I pet the petals of the violets. “So, you just trust her?”
Locks of his dark hair fall into his eyes as he shakes his head. “But whatever lies and truths she tells me could be because my father is controlling her. So, until the binding spell can be broken, I have to look for the truth elsewhere. And I have. Trust me, I have. But witches don’t frequently visit the Midnight Realm, and since we can’t go into their realm, Ava’s pretty much my only witch source for now.”
“And you trust her to get my memories back?”
“Trust is a stretch. What I’m going to bribe her with will secure her help. I really don’t need her trust. Just her knowledge on what could’ve erased your memories and how we can get them back.”
I fold my arms around myself, and the violet glimmering dims. “That, and you said you’re going to ask her about why these flowers could be attracted to me in my dreams.”
“I’m not going to ask her.” He rests a palm on my hip. “I’m going to snoop around in her books.”
“And what if she catches you?”
“She won’t because I’ll have a distraction.” The moonlight reveals a devious smile on his face.
I point at myself. “You want me to distract a witch?”
He urges my body closer to his. “You’ll be an excellent distraction. Just bat your pretty, little eyes at her for a few minutes or so while I snoop around.”
“Why would that distract …? Oh.” I frown. “It sort of seems awfully mean to flirt with someone just to distract them. I mean, what if she actually starts to like me? Then I’d just feel terrible.”
An amused chuckle escapes his lips. “You’re seriously worried you’ll trick Ava into falling in love with you?”
I playfully swat his chest. “Hey, I find your humor and doubt insulting.”
“I’m not saying she wouldn’t fall in love with you.” He sketches his fingertip along the brim of my nose. “I just think it’s adorable that you’d feel bad if you tricked her into falling in love with you. It shows me how sweet you are.”
“I am far from sweet,” I argue. “I can be very mean when I want to.”
“I believe that. But not cruel.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Mean usually results from a bad mood and being upset. Cruel stems from the desire to hurt someone. You don’t desire harm on others. But I’m not surprised. When we were younger, you were always the one trying to cheer everyone up when we were fighting with each other. You used to bring home stray animals, too; always trying to save everything. Your mom and dad were usually okay with animals being in the house until you brought home a giant demon rat.”
“Please tell me that doesn’t look how it sounds.”
“It’s about this big”—he holds his hands about a foot apart—“has stringy yellow hair, black fangs, and smells like a sewer.”
I dry heave. “I was a disturbing little shit, wasn’t I?”
“Nah, you just liked to try to save things. It was sort of your thing—mending injured or broken things.”
If only I could’ve done a better job mending myself.
“I wasn’t like that in the Common Realm. Although, I think if I tried to bring a rat home, all my foster families would’ve had a human freak out. One time I did bring home a puppy. It was really cute and kind of looked like a wolf pup. It had a broken leg, and I wanted to keep it until it got better.” My expression plummets. “My foster mother ended up taking it to the pound, and if no one claimed or tried to adopt it, it probably died.”
Jules draws me closer, reducing the space between our bodies. “Were all your foster parents that horrible?”
I shrug, gazing at the trees and hills shadowing the distance. “Some were okay. There was this one woman. She was a dancer. Or well, a … stripper. Do you have those here?” Warmth spreads across my face. Luckily, the dark conceals my blush.
The edges of his lips twitch to turn upward. “Yeah, we have them in some of the clubs in the city.”
“Okay, well, anyway, she was a stripper, and she knew how to dance and taught me how to dance a little bit. She was a pretty cool foster mom. Unfortunately, my time with her was pretty short.”
Wide eyed, he stiffens. “She taught you how to dance? Like, strip dance?”
“What? No. Just normal dance.” My cheeks are on fire.
His stiffness relaxes, and humor dances in his tone. “Well, that’s disappointing. I was going to request to see these stripper dance moves. But, I wouldn’t mind seeing the normal dance moves, too.”
I roll my eyes despite my blush. “And you said I had the dirty mind.”
“You do. But don’t worry; great minds think alike.” He gives me a flirty wink.
My traitor heart goes la, la, la inside my chest. Or maybe that’s my wolf.
“You could show me your dance moves now,” he suggests. “It’s just you and me here, and we don’t really have anything to do.”
“I really, really don’t want to dance in front of you. I’ve never danced in front of anyone in particular.”
“But you’ve danced with people?” he asks, and I nod. He pauses, seeming undecided. “Have you danced with Legend?”
“Yeah, we went out dancing all the time.”
“Oh.”
The wind fills up the awkward silence between us, and I feel like I’ve done something wrong.
“I’m trying not to go all wolf on you,” he finally says softly. “I don’t want to be the kind of werewolf who freaks out every time his alterum dimidium animae talks about another male. Or be the kind of wolf that, when she kisses him, he loses control over his desire.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets, staring at the ground. “It’s just that you were gone for so long, and then you came back, and you’re gorgeous and funny and sweet and scared, and I want you so badly that sometimes I can barely stand it. And that want sometimes gets out of hand. But I’m trying to be mellower because I can tell the growling and snarling fits freak you out. I don’t ever want you to be afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” The truth easily falls from my tongue. I step toward him and place my hands on his shoulders. “And while I won’t dance for you now, I will dance with you … if you want to.”
He peers up at me. “Yeah?”
I nod, strangely nervous. “Yeah.”
Smiling, he narrows the gap between our bodies and begins to sway us to the lull of the breeze while singing a faintly recognizable tune. His voice is wonderfully magical and spills over me like warm silk.
We stay that way, dancing, me listening to him sing, until the sun rises over the hills, declaring it’s time to wake up. For the first time in a long time, I almost don’t want to. I almost want to remain in dreamland forever.
Chapter 22
When I wake up, I’m curled up against Jules with my head resting on his bare, tattooed chest. The position throws me off. Never once when I slept in the same bed with Legend did I cuddle up with him. I was never that comfortable. And I’ve never slept with a shirtless guy before. Or werewolf.
Even more alarming is that I woke up on my own and don’t feel cranky. Probably because I had the best sleep of my life. And no, that isn’t an exaggeration.
I angle my head and glimpse the shaded tattoos that ink his sculpted chest and torso. Dark lines form poetic words, shapes, and angles that create fierce images and tell a story.
My gaze travels all the way to the top of his pajama bottoms—yes, he’s wearing pants, to my wolf’s displeasure. Peeking out from the waistband near his hipbone is a star-shaped mark, the Violet Mountain pack’s mark. And alongside it is a cursive E. I have the oddest compulsion to peek under the waistband to see if the letter leads to my real name, but that thought makes me feel extremely perverted, so I resist the temptation.
Instead of waiting around for him to wake up, I get up and head for the bathroom to wash off last night’s events. The room has been tidied up; the blood scrubbed from the floors. I wonder if Jules ha
s a maid and how in the realms they managed to clean up the room without waking us.
After I finish showering, I towel dry off then search the bathroom for my backpack, but I can’t find it anywhere. I crack the door open, and my confusion doubles. My backpack is on a chair in front of the fireplace and my clothes are stacked and folded on top of a trunk.
Since Jules appears to still be sleeping, I wrap the towel around my body and tiptoe across the room.
“Is that what you’re wearing to training?”
I screech like a wild banshee, the towel nearly falling off as I whirl around.
Jules is sitting up in bed, leaning against the headboard with his legs stretched out, a grin teasing his lips.
“I thought you were sleeping.” I tighten the towel around me, trying to calm the hell down, but the more his gaze drinks me in, the more my pulse sprints.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re creeping around in my room in a towel?” His brow quirks. So do the corners of his lips. “Not that I’m complaining.”
As I scowl at him, his smile breaks through.
“My clothes were in the bathroom last night, but I didn’t notice until after I showered that they weren’t in there anymore,” I explain as my skin warms. “I’m not sure how, but they ended up out here.”
He stands up and rounds the foot of the bed. “That was probably Lalana.”
“Who’s Lalana?”
“The werewolf who takes care of my place.”
“Is she also the one who left me the food last night?” I ask, and he nods, playing with the edge of the towel and causing tingles to spill across my skin. “But how did she know to bring the food? All you did was snap your fingers.”
“We have a magical connection.”
“Oh.” Why does it suddenly feel like my heart is bottoming to my stomach?
“It’s not like that.” He reads right through me. “It’s a spell I had put on us so I don’t always have to find her when I need her. My guards have the same magical connection, as well.”
“Oh.” That oh sounds a lot more cheerful than my last one.
He totally notices, too, grinning. “Don’t worry; you’re my only alterum dimidium animae.”
“I’m not worried.” Liar. “I just …” You just what?
Suck at lying.
“I’ll let you off the hook this time.” His grin is all sorts of wicked. “Just know, though, that you only get a few freebies.”
I raise my chin. “I won’t need any more freebies, I can assure you.”
“If you say so.”
“I know so.”
And we’ve said that to each other before, too.
I stare down at my limited selection of clothes. “So, what am I supposed to wear to train in, anyway?”
“Whatever you have that’s comfortable.”
I drop the clothes onto the floor. “Well, that pretty much eliminates everything.”
He bends down and scoops up a lacy piece of fabric. I realize too late it’s my underwear.
“I don’t know. These look pretty comfortable.” He chuckles as I snatch the underwear from him.
“Is this what you’re like all the time?” I loathe that I’m blushing again.
“No. Not at all.” His tongue slips out to wet his lips, and I catch the glint of his metallic tongue ring. “But I’ve also never had you standing here in front of me in nothing but a towel that barely covers up anything.” He tilts his head to the side and deliberately checks me out.
I pinch his nipple hard, and he winces, laughing.
“Eyes on my face, dude.” Yeah, like you really mean that, Lake. “And tell me what I should wear, for reals.”
He contains his laughter, but his eyes still sparkle. “Honestly, none of your clothes work. You need something you can move around in. I’ll have Liberty bring you something.”
Nodding, I sink down on the foot of the bed. “That would be great. Thanks.”
“I’ll be right back, then.” He smiles as he starts to leave, but pauses before he walks out of the room. “I had a really great time last night.” He suddenly seems shy. “I haven’t slept like that in ages.”
“Me neither.”
We trade a shy smile, and then he exits the room.
I flop back on the bed, my heart fluttering like a cracked-out hummingbird. He may not be my alterum dimidium animae, but damn if my heart seems to think otherwise. I take several breaths, trying to get my heartrate and my wolf to chill out. But by the time Jules returns, I’m still a riled-up mess of want, desire, and confusion.
A few minutes after Jules leaves his bedroom, Liberty shows up with an arm full of clothes. She decides my best choice is a pair of black fitted pants, lace up boots, and a tank top. She also tells me to put my hair up in case I have to fight Shade.
“Total hair puller,” she explains.
After I get dressed, Jules, Shade, Kylan, Liberty, and I depart to the training pit while Legend takes off to his hometown to run some errands. He assures me he’ll be back by nightfall, though.
As we’re walking down the dirt road toward the forest, we cross paths with a little bit of a problem. Well, problem might be a stretch.
“And here comes the horny princesses in heat,” Liberty murmurs from beside me as a group of female werewolves around our age head up the street toward us.
“Why do you call them that?” I ask as we near the group of giggling female werewolves.
She twirls a knife around in her hand like a baton. “Because they’re some of the potential princesses, and they all try to dry hump Jules’ leg every time they get near him. Not all the princesses are that bad, but those five right there are the female version of Shade.”
“Hey,” Shade starts to protest, but then shrugs. “Okay, I guess you’re right. Although, I don’t giggle like they do.”
“Sure you don’t.” Liberty rolls her eyes.
The two of them start bickering, while I inch closer to Jules.
“I thought you said you weren’t a player?” I jokingly elbow him in the side.
He gives me an unimpressed look. “I don’t do anything to get their attention. They just want me because I’m the prince.”
I snort a laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re good-looking, which I’m sure you already know.”
“I do, but it’s nice to hear you say it.” He laughs as I flip him the middle finger. Then he captures my hand and tows me to his side. “For the record, I don’t ask for their attention, nor do I want it.”
I believe him. After what Shade and Liberty told me, how could I not?
“I actually hate their attention.” He drapes his arm around my shoulders. “It’s a good thing I now have my very own personal bodyguard to keep all the horny princesses in heat away from my innocent leg.”
I shake my head. “No, no, no. I don’t do catfights.”
“Don’t fight them, then. Just mark your territory.” A dare sparkles in his blue eyes.
“So, you want me to pee on you?” I ask, and Liberty and Shade bark with laughter. Kylan even cracks a smile.
“No, smartass. We’re not dogs.” He breathes in my ear. “We’re wolves. We don’t pee on each other to mark our territory. We bite.”
And there goes that crazy hummingbird in my chest again.
“But you told me not to bite you until I was ready.”
“Just graze your teeth along my skin a bit,” he taunts, daring me. “That’ll be enough to keep them away.”
I feel like we’re playing a game. A flirty, tempting, wildly exciting game.
“Maybe I don’t care,” I taunt back. “Maybe I want you to fend for yourself.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then.” He starts to move away and I just about let him, wanting to win our game. But then the princesses’ giggles hit my ears, along with the not so discreet whispers about my apparently gangly body and the dirt
y remarks about Jules’ tight ass, and my wolf growls for me to shut up the horny princesses in heat.
“Fine.” That’s all I say before I close my eyes and graze my teeth along Jules’ collarbone.
A throaty groan falters from his lips as he tangles his fingers through my hair, tugging at the roots.
My senses flare, my wolf purring, as I drag my teeth along the base of his throat, a little rougher this time. Jules’ chest quivers, and then he’s pulling me away.
I peer up at him, wondering if I hurt him, only to find his violet eyes shining down at me.
“Did I do it right?” I sound breathless.
He nods, his chest rising and crashing with each breath he takes. “You did it fucking perfectly.”
I peek down the street to find the princesses are gone then smile up at him. “You’re welcome.”
He laughs hoarsely, shaking his head. “You’re a fucking handful. But yes, thank you.” He kisses my forehead, untangles his fingers from my hair, and takes my hand. Then we start up the street again like nothing happened.
But something did. I can feel it in the electric air. A shift. A lightness. A spark. I just wish I knew what it meant.
Chapter 23
Training sucks balls. There’s really no other way to put it. After everyone praised me for being so badass when I kicked Slate’s ass, I had a bit of confidence that perhaps I’d be able to hold my own. But nope. Rune has been kicking my butt all damn day. And supposedly, he’s taking it easy on me. At least, that’s what everyone keeps telling me. Apparently, Rune is a badass warrior who has never lost a fight, hence the reason Slate called him the “infamous Rune.”
“If he were fighting at full-force, you’d be dead,” Liberty told me.
That made me feel a bit scared, but not enough to stop fighting.
I grunt in pain and frustration as I slam to the mat for at least the twentieth time. The worst part is that Liberty, Kylan, and Jules are all here to witness me getting my ass kicked. Jules at least is trying to be encouraging.
“You’re doing okay.” Jules crouches down at the edge of the mat and catches my gaze. “You just need to find his weakness.”
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