Chapter 17 #3
The question slams through me. He’s been in my life since I was nine.
He raised me alongside Gabriel. There is no one who knows me better than him.
There is a reason why Coach is one of the most respected alphas, even in the Council.
He’s incredibly sharp. I should have considered it. I should have—
What does he know?
Asking him would be easy enough. Turning around right now and asking is an option.
I don’t take it.
He disappears around the corner. The corridor goes quiet. My exhale comes out slow. Rolling my shoulders, I tell myself that if Coach knew, the conversation wouldn’t have ended at be careful.
I really hope that’s true.
Miranda and Ethan are waiting at the family entrance. He’s asleep against her hip, one cheek mashed into her collarbone, ChuChu dangling from his fist. Her hair is coming out of her loose braid. When her eyes find me, her whole face softens, and for a second, I forget what I was just worried about.
“He’s out cold,” she whispers. “He made it through warmups and then crashed.”
“I’ll take him.”
“He’s fine. He isn’t heavy.”
“He’s twenty pounds of dead weight, Miranda.”
“He’s fine, I told you.”
A head-shake from me, and we walk to the car together. She buckles him in while I watch her do it. There’s a careful way her hand lifts his arm to slip the strap underneath, and she brushes his hair back from his forehead before she closes the door.
My chest feels too small for what’s inside it.
We drive home in the quiet. Ethan snores softly in the back. Miranda’s hand rests on the console between us. I want to reach for it.
“Are you okay?” she asks halfway home.
“What was that?”
“You’ve gone quiet. You’ve been quiet since practice.” A glance comes my way from her. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.”
“You look stressed.”
“I’m not stressed.”
“So then are you constipated?”
The blunt question has me nearly choking, and I glare at her. “I am not constipated. Why would you even think that?”
“Your expression. You look like you’re about to pop a—”
“Miranda!” I give her an aggrieved look. “I swear if you say I’m constipated—”
“Then tell me what crawled up your butt.”
She chooses now to show some of her old spark. I don’t know whether to laugh or snort.
“Coach wanted to talk about something, and I was just worried. That’s it. My bodily functions are fine, thank you very much.” I glare at her.
She hesitates. “Can I ask, or is it something I don’t need to know?”
I part my lips and then focus my gaze on the road. “Not yet. You don’t need to know yet.”
My grip on the steering wheel has gone tight. I pull into the drive and cut the engine.
The second the car stops, Ethan wakes up the way only children can. He’s out of the back seat and running for the front door before I’ve unbuckled. Linda opens it for him, and he disappears inside. I exit the car and round it just as Miranda has gotten out and is closing her door.
I cage her in with my arms. My hand braces against the metal beside her shoulder. Hers come up to my chest automatically.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Her eyes narrow.
“Were you worried about me just now?”
She actually looks guilty, and delight fills me. The lie rolls off her lips easily. “No.”
“Liar,” I murmur, lowering my head toward her.
Her cheeks turn a bright red. “Don’t even think about it, Wolfe.”
“It’s a show for the cameras.” I laugh quietly. “Just keeping up appearances.”
Her eyes glance around the empty drive, the trees and the gravel. Linda’s silhouette has already disappeared from the doorway.
“There aren’t any cameras here.”
“Are you sure?” My mouth is very close to hers now. “Maybe I’m just paranoid.”
“You’re not paranoid,” she breathes. Her pupils have gone wide. “Grayson, we are fake engaged. This is not what you’re supposed to do.”
“So maybe this is a fake kiss.”
The distance closes.
The kiss is not fake.
It’s hot and slow and deliberate. Her hands fist in my shirt within three seconds.
My thigh slides between hers, pressing her into the metal of the car.
The small sound she makes against my mouth I feel everywhere.
The scent of her arousal hits me in a wave, sweet, sharp, wholly hers, and the wolf inside me surges so hard that my jaw locks to keep from biting down on her lower lip.
I kiss her until she’s breathless. Until her fingers are buried in my hair. Until that pulse of hers is pounding against my palm where my hand has slid up to the side of her throat.
Then the wind shifts.
A scent reaches me on it. Underneath the pines, underneath Miranda, underneath the wet earth of the drive. The scent is faint but unmistakable. An intruder.
My body goes rigid.
Turning my head, instinct shifts the rest of me, putting Miranda fully behind me, my arm braced across her chest to hold her there. A low snarl builds in my throat before I can stop it.
The figure resolves out of the tree shadow at the end of the drive.
He’s tall, in a dark coat, walking up the gravel like he has every right to be there.
The recognition hits me.
“Derek,” I whisper.
That single word is all I can find. There he is, crossing my drive, in my territory, alive after four years of silence, and my hand on Miranda’s wrist tightens without me meaning to.
My brother’s best friend has come back.
The last man who saw Gabriel alive.