Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ETHAN
C amden giggles as he blows by me, running out of the tent. He pauses, glancing around, and then sets off to his right. I raise an eyebrow but don’t comment. A second later, one of the Bennett girls races out, chasing him across the large open space of the campsite. Her lips are bunched in a serious-looking frown, and she has a quiet determination, like she’s upset with whatever happened in the tent with Camden.
When there aren’t any screams of frustration or crying, I focus on getting the last couple stakes set into the rocky ground so the rain guard doesn’t accidentally blow away when we’re not nearby. Just as I’m finishing, Caleb returns from the truck. He has two duffels crossed over his shoulders and carries a third, smaller one.
“All that’s left is our portion of the food,” he says, dropping all three bags into the partially unzipped vestibule, lining them up along the far side and away from the easiest path into the tent. “I think Logan said they were still figuring out the best place to keep it all, so I figured I’d let it be until everything’s settled.”
I shove my hands in my pockets to keep from fidgeting. After a minute, Caleb sighs.
“We going to talk about it?” he asks. “Or are you going to keep shoving your head in the sand?”
I ignore him, focusing instead on the campsite unpacking around us.
We’ve arranged the tents around the perimeter, nestled up against the copse of trees a few hundred feet from the lake’s shore. Emily and Beau are setting up a couple large picnic tables while the Bennett pack is moving around them with surprising efficiency, unpacking everything that isn’t related to sleep in the span of a few minutes.
Caleb sighs again and walks off. It’s no surprise he’s heading for her tent. He eases the stake out of Melissa’s hand and works on setting the remaining pieces of their rain guard. Camden comes running back into the center of the tents, the girl no longer with him.
He scans the area. When his eyes land on me, he runs over.
“Daddy! Daddy, can we go find rocks?” He wraps his arm around my legs. “Rose said she knows how to make them bounce on the water. I want to make them bounce!”
I pull him into my arms and kiss his cheek as I walk toward the tables.
“Cam wants to go work on skipping rocks,” I offer.
It’s not something I ever figured out, so outsourcing is necessary.
Emily grins. “Give us a couple more minutes, and I’ll take you down and teach you.”
Faedra and Brielle walk down the trail where the cars are parked another hundred feet away. The girl that had been playing with Camden walks with them, a small bag on her shoulders. Faedra stops at our central hub on her way to one of three small backpacking tents her pack has set up. Brielle doesn’t stop, though, ducking around the group and heading toward her tent.
A taste of her lavender scent hits me.
I swallow down the unholy need to mark her, to cover her in my scent until Caleb’s cinnamon is only a distant memory on her skin. Holy fucking hell. With a grunt, I force myself to focus on Faedra.
“Hudson and Beau both have coolers in their trucks,” she says to the group at large, though her eyes are on her bonded Alpha. “Jude wants to leave the food mostly up there when we’re gone and at night.”
Logan nods and kisses her, a quick kiss that’s so intimate a knife twists in my chest.
“Sounds good, Red. Sounds like Camden and Emily are heading down to the lake once the dust settles.” He crouches in front of the girl, her blue eyes the same shade as his. “You want to go down too, sweetie?”
She nods and starts to take off the backpack—which is about the time I realize it’s a legitimate framed backpack designed for intensive camping. When Emily mentioned the pack camped, I hadn’t expected quite this level. Logan stops her and eases it back onto her shoulders.
“Go set your pack down at the tent, and then we’ll go,” he says.
Melissa calls from where she’s helping Caleb set up the vestibule of her tent. “Are we going to the lake? Are we swimming or just helping the kids play?”
Carter and the other little girl walk back from the cars, their own packs on their shoulders. She holds his hand and skips beside him, a carefree grin lighting her face. She gasps and then squeals.
“Dad! Dad, can I go swimming?” she asks, loud enough that we all can hear her, too. “Please?”
She turns the word into multiple syllables.
Carter raises an eyebrow and looks toward Logan, who shrugs. Carter offers a smile to his daughter.
“Sure, darling. Let’s get our packs put away and get you into one of your swimsuits.”
Camden pushes away from me, and I let him down. He rushes across the campsite.
“Bri! Bri! Are you going to swim, too?” he asks, loud enough that the few people still up by the vehicles can probably hear him, too. “Or can you bounce rocks like Aunt Emily?”
Brielle exits from her tent, flipping her hair over her shoulder. A small bruise sits just under her ear. My stomach clenches.
“I think I’ll stay on the shore with you. I’m not very good at skipping rocks, though. It’s not something I ever managed to figure out.”
Camden grabs her hand, and she doesn’t discourage the touch. She smiles as Caleb comes up to them both even as her cheeks flush. Melissa joins them as they start toward us.
Beau stands back from the second table, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“About an hour or so until lunch,” he says. “Someone should probably stay back to prep for it. Kids are going to be hungry if they’re swimming.”
“I can,” I offer before anyone else can say anything. Staying back here means keeping maximum distance between me and Brielle. “I’ll send a text to Caleb when it’s ready.”
Everyone dissipates with an impressive thoroughness over the next several minutes, leaving the campsite quiet and undisturbed. I stretch my neck and roll back my shoulders, closing my eyes to try and get the damnable need to subside. If she hadn’t stayed over last night, it wouldn’t be so bad. Waking up to her scent all over the fucking kitchen just about took me out.
And those damn bruises. She didn’t even attempt to hide them. Not this morning, and not now. Like… Like she wants the world to see them, too. Like she wants what they’re symbolizing. Like she wants to take his claiming bite and forge the unbreakable bond with him.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
Unease wars with dread and a primal desire I have no tools to handle. My mint scent explodes around me, so strong it overpowers every single aspect of the wilderness around me.
Yeah, it’s probably time I admit that I need to go on a damn rut suppressor. I’ll just consider myself lucky that the only scent I’m reacting to this poorly is hers . The last thing I need is to lose my shit around Melissa or Triston.
After another long, deep breath, I start toward the cars to grab lunch. The relative stillness of the campsite and mundane work of prepping food help settle me better than anything I’ve managed since the end of May, since that day I walked into my own damn barn and was confronted with the ghost of my biggest regret. By the time I’m grilling the first set of hamburgers, the need to find Brielle and shove her against a wall is nearly gone entirely.
As long as I don’t think about the silvery scars Faedra and Olivia have. Or the way she smells like a goddamn mountain meadow in the spring.
Which I’m not. I’m not .
Footsteps rip me from my thoughts. And then the flash of mahogany hair with sun-kissed highlights has them slamming into me even stronger.
I hold back a groan by the skin of my teeth.
She doesn’t say anything as she digs through the small piles on the other table, her hand cradled close to her chest. A small trail of red drips down her wrist, and my stomach drops out.
“What happened?” I ask.
I pull the hamburgers off the grill and stash them on the serving plate.
Her cheeks flush as I close the distance between us.
“I’m fine,” she says.
I frown, watching as that trail grows and traces down to her elbow.
“You’re not fine.” It’s a goddamn growl, and I don’t apologize for it.
I grab her wrist and force her hand flat. There’s a deep gash along her palm, nearly perfectly straight and spanning her entire hand. With a scowl, I focus on the trail leading to the lake. Where the hell is Caleb? There’s no way he wouldn’t be beside himself over her getting hurt.
“I’ll be fine,” Brielle repeats. She tries to pull her hand away, but I tighten my grip around her wrist. She whines, and something twists in my chest. “I just need to clean it and get it covered.”
I curse under my breath and grab the first aid kit she’d clearly been going for.
“What happened?” I ask, trying to calm the fierce possessiveness that’s roiling through me right now. I’m not upset that she’s hurt. I’m not . People get hurt all the time.
She doesn’t immediately answer, and I focus on pulling gauze and vet wrap from the kit while also ripping open several of the alcohol wipes.
“There was a broken beer bottle on the shore,” she whispers. Her hand trembles as I cradle it in my own. “I grabbed it to keep Camden from stepping on it, and it accidentally sliced me. So I threw it away and told Faedra I’d be right back.”
She hisses as I clean the gash and again when I press the gauze into the cut to gauge how quickly it’s clotting. When it bleeds through before I count to twenty, I curse.
“Fuck.” I press it harder into her palm. “Can you hold this? I need to find the butterfly bandages.”
Her fingers brush mine, and lightning shoots up my arm.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I shut down my focus to just the task at hand, pulling out a few of the specialty bandages and getting them situated on her palm. As soon as I have them covering the cut, I layer a new piece of gauze over the top just in case of bleed-through and then cover it with the vet wrap. The moment it’s secured, I drop my hands away.
Another damn second with her skin against mine, and I’m going to fucking lose it.
She watches me as I reassemble the kit and gather the bloody pieces of trash. The last thing we need is blood getting on the ground and attracting bears.
“Thank you,” she murmurs, no more than a breath of air between us.
I close my eyes and force a swallow, trying to dislodge the lump in my throat. She sighs and turns, taking a step away from me, stirring the air between us. I’m expecting her scent but instead I get Caleb’s cinnamon.
Something in me snaps.
I grab her hand, forcing her still. When I manage to open my eyes, her gaze is wide. Her cheeks and chest are flushed, and her pulse flutters in her throat. And still, all I can smell is cinnamon.
I should say something, should explain the absolute mess she’s made of me the last month. The words don’t come. Instead, I crowd into her, stealing the careful foot of space she’s kept between us. Like we’re fucking strangers. Like I’ve never felt the way her body clenches around my knot, like I’ve never heard the way she whines when she’s on the crest of her orgasm, like I’ve never seen the way her hair sprawls out on a mattress as she gets eaten out.
Mint surrounds us, strong and fast and undeniable.
She sucks in a startled breath. Her eyes drop to my mouth for a heartbeat. Her lips fall open, but I don’t let her say a word.
I slam my mouth on hers, forcing the kiss hard and deep, trying to cover every single speck of Caleb’s scent that clings to her shirt like they’ve spent the last half hour twisted together on the shore of the lake. Maybe they have.
The thought has a jealous rage rushing through me. I bury my hand into her hair and twist us, crowding her against the table. She goes boneless against me, her curves molding to the hard lines of my body. Lavender bleeds out from her, not nearly strong enough to appease the aching need that’s dug itself into my bones.
She whines, and I tighten my hold in her hair. Her nails dig into my stomach, and the touch is so familiar, so second-nature, that the decade between us falls away. I’m just the dumbass twenty-two year old who was convinced a long-distance relationship was an idiot’s move.
Her little sounds grow more desperate. I loop an arm around her waist and lift her onto the table, pushing the first aid kit out of the way. Her knees bracket my hips with the same intimacy, and I groan.
“Ethan,” she whispers against my lips.
Fuck, how many years did I dream of that? Of the way her voice grows breathless when she’s so damn desperate? I soak it in, letting it soothe the need. I tilt her head and kiss her again, pressing my hips into hers so she can feel exactly what she’s been doing to me the last damn month.
A girl’s laugh cuts through the haze of lust. Brielle freezes for an endless moment. And then she pulls away, dropping her hands from my stomach and scooting far enough back on the table that she can close her legs. Her chest heaves even as she looks over her shoulder. I take a step away from the table and run a hand over my mouth.
Faedra’s eyes are wide. The little girl that holds her hand is stoic, her blue eyes seeing right through me. She tilts her head, a line appearing between her eyes as she frowns.
“Oh my god,” Faedra says. “I’m so sorry, Bri.”
Brielle doesn’t say anything as she ducks her head.
“Is she like you, Momma?” the girl asks. “She has two Alphas?”
Faedra blushes but doesn’t answer her daughter’s questions. The silence extends into being uncomfortable. Faedra clears her throat.
“The girls got hungry. Everyone else will be here in a few minutes,” Faedra says.
Without a word to either of them, I put the second round of patties on the grill.