hold of my waist to help me off the table. “I got what I needed.”
His eyes narrow on me for a moment, making my stomach somersault.
“Sophia is coming to visit in a couple of days,” Thane tells Kole.
Kole sets down a plate with an omelette and fruit on it, tossing me a quick wink.
“And what, pray tell, sparked this little visit?” Kole asks Thane with a cheeky grin that says he already knows the answer.
“She—” Thane’s eyes dart to me, and he clears his throat. “I’ll tell you when we’re alone.”
“By all means, say whatever it is,” I insist with the wave of my fork. “Not like I care about any of your vampire/werewolf business.” Thane shakes his head as if to tell Kole, “Not here.” “Who is she anyway?”
“Oh, Sophia is this badass werewolf Thane used to hook up with.”
I nearly choke on my bite of omelette, and Kole shoots me a questioning look.
“Can’t wait to meet her,” I force out with a hint of sarcasm lacing my words. Suddenly, I’m not so hungry.
“I might not be here when she gets in, so make sure she feels at home,” Thane says, ignoring Kole’s previous comment.
“Of course,” Kole agrees, tossing an arm around Thane. “You know I’ve always liked her more than you anyway.”
“Likewise,” Thane says, throwing an elbow into Kole’s side.
The two of them share a laugh, and it makes me wonder if Thane is finally allowing his Alpha mask to slip a little.
Between seeing him smile with Kole, his apology for ever hurting me, and the tenderness in the way he bit me today, I can’t help but think maybe he’s more than the overbearing, controlling Alpha asshole I’ve been made to believe.
Not that I’m foolish enough to believe it’s all an act, but maybe there’s a softer side to him I have yet to meet.
One that isn’t cold and heartless. Of course, maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
I suppose only time will tell, and now that I’ve signed the contract, I guess I’ve got plenty of it.