Chapter 3 #2
Once there, he shifted into his human form and told me to do the same.
I remember sitting there before him in the outer room, perched on the edge of an armchair that smelled of him.
I had only a rudimentary understanding of what was expected of me.
My mother had pinched me and told me to submit.
My aunts hadn’t met my gaze when they’d told me that it wouldn’t last long and I’d get used to it.
I could tell that they were all lying. I felt stretched thin and precarious over the top of some gaping abyss that everyone knew the contours of except me.
All I could do was sit there before Ty, who was looking down at me from his great height, and tell myself that I had to do all of those things—whatever they meant—and whatever else he asked of me too. Because everyone in my family had urged me not to embarrass them. To honor the family name.
Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.
Ty only studied me for a moment, then made me hot chocolate.
We sat there in his living room like this was something we did all the time. It didn’t feel out of character or strange to me. His den was tidy, smelling of him and the night and other good things. It lulled me the way his furs had, but then again, I’d never been afraid of him.
Do you know why they gave you to me tonight? he asked.
I hedged. I think so.
You’ve seen mating before. That wasn’t a question. We were part of a wolf pack. There were no secrets, no shame. The only thing that had changed recently was that I’d begun to feel . . . things when I heard the noises. Or saw couples in the alcoves.
The reason that our ancestors did things the way they did is that they expected to die sooner, Ty told me.
They had no time to waste. But I don’t intend to die for the next few hundred years or so.
No matter what people might tell you, Maddox, there’s no need for you to worry about anything until you’re ready.
I frowned at my hot chocolate and he saw it. Then he growled until I looked up.
You don’t have to be afraid of me. You can tell me anything.
You’re supposed to . . . want me, I told him. As awkward as I was serious. That’s what everyone said. That you were supposed to want me, and I was supposed to let you, and that would honor . . . everybody.
I could see his mouth curl a little, under that beard. I remember thinking his dark gaze was like a tractor beam. I couldn’t seem to do anything but stare back at him, until and unless he looked away. I had no control over it.
I do want you, he told me. Kindly.
That’s what I remember the most. He told me that so very kindly. Ty, the rough-and-tumble outlaw king, was going out of his way to be careful with the feelings of a thirteen-year-old girl.
You do?
I do. He nodded at the mug I was holding. Finish your hot chocolate. You don’t need to worry about your honor. We’re fine. You come to me when you’re ready, Maddox. Not a minute before, no matter what anyone says.
What if . . . I don’t know what it means to be ready?
You will.
Then we sat there in what seemed to be a delightfully companionable silence until I was done with the hot chocolate. But when I went to leave, I turned back, struck by something.
My mother. She’s going to need—
You can tell your mother this, Ty replied, his voice stern. Her and anyone else. I’m a king. I want a queen, not a kid. And if they have anything else to say on the subject they can bring it up with me.
I didn’t like being called a kid, but I didn’t argue. I told my mother exactly what Ty had said. She didn’t like it either.
But what she really didn’t like, it turned out, was that Ty meant it.
When he said that he was going to give me time, he really and truly meant it.
He liked that I wanted to go to school. And while he maybe liked it less that I also wanted to go to college, he listened to me when I told him why.
He let me give him an entire presentation about why I thought my being educated would be good for the pack.
Why it would benefit the pack and promote our interests.
Sounds good. He’d been kicked back on this very hilltop after another full moon run that neither he nor I had participated in.
I like that you have a brain, Maddox. Still, I can’t help thinking that the real reason you want to go away to school and play at being human for the next four years is that you’re running away from this.
I was eighteen then. All the young wolves I knew had been rolling around with each other in happy abandon for years now, but I was different.
No one would touch what was Ty’s. And I didn’t like any of the human boys well enough to bother messing around with them, in accordance with very strict rules Ty had laid down when it came to that sort of mixing.
Control was everything. Penalties for exposure were dire. It seemed like too great a risk to take. Slip up and bite someone here in this small valley and there was no covering it up. Ty took that kind of thing very seriously.
I figured going off to college in a great big city meant I had a lot more leeway.
Staring at him that night, exposed on this hilltop in more ways than one, I could see that he knew exactly what I was thinking.
By that point, I knew better than to lie to him. It had nothing to do with his rank or mine. It had everything to do with the way he could read me.
Two things can be true at once, I said, after a moment. A long moment.
Fair enough, he replied. But he beckoned me closer and when I came, he pointed at the ground beside the rock he was sitting on, and I didn’t know—then—what it was about that simple gesture that made something click inside of me.
What I did know was that kneeling there beside him made me feel . . . alive. More like me than I ever had before. I could feel my breath catch, too.
You’re older now, Ty said. We can get a little more honest, you and me. He waited for me to nod. We both know what’s going to happen between the two of us, down the line. That’s never been up for debate.
I’ve never debated it, I replied.
His eyes gleamed. Glad to hear it. But I can tell that part of why you need to go all the way to New York fucking City and live in concrete is that you want to scratch a few itches. Is that right?
I didn’t want to lie to him. But I didn’t know how to tell him the truth.
He laughed, and then he took my chin in his hand and pulled my face to his.
I still remember, so distinctly, the way that touch seared through me, scrambling every last signal in my body and then setting it ablaze. Like he was flipping a switch.
You have my permission to do whatever the fuck you want, he told me, his gaze intent on mine. Go wild, baby. You have my blessing.
I wanted to tell him I hadn’t asked for his blessing, but that wasn’t entirely true. I might not have asked for it, but I wanted it.
Do you do . . . whatever the fuck you want, too? I asked him.
He didn’t look away. If anything, his gaze got more intense. Yes.
I thought about that. I didn’t know if I liked it, because I knew as well as he did that we were supposed to be each other’s. He waited while I weighed the strange sensations working their way through me, and the even odder emotions that I’d never dealt with before.
You want to ask me about that? His fingers on my chin were like steel. I had the strangest urges, none of which I understood, so I shoved them aside. I could feel him everywhere even though he wasn’t touching me anywhere but on my chin. You can. But word of warning, I’ll tell you.
I blew out a breath. I wasn’t sure that I’d ever felt so torn before. I wanted to know every single thing he wasn’t telling me, because I was older now and I had a much better idea of what he meant.
But I was also pretty certain that my imagination was bad enough.
I’m good, I said.
He didn’t look pleased or unpleased by that. All he did was nod, his mouth a straight line.
You do what you need to do, Maddox. I’ll do the same. That work for you?
Yes. What I felt was significantly more complicated, but yes was the easiest way to express it all.
But. One small word from him and I got . . . even more still, somehow, kneeling there before him. What I told you before still stands. When you’re ready for me, you come to me. You understand?
It was what he’d said all those years ago. And I did understand, but in a completely different way than I had then.
I nodded, then wondered if the reason I did that was so I could feel those blunt, hard fingers of his on my chin even longer.
When you do, he told me, and there was a warning in his voice then.
I could see it all over that stern face of his.
I could feel it, deep inside me, like the ringing of a bell I hadn’t known was there.
When it’s you and me, Maddox, there isn’t going to be anyone else.
That’s when the fucking around stops. You get me?
My fucking around or your fucking around? I dared to ask.
He tilted his head just a little, just enough to remind me how powerful he was. How foolish I was to think I could make bargains with this man. But there was also that gleam in his gaze.
If that’s how you want it, babe. He’d never called me that before. I liked it. But I got to tell you, it’s going to take a lot of work on your part to keep me satisfied with some long-distance shit. You think you can handle that?
Maybe I won’t be ready for a long, long time.
He laughed at that, but it was low and dangerous, a match struck. I’ve never lied to you. Do me the same favor.
I’ve never lied to you, I replied, stalling.
Enjoy your freshman year, baby, he said, and I thought baby was even better than babe. I suggest you enjoy it fully, because between you and me, I have a feeling that’s all the party time you’re going to get.
He was right about that, too.
Now, years later, all I can think is that from his perspective, I’ve been a gigantic disappointment.