Page 153 of Pack Frenzy
“For what?” I ask.
“For being the one she clung to when we couldn’t move,” he says. “For not…checking out. Sometimes it’s easier, in heat, to just let instinct run the show.”
“Yeah, well.” I look down at Jess, at the way her mouth is softened in sleep, at the faint marks along her neck and shoulder that scream mine, ours, pack. “Instinct’s loud. But it’s not stupid. It picked her. Only right I show the fuck up, too.”
He huffs something like a laugh. “She got under your skin,” he says.
“Under?” I snort quietly. “Try ripped out a wall and moved in.”
His gaze sharpens. He hears more than I say, always has. “That a problem?”
My brain jumps to Blake—his stare crawling over her, the memory of Meredith, the blood he never paid for except what Rowan and I forced from him.
Then I look at Jess. This soft, stubborn chaos-gremlin who talks back, who pokes holes in my bullshit, who rides out four and a half days of sex-orgie-marathon sex still worries ifwe’reokay.
“Yeah,” I say. “Big problem. For anyone who thinks they’re going to touch her.”
Rowan’s mouth curves, sharp and satisfied. “Good,” he says.
Eli’s footsteps come back down the hall, lighter than before. “Don’t freak out,” he stage whispers from the doorway. “I brought toast, not a feast.”
He leans against the frame, watching Jess with something open and raw in his eyes. “Is she out?”
“Coma,” I say. “She’s done.”
“Good.” He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “She deserves to sleep without her body trying to set itself on fire.”
He sets the tray down on the dresser, then crawls back into the nest, careful as ever. This time, he slides in behind Jess, spooning her from the side, one arm curved above, not quite touching, like he’s afraid he’ll wake her.
Rowan shifts to the other side, stretching out longways near the foot of the bed, head near her feet, hand still on her ankle. Guard dog position. He’ll wake up if she so much as sighs wrong.
I adjust, just enough to get my neck at a better angle, but not enough to risk her rolling off. She settles before I even finish moving, body instinctively finding the lowest point of me like I’m gravity.
My arm stays locked around her. My palm splayed over her ribs counts every breath.
It slams into me then, like a beam dropped from a height.
I’ve spent my whole life making sure things stand. Checking joists, making sure foundations are poured deep, listening for those tiny cracks that mean a structure’s about to fail.
Somewhere between calling her sweetheart and holding her while she burned, I made Jess the center post inside my chest. The one everything leans on.
If someone takes a swing at that? The whole damn house comes down.
On them.
“Mine,” I think, the word settling into bone. Not the wild, possessive snarl from earlier. Something heavier. Truer.
Mine to protect. Mine to build around. Mine to come home to.
And under that, stubborn and solid as poured concrete:
I love you.
I don’t say it. Not with Rowan and Eli half-awake around us, not with her knocked out cold. It’s not time yet. She deserves to hear it when she can look me in the eye and tell me to fuck off if she wants.
But I know it now. No pretending it’s just instinct. No hiding behind cute nicknames and logistics.
I lean down and press my mouth to her hair, breathing her in. One kiss. One mark only, I know the weight of.
