Page 103 of Bonds of Fate

Apparently not.

Has it been biding its time?

Waiting for the chance for Jay to drop his guard or for Nix to offer it his sweetest places for claiming?

The wolf saturates his mind with visions of his soulmate, bearing Grayson’s mark and round with his pup, and then moves onto the dirtiest things he’d imagined during his rebound rut.

It’s seditious.

He hears a sharply inhaled gasp, and Grayson realizes he is hard in his sweats on the streets of Nashville, smelling like lust, enigma-rage, and the tears he’d shed earlier.

Two Were teens are frozen ten feet away, and at his ashamed look, they scurry to cross the street. It’s inexcusable, and, in terms of Were social protocols, it is akin to having his dick out.

Fucking hell.

Crouching down to hide the visual manifestation of his thoughts, he breathes in the scent of the fabric of his pantsand of pack scents to clear his mind. It’s reprehensible, and for a single second, he considers the half-bottle of suppressants at home, considers that he’d made a grave error in stopping. The deadening effects were aggravating, but this—this is worse.

In the end, Grayson channels those feelings of self-disgust and shame to bring the wolf to heel. He reminds the wolf that they are not Dawson Hayes, and they will not be subverting their mate’s freedom and their pack alpha’s claim.

When he finally feels the rage diminish somewhat, he climbs to his feet, suddenly at a loss. He’s not ready to face Nix and his choices—not yet. Nor is he ready to stand before Jay, too afraid that the suppressed instinct to challenge him might claw its way to the surface once more.

It’s exhausting, and he needs grounding in the mundane—like under the bright lights of the beauty supply store. It’s not fifteen feet away, and the door slides open to reveal the scent of cosmetics and the people inside. The scents overshadow the charred edges of the rage-filled basil that has sunk into his shirt, allowing Grayson to finally breathe deeply.

The aisles of cosmetics and skin care are endless, and normally, Grayson comes here for fun. He has a rigidly-observed skincare routine—instilled in him by his timelessly beautiful mother—but he can never resist the pretty packaging and scents. He doesn’t need anything, but this is the epitome of Grayson’s “mundane.”

He’s walking by the hair dye section, where an array of colors—from platinum to obsidian and every shade in between—lines the shelves. A soft, cool brown catches his eye, almost chestnut, and the person on the box is freckled. She isn’t as lovely as his Angel, but the thought is a catalyst for his memory:

Grayson meets Nix’s eyes in the mirror. “Of course. You don’t like the blond anymore?”

“I never really did. He liked it. Said it made me at least a bit more attractive and that blonds have more fun. Gray, they do not have more fun. I can vouch for that. I’d just like to be me again. Can we do that instead?”

Grayson has a basket in his hands, and the color is thrown in before he even knows what he’s doing. Two—maybe he needs two to choose from. A chestnut and a mocha. And a sable. Three? Three sounds good.

But he’ll also need shampoo and conditioner, and body wash and body lotion because his soulmate doesn’t have his own things.

The wolf whimpers, protesting the sharp pain in Grayson’s chest at the mere thought of this gross neglect.

Yeah. Focus on that, you dumbass.

Jay finds him ten minutes later in the body lotion aisle, sniffling each bottle like he is a sommelier at a wine tasting. He’d settled on two: a vanilla-almond, which makes the wolf dance and wiggle, and a vanilla-coconut that makes Grayson think of ice cream and hot days on a tropical beach under the sun.

He gets both.

With his nose filled with artificial but still strangely alluring vanilla scent, he’d missed his alpha’s sad pine. “Hey, pretty. Whatcha doin’?”

The words are tentative, and Grayson hates how volatile he’s been. He still thinks it was warranted, but he isn’t usually prone to dramatics. He isn’t.

Well, maybe a little—but never about the small things.

He hands Jay the vanilla lotions, and his alpha’s eyebrows go up.

“Uh, pretty, you know I like the basil-green-tea one…” His voice trails off when he reads the label. “Well, fucking fuck.”

There’s a gasp, and they both look up to see a disapproving elderly woman standing with her friend two feet away.

“Delores, lighten up. They’re just words.” Her companion grins, but Grayson and Jay smile in apology anyway as they pass by.

“Gray. These are for Nix, right?” Jay’s voice wavers. “Sh-shoot. I can’t believe we haven’t thought about this stuff. Leo’s putting him in the spare room, but you’re right—he’s going to need this.Should have had it already.What the fu—fudge is wrong with me?” He drops the second bottle of lotion back into the basket.

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