Page 20 of Never Tamed
“And now?” Mathis asks softly.
We all feel the truth even if he never finds the words to explain it.
The bond strings tighter. Torin’s gaze flicks over to Ren lying still in my lap. We wrapped her in every blanket we could find, but her breath barely stirs the air.
He doesn’t answer right away.
“I was wrong,” he says at last. “I admit it. So incredibly wrong.”
The mighty alpha of the Steel Claws admitting he was wrong wasn’t on my Bingo card of bullshit. And any other day I’d have called you a liar if you said it was possible.
“Well, it’s about fucking time you got your head out of your ass.”
The door squeals open with a metallic groan, and Dax ducks inside. He’s soaked head to toe with water dripping off him in rivulets. Two dead seagulls hang in one hand, dangling by their necks, both fully plucked of their feathers.
“What the hell arethose?” Torin grunts in disgust.
Dax grins and shows blood-streaked canines. “Dinner.”
“I take back what I said about Dax making sense.” Torin shudders and flops down on my other side. “He’s out of his fucking mind.”
“What? They’re a little small, not much meat, but I’m sure they taste like chicken. Or close to it.”
Dax shakes the dangling seagulls and their webbed feet beat together.
Mathis ducks to hide his small laugh.
“There’s no way in hell I’m eating that,” Torin says, lip curled in disgust. “Do you know how many diseases those birds have?”
“Would you prefer a rat?” Dax asks, deadpan. “I can probably go back out and catch one if you prefer it, mister prissy-pants.”
Torin refuses to dignify him with a response. He just tips his head back against the wall and sighs, rubbing his temples in oscillating circles. “God. This is my life now? Off brand sweat pants and eating raw pigeon?”
“Seagulls,” Dax corrects in a monotone. “Pigeons are way too small. Little bones. They get stuck in your teeth.”
He speaks like he’s had experience. And knowing him, he probably has. I want to give in to the bile rising up the back of my throat, but I won’t give Torin the satisfaction of commiserating.
Dax shrugs, unbothered. “At least I’m doing something helpful instead of sitting here, slowly shrinking away into madness.”
“You’re already there,” I mutter. “It’s not a far drop.”
He grunts in agreement. “I like to think of it as being a trailblazer.” Dax takes one of the birds and sinks his teeth into the meat. Blood and guts and who knows what else spray across his face, but he doesn’t care. He just chews away, like a happy dog given a treat.
“Come on. I’m really not the only one who’s going to eat, am I?” he says between chews.
No one joins him, but the corner of Mathis’s mouth twitches upward. Torin exhales slowly, his face looking a little green. I shake my head in a definite no.
“More for me.” Dax shrugs again.
A rustle sounds, a shift of fabric, a barely-there sound, and every head whips toward it.
Ren moves at my side.
She doesn’t wake. Not fully. But her fingers curl slightly where they rest near her ribs, and her brow furrows like she’s fighting something in a dream.
The bond pulses—soft, but certain.
We all freeze.
