Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
I miss my monster. My king.
—Lorinne Leroux’s private journal.
West, Winter’s chariot, carried her through a snowy Elmwood Forest. He’d repeatedly refused to put her down, and now his dick was prodding her hip.
“This is your fault,” he said, no doubt talking about his pulsing erection.
“Is it? Because I’m pretty sure you’re the one holding me hostage.”
His warm eyes pierced hers. “I can assure you it’s the other way around, Winter Lily.”
Where did the world go when he spoke? The white-dusted woods disappeared, her focus falling solely on him. “You remembered my middle name?” It was hard to hate it coming from his mouth.
“I have a hard time forgetting a single thing about you.”
If he’d not been holding her, she would’ve collapsed. Whisk me away was on the tip of her tongue, but the unspoken words came with a grim reminder: she wasn’t ready for love. And this was no fairytale. Letting herself get that close was a mistake.
“Please put me down.” The words escaped her in a panic.
West stopped short, his brows furrowing.
She knew it was wrong to switch up on him like this—again—but her body and mind were on different missions. “I’m serious.”
His expression went stone-cold. A moment later, her feet touched the ground. He didn’t say a word; he grunted and stomped onward.
Did he just shut me out?
The wind grazed the back of her neck. Yes, it sang.
Great.
Her selfish need for a distraction had created a new problem—a six-five rumbling one. “Slow down!” she shouted. Westley glanced her way, but only briefly. It was like he was avoiding her eyes. “West! I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset,” he spat, ducking under a low-hanging tree branch.
Really? Because his curled fists said otherwise. “Mages are much better liars than shifters,” she muttered, catching up with him.
He kept his gaze ahead. There was enough tension rolling off of his cloak that the air became too thick to even breathe.
His shoulders rose and fell as he spoke. “To make myself clear, since you’re incapable of it. I’m not upset, I’m livid.”
“Then stop walking and talk to me!”
“Now you want to talk? You won’t tell me about your engagement.
Everett told me you begged to fuck him. What just happened against that tree wasn’t being patient.
And then you go cold on me after what I thought …
” His face contorted, the anger in his eyes shifting to something like pain.
Maybe fear. “This is all just some game to you, isn’t it? ”
Her heart thundered.
Winter made a mental note to never, ever call West a liar again.
How was she supposed to start? This was a lot to explain.
“No, it’s not. I just—I refuse to talk about my ex because I hate him.
He’s awful, and that’s all there is to know, at least for now.
It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s that I’m not ready. ”
Westley nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s hear the rest.”
She took a deep breath, shifting her gaze to the forest floor.
She couldn’t look at him and admit this.
“Okay. I did try to fuck Everett. In truth, I needed a distraction. Seeing you with Keltia hurt me and I can’t pretend it didn’t.
But if I’m being honest, I am attracted to him.
” Saying all of this out loud made her feel like a miserable hypocrite so she switched subjects.
“And what happened between you and me against that tree … It was me looking for another distraction. I’m so sorry.
I promise this isn’t some game. I’m just confused. ”
He scratched his head. “Why are you so confused?”
A not-so-simple question. She shrugged, trying to find the right words to explain how fucked up she was. “When my life spins out of control, so violently, it makes me feel weak. Broken. I hate it. But if I can find something or someone to control, it helps me.”
“Is that why you gave me all those orders?”
Winter licked her lips, blushing at the memory of him grunting atop them. “Exactly. But only because I thought you wanted to. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have. I promise.” Slowly, she made eye-contact.
His nostrils flared. “You let me hump you because you pitied me?”
“A pity hump? No.” Dry humping shouldn’t require this much undressing. She couldn’t begin to imagine the emotional turmoil that would follow actual sex.
He stared at her blankly.
“We were both benefiting,” she added. She had mental health issues; he had a battle tonight. It had to have been better than fucking himself? And she’d loved it—personally. How did this even turn into a mates-with-benefits conversation?
He tugged on his soiled groin. “For the record, I’m not interested in charity.”
Unbelievable.
She’d forgotten the Tin Man had a heart. “Alright,” she said, switching her tone to a gentle one. “I’m sorry, sincerely. Would it change anything if I said that was the best kiss of my entire life?”
His lips twitched. “Maybe.” Was that a hint of color to his cheeks? He blinked, his features rehardening. “Did you really faint before, or was that a lie?”
She quieted. How could she tell him she’d woken up in her brother’s video game?
That she’d learned her mother had been possessed by a monster?
That a dark spirit was her apparent father?
That she was the child of some curse? Her truths were too inconceivable to share.
“I don’t want to talk about that either. Please.” Her voice broke.
He rolled his eyes. “Better than a lie, but I’m on to you.”
“See,” she cooed, poking his chest. “I can lean into my wolf side.”
“Then we’re definitely talking about Everett.”
Her face fell flat. Did she really admit she was attracted to his second? West’s poker face made her suspicious. In fact, he was unusually calm. “Aren’t you mad?”
“No.”
There was little chance he was supporting her sexual freedom as a single-but-mated female, so what was he thinking? “Why not?”
“Everett’s the only member of my pack to take my blood oath. That’s my blood in his veins.”
Oh.
Winter had skimmed over the blood oath stuff when she’d studied shifter-everything underground—there’d been too much information to absorb. “And what exactly is a blood oath?”
“It’s a ceremony. Similar to a claiming, but it’s performed wrist-to-wrist.”
“Ah, like blood brothers?”
“Sure, but every dynamic is unique. Everett’s an extension of me, making him the highest-ranking beta in my pack. With that comes power and the promise of loyalty, protection—”
She cut him off. “And checking up on me?”
“That’s all part of it. It’s not you wanting to fuck him that bothers me, it’s the way you look at him. It’s like you’re a different person around him.”
She scrunched her face. “What?”
He spoke through clenched teeth. “Why won’t you look at me the way you look at him?”
She mashed her lips together, unwilling to answer.
Then the wind returned to weave snowy figure-eights between them.
“Winter. You have to say something.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and admitted the inevitable. “It’s just easier around him.”
“But why?” The break in his voice threatened to break her.
And that was why. He made her feel too much.
It was the same reason why she couldn’t open her heart up to him—he’d destroy all her hard work.
“Because every time I’m around you, I’m reminded how easy it would be to fall in love.
Wouldn’t that terrify you too?” The truth trickled out like blood from a fresh knife wound.
The wind swirled away, snaking through the trees and into the sky. West tugged on his hair and stepped up to meet her. She froze, unable to move, but it wasn’t from the weather. He’d cupped her face.
She didn’t push him away because she was melting.
“It does,” he answered, stealing her next breath away with a kiss. She wasn’t sure if her lips were moving. West didn’t say it would or it could terrify him. He said it does.
So that would mean they were both falling in love.
Winter’s bliss faded as they walked beneath the metal signage and up the farm’s long driveway.
Not even the pigs roaming around the paddocks, oinking and playing in snow, could ease her nerves about the fight tonight.
The memory of Mellie hacking at chickens like they’d been nothing more than misshapen potatoes was still too vivid.
“Your sister is going to kill me for ruining her cloak.” The back had several small rips in it from their tree-escapade.
“One: I ruined it. And two: she has dozens. We’re shifters—our clothes rip. I’m sure she won’t care.”
“Do you know anything at all about females?”
West’s lips curled into a wolfish grin. “Plenty.”
Heat rushed between her thighs. “You’re sick if you think I’m talking about sex right now. Your sister is scary.”
“Let me deal with her if she’s upset. But she won’t be.”
“Well, I hope you’re right because I’m getting hungry.”
“Me too.” His tone was salacious as he wrapped an arm around her. She glanced down, noticing his rocket ship ready for takeoff.
“Holy hell, West, put that thing away!”
He adjusted his pants. “I’m preparing for battle, Winter.”
Why did he always say her name like it strained him? “There has to be other ways to prepare?” Who cared if her ovaries were volunteering as tribute, there’d be no turning back after sex—this wasn’t her timeline.
“You’re wicked.”
“Thank you?” She wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult anymore.
Everett burst through the front door, startling them both. “Look who we have—” He stopped mid-sentence and sniffed, his nose tracing an imaginary line from West’s crotch to hers. “Well, well, well.”
Winter put a palm on his chest and pushed. “Shut up.” Everett gave way, moving to the side. She ignored his continued sniffing and let herself in.