Page 80 of Sweethearts and Savages
Frost looked at Kell, who met my eyes and held them. “It’s a secret.”
The tight ball of anger that I’d managed to keep under control started to grow. “Do you want to be part of this Pride? Because there are no secrets between us.”
Frost looked desperate, but Kell continued to hold my gaze. “I want Enit.” Frost became as frozen as his name. “And I want Frost. You two are strangers to me.”
A part of me could understand his words, but the rest of me? I wanted to claw out his eyes. “Then I suggest you get to know us, because Enit needs us all, and your days of being a selfish fuck are over.”
I looked at Frost, but he was gazing between us, the need for us to get along almost a palpable force emanating from both him and Enit.
Kell finally dropped his eyes. “We’ve been smuggling shifters.”
I blinked, because of all the things I thought he was going to say, that wasn’t it. Enit sat frozen between them, and I wanted to reach out and yank her away. Stacey laid a hand on my arm as if she could sense my need.
“Explain.”
Kell turned to Enit, no longer trying to convince us. “After I, uh, set you free, I ran to Europe. But the shit you said to me while we were in the cabin kept running through my head, so I did some research. Instead of looking for how evil supernaturals were, I started seeing other things. Shifters crying out for help, stuck in places after being sold off on the black market, or born into shitty situations. People who desperately needed to escape but had no one in their corner.” He stopped, his gaze catching Frost’s over Enit’s shoulder. “When you guys exiled us, we decided the best way to pay for our mistakes was to use the only skills we had to right some wrongs. We met up with a guy on the dark web who knew where we could send them, who promised they knew a place they’d be safe. Big bastard. Scary as hell.”
I huffed. “Was his name Vance?”
Both of them whipped toward me. “How did you…”
I waved a hand. “I’ll explain later. So you’ve been rescuing supes?” I prompted them to continue.
Frost spoke this time. “One hundred and fifty-seven, to be precise. Some we deliver wherever they want to go, some we’ve been dropping to Eden, and some down to Nevada.”
Eden? They’d been so close so often? Seeing the question on my face, Frost shook his head. “No, we take them to the border. Locke collects them from there.”
The silence in the room was intense. How we could get past this awkwardness was beyond me.
Stacey leaned forward. “I think we should have an orgy. To build bonds.”
The actualfuck?
Stacey
Frost was off the couch and had his arms wrapped around me in seconds. He squeezed me so tightly, my lungs couldn’t draw air.
“I didn’t mean me. Still not interested in you.”
He just loosened his arms slightly but didn’t let me go. “I missed you so much.” He looked over my shoulder at Bohdie. “Both of you.” I wiggled in his grasp and he let me pull away. “I’m so sorry, Stacey. Sorry for everything. Sorry for almost killing you. Sorry for ruining the good thing we had.”
His eyes got big and wet and not gonna lie, I kind of panicked. “Oxytocin is released during orgasm and is imperative in the creation of long-term romantic bonds, and therefore I believe that perhaps a group bonding session may ease some of the awkwardness that is bound to occur due to the long separation, and also cement the bond between Enit and Kell, if that’s what they want.”
Enit looked at me like I was insane. “Are you prescribing an orgy? You?”
I frowned. “Just because I am asexual, doesn’t mean I can ignore the science. I am an atypical case study, and obviously have no interest in taking part in the, uh, gangbang.”
“Doc, let’s never use the word gangbang again, okay?” Bohdie said slowly, like I was dim-witted.
Well okay then, good to know. I stepped out of Frost’s space and moved toward Enit. She was looking between us all, completely unsure of where she should be gravitating, but in all honesty, we should be gravitating toward her. She was our Omega. Our center.
I kissed her, not softly like I normally would, but a firm press that hopefully said “you’re mine and I love you.” “It doesn’t need to be us and them. Show them that they can all love you equally,” I told her softly.
She cupped my cheek. “And you?”
I smiled. “I’m interested to see the difference in mating rituals between humans and shifters. For science.”
Uh huh. Science.
