Page 46 of Captive Mate
I finished with my boots and crossed to the bed, glancing warily at Ian as I did. He just quietly poured hot water into the coffee filter setup, like a recently enemy shaman standing over his unconscious mate wasn’t anything to get worked up about.
Like he trusted me.
I swallowed down the little lump in my throat.We’re your allies, even if you’re not ours. I’d never had allies. Never had someone I could count on since my brother’s past had caught up with him, forcing him to leave me. If another Parker attacked me, I could call Ian — and he’d take my call. Show up and fight for me. It was the difference between standing on the edge of a precipice in a high wind, every moment of balance a struggle, and having a brick wall suddenly appear at your back to lean on.
Without disturbing Nate’s nest of blankets, I laid my hand gently on the side of his head. He let out a little murmur but didn’t stir. It only took a moment to double-check what I’d already known: he was tired, and his magic was depleted, but his body was perfectly whole and healthy.
“He’s fine,” I said, taking my hand away. I was almost reluctant. Nate’s hair was soft, and he was warm, and non-sexual, non-threatening human contact — and a lot of my human contact was both sexualandthreatening — was something I missed. “Make sure you save some of that coffee for him, though. He’s going to need it.”
Ian rolled his eyes. “Believe me, that’s a lesson I learned the hard way.” He paused, fiddling with a couple of mugs on the counter, and staring down at them like he couldn’t quite look at me. “By the way, you want some?” I shook my head. I didn’t like coffee — it tasted like rancid mice. “Okay. But look. You know, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t stick around. If you’re not sure where you’re going next, you know?”
Right. Because why let a perfectly good shaman go to waste? “I know where I’m going,” I said shortly. Not here. That was where I was going. It wasn’t really a lie.
Ian looked up, his eyes sharp, like he knew what I was thinking. He proved it when he said, “You don’t have to do any magic. Nate has that under control.” He sounded like he was challenging me to disagree, but I didn’t rise to the bait. “Anyway, you can stay if you want. Suit yourself.”
“Shouldn’t Matthew have a say in that?” That came out a lot crankier than I’d intended it to, and I bit my lip. My heart picked up a little, just from saying Matthew’s name. Fuck, I really needed to leave.
Ian looked…shifty at that. “Just go talk to Matt, okay? Take off the spell. And then talk to him.”
And I was sure that was all I was going to get out of Ian.
“Tell Nate I said thanks for the clothes, okay? And the socks.” My feet really did feel warmer than they had in weeks.
“Will do.” Ian went back to pouring coffee.
Well, all right then.
I stepped out of the house onto a small, sagging porch, streaked with moss and missing a board here and there. The view couldn’t be beat, though, as long as you didn’t look down. One path led off through the forest, presumably to the pack house, and otherwise there was no sign of humanity at all. Birds chirped. It was nesting season; they sounded cheerfully amorous.
Well, at least someone was getting laid without complications.
It looked like the rain had come and gone while I was passed out. Every twig and needle on the trees held a glimmer of moisture, and the ground exhaled the scent of growth and rot and damp, all the elements of life and death on Earth.
I set off down the path, taking long strides, breathing deeply, and letting myself settle into a moment of peace, just me and the forest.
I came around a small bend and stopped dead in my tracks. Me, the forest, and — Matthew, who was striding up the path toward me with all the grim determination of a man heading somewhere really fun, like a colonoscopy appointment.
He came to an abrupt halt too the second he saw me, about ten feet away. He wasn’t nearly far enough: I could see the deep-sea of his eyes, and the motion of his throat as he swallowed, and I could catch a faint hint of his clean, spicy scent.
He wasn’t nearly near enough, either. But that was my own fucking problem.
“You’re healed,” he said, after a long few moments of excruciating silence.
“So are you.”
Silence. Again. We’d both reached our personal limits on stating the obvious, apparently.
Matthew’s lips tightened. “I don’t care,” he said after a couple of minutes, almost like he was speaking to himself. “If you blow me up or something, I’ll take it.”
With that, he crossed the distance between us in a couple of quick strides and hauled me into his arms, leaning down to bury his face in my hair.
Blow him up? Did he think my magic worked like a grenade launcher or something? I only wished.
But it didn’t matter, because getting him to stop was the last thing on my mind. I should’ve done something to stop him, for my own sanity, but he wasn’t doing anything aggressive or sexual: just holding me, the muscles in his arms rigid with tension, like he expected me to be yanked away any second.
My face was pressed into his chest. Every ragged breath, every beat of his heart, echoed in my cheek and sent little tremors through me. My arms were trapped at my sides, so I didn’t have to choose whether or not I’d embrace him too.
All I had to do was feel.
