Chapter 26 #2
The smell of something burning had me pushing his face away from mine. “Stop burning yourself on my earrings. How many times do I have to say this?”
“As many times as it takes for you to take swap them out.”
“Fine. Find me some other earrings so the holes don’t close, and I’ll take them out. I’m sure you can charm the jewelry off a female werewolf with as many piercings as me.”
“Can do. Stay here.” He strode away, pausing in the doorway. “In the spirit of transparency, I had my enforcers put automatic locks on some of the doors here. You’re not getting out of this room without the code.”
“Are you going to give me the code?”
“Not at the moment.”
I lifted my middle finger, and he grinned as he headed out.
I shouldn’t have liked him so much.
But I did.
Maverick was back less than ten minutes later with an expensive-looking box of gold hoops and studs that matched the ones I was wearing almost perfectly. The way they were packed and the box they were in made it clear that they were brand new.
“Victory.” He held up the box.
I sighed. “When did you buy those?”
“The first time I burned myself on your ear.”
“You’re so obnoxiously cocky. How has no one killed you yet?”
“Great effort has been made.”
“That’s kind of comforting, I guess.”
He followed me into the bathroom, and proceeded to help me replace the jewelry as I pulled out the silver pieces one by one.
It felt like accepting defeat.
And like accepting that I really did have feelings for him.
And like... well, moving on from who I’d been.
I didn’t know what was going to happen in the next week, but whatever it was, it was going to change my life permanently. I could never be the person I was before I met Maverick again.
Whoever I was now, I needed to figure out how to embrace it. Or accept it, at the very least.
“If you were going to bite me, would you bite me twice?” I asked him, as he carefully replaced one of the hoops I’d removed a few seconds earlier. “Like you did the first day?”
“When I bite you, yes, I’ll bite you twice. Unless you’re opposed to that, obviously. It’s your throat, but that’s the way we started.”
“How long would you want to wait before making things official between us?” He could probably hear the curiosity in my voice.
“Sugar, I’d bite you right now if I thought you were on board with it.”
My eyebrows lifted. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“We hardly know each other.”
“We know the things that matter. As far as I’m concerned, everything else can be figured out in time.”
That was actually similar to what my mom had told me over and over since I refused to pick a mate. Which was both concerning and kind of comforting.
Maybe if I wasn’t keeping such a huge secret from Maverick, I’d be willing to consider the perspective. But I was.
I glanced at the bedroom door in the mirror. “Don’t let Rhone hear you say that you’re ready to seal the bond. He would insist on chaperoning. Constantly.”
“Maybe for a few hours. He’d get tired of it.”
“Would he?”
“Probably not. I’d sit down and have a conversation with him where I told him I wasn’t going to change my mind, and he would concede. Eventually.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in charge of him?”
Maverick made a noncommittal noise. “The Alpha is the face of the pack. The Beta is the backbone. We lead together. Everyone would defer to me over him, but it would fall apart without him just as quickly as it would without me.”
“How did you guys meet?”
“His family made the apple pies our pack sold at the market. Mine made the cherry pies. There was a rivalry. Our families didn’t hate each other, but Rhone and I did.”
“When did you become friends?”
“During the war.”
“Did something happen to your family? If you don’t mind sharing.”
“The trees started to die when I was about seventeen, and the war had been going on for about a year. We all packed up and joined the Alpha’s military so we would have food to eat. Over the first little while, Rhone and I both lost our parents, and he lost his sister too.”
My throat swelled. “I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” He closed the hoop of the last earring he put in for me. “The loss will always hurt, but they would’ve been thrilled that Rhone and I became family. They spent our whole lives trying to explain that we shouldn’t hate each other over pies.”
He lowered his mouth to my ear and dragged his tongue over the piercings, apparently ready to change the subject. “You’re sexy as fuck.”
“Thank you.”
“How long would you want to wait before I bite you?”
It was a complicated question. One I didn’t have an answer for right away.
On one hand, I wanted him. Badly. Not just sexually, but for his personality and who he was. It seemed insane to seal a bond so quickly, but when it came down to it, I had to pick a mate among five options. I was falling in love with one of them. I didn’t like the other four.
There was an obvious answer:
Seal the bond before you fuck yourself over and get stuck with Timber, Green, or Poem.
On the other hand, I wasn’t going to take things further with him when I was lying to and manipulating him. That wasn’t me, and I didn’t want it to be.
So I couldn’t seal the bond.
If he didn’t hate me after he knew the truth, I could consider it, but there was no point in dwelling on that hope. He was going to hate me.
“Not long,” I admitted.
It was the truth, even if it was a complicated truth.
“That answer took you too long to find.” He didn’t sound irritated about it, dragging his finger lightly over the jewelry that no longer burned his skin. He hadn’t said it was a gift, but it was. He’d clearly been keeping it in his car, waiting for me to agree.
“It’s not a simple one to give.”
“That’s fair. Am I allowed to ask for your thought process?”
“I’m still working through it.”
“That’s also fair,” Maverick said.
I studied him in the mirror. “You really feel ready to seal the bond? To bite me, right this second?”
“I watched you nearly die, Bloom. I almost lost you. We may not have known each other long, but it’s been long enough for me to realize there isn’t a world where I walk away from you. Can you genuinely picture yourself moving away and never seeing or interacting with me again?”
No.
I couldn’t.
I didn’t even want to.
He took my hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing my knuckles lightly. I looked down at his hand on mine, and froze.
“What is that?”
“What is what?”
“Don’t dodge the question, Maverick.” I lowered my fingers to brush the brand new tattoo on his ring finger, trying to figure out if it was real.
It was.
Holy shit.
“It’s a tattoo. I have plenty of others, if you’d like to check them out.”
I pulled my hand free of his and grabbed his wrist, lifting his gigantic hand so I could look at it better.
It was a simple, thin black band that wrapped around his fourth finger.
A wedding band.
Inked on his skin permanently, so he wore it the only way a werewolf could.
“What the fuck, Maverick,” I breathed, panic swelling in my chest.
I was lying to him, and he’d tattooed himself.
I was definitely going to hell.
“Vampires follow human mating traditions. I can’t wear a ring, but I can still prove my devotion in your way.” He pulled a small box out of his pocket, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
“You can’t do that.”
“You need a ring to throw at my face.”
“You can’t just tattoo a wedding ring on your finger, Mav. When did you even do it? We should talk about that. We should—”
“I got it before you were poisoned. Just look at the ring,” he said.
My eyes opened. They were watery before I saw it. More watery afterward.
“You talked to Harper,” I whispered.
“I did.”
I’d always wanted a ring with a black diamond in the center. A spin on the typical diamond engagement ring. Different, but not too different.
“It’s perfect.” I tried to fight the swell of emotion. “I can’t take it.”
“Sure you can.”
“No, Mav, I—” I shoved a hand through my hair. “Do you remember when I asked you about secrets?”
“Of course. You can still keep them, Bloom. I don’t need to know details about your Guild, or your founding families, or even your own family if you don’t feel comfortable sharing them. I get it. I won’t push.”
He thought I was talking about normal vampire secrets.
Shit.
Maverick got down on one knee in front of me, and I swear, my heart cracked.
I was never going to forgive myself for keeping the truth from him.
He was never going to forgive me, either.
But his green eyes were bright, because he had no fucking idea that I was lying to him about Harper and turned vampires and the first murder in his company.
Somehow, I had to interrupt his proposal without hurting him, or outright rejecting him.
“Bloom Sharpe,” he began.
I grabbed his face and kissed him, deeply. The ring box hit the floor, and his hands gripped my ass.
“You don’t want a proposal?” he growled, dragging his mouth down the side of my throat.
“No.” It was the truest thing I’d said all day.
Maverick nipped and bit his way down to my breasts. He scraped his teeth over my nipple through my shirt, and I dug my fingers into his hair. “It was going to be great.”
“I know.”
His mouth met my core, and I effectively avoided any more lying.
But I still felt hollow.