by Leigh Kelsey
“Yeah,” he replied, getting off his bed where he’d been reading a giant, dusty tome he’d probably got from an ancient book shop. I glanced briefly at the cover but all it had was a title—A NATURAL HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN. Sounded riveting. He shrugged, hovering near a wardrobe and glancing at the posters above his bookshelves. “I like them. My mum used to take me to watch the regatta.”
I tilted my head, my rising arousal pausing. I’d never heard him talk about his mum, but the wistful, gentle way he spoke had me wanting to hug him again. “She passed away, didn’t she?” I guessed.
He nodded, still looking at the printed ships. “When I was seven.”
“That sucks,” I breathed, my heart suddenly tight as I thought of my own parents. “That really fucking sucks.”
“It does.” He met my eyes and held out his hand, an invitation I didn’t hesitate to take. I curled my fingers around his warm hand, letting him pull me down onto the bed with him. “This is so strange,” he said quietly. “My wolf would touch you every second of every day if given the opportunity, and touch feels so natural to that part of me. But we’ve gone from not touching to being close like this and the rest of me—the man—questions every single thing.”
“You don’t need to,” I whispered. “I like this. A lot. I know what you mean though. If we were wolves right now, we’d be curled up on the ground around each other like it was no big deal.”
“Yes,” he said emphatically. “But that’s just not possible when we’re human. It doesn’t feel right, or—our brains get in the way.”
“And dissect everything,” I agreed. “Humans are shit.”
He huffed a laugh, his hand spreading across my back, the touch through my thin T-shirt amazing. “We need a happy medium.”
“I can get Old Jacqui plastered,” I offered. “She still loves a bottle of gin.”
He nudged me, not amused by my joke at all. “How about this? Just this?”
I pulled back, my eyes flying wide. “Just this? As in, nothing more? Nothing else?” I forced myself to be reasonable, even though the wolf in me was every bit as outraged as the woman. “If that’s what you need, okay.”
Jack’s laugh was warm, and I couldn’t hold back a smirk as he rolled his eyes at me. I’d never seen him roll his eyes in my life. “Oh, I want more, Lyra. I can assure you of that.”
His dark, sexy voice was doing something bad to my body. Bad and very, very good. “Right now?” I asked quickly. “Yes. Agreed.”
He laughed again, unrestrained and deep this time. My stomach fluttered at the sound. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
“With the touching,” he clarified. “When my wolf wants to curl up with you, how about I hug you? Would that be okay? I’m not asking for a free pass,” he said quickly. “If you don’t want me to touch you one day, just tell me. But in general—"
He looked so embarrassed and uncomfortable I took pity on him. “You do have a free pass, though. You’re my mate.” I shoved him in the shoulder. “Why do you think I don’t want to hug you? I do. All the fucking time. I need touch too.”
It was natural. Wolves touched all the goddamn time around mating, and if I went an hour without touching my mates I got snappy and needy.
Jack looked dubious.
“I mean it,” I said, ducking my head as embarrassment flared in my chest. “I might be a total bitch on the outside, but inside I’m … I’m kind of mushy. Ask Gray if you don’t believe me, he’s seen me break down.”
I couldn’t describe the way he looked at me then, his warm brown eyes churning with something. “Kind of mushy on the inside?” he asked. “That’s why you came to check on me, then.”
I scoffed, my face heating. “I came here to get in your pants.”
He didn’t buy that for a second. My heart stumbled in my chest as he tipped up my face and kissed me. “It’s okay to care about people, Lyra.”
I shook my head, trying to extricate myself from his arms, panicked and aching in a sudden way I couldn’t explain, but he held me closer.
“I get it,” he said, serious as a knife now. “My sister … let’s just say she gave me a few trust issues.”
My panic evaporated. I scowled, planning her murder. Whatever she’d done to him to make him sound that way, I’d make her regret it.
He chuckled. “Is this mate Lyra, or normal Lyra looking like she’s going to track down my sister and hurt her?”
I balked at him being so close to the truth. “Both,” I admitted. “Wanna talk about it?”
“Do you want to talk about your parents?”
I opened my mouth to shoot down the idea when I realised that—I did.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Yeah, I do.”
Jack held me close, his hand secure on my waist, our hips touching.
And for the first time, I told the full story.
LYRA
I couldn’t sleep that night. At first I thought it was because of how completely strange it was to be in an unfamiliar room with the weight of an arm around me, but that wasn’t keeping me awake. My skin was buzzing. Or something beneath it was. I had pins and needles in my bloodstream. And it was freaking me out.
I slid out from under Jack’s arm, taking the chance to look at him while he slept. His eyelids were a delicate brown shade, and his face was so different while he slept. Relaxed and soft, with no trace of stress, tension, or worry in his features. I couldn’t help but sigh, feeling soft and tender as I looked at him.
But all too soon I remembered how freaked out he was earlier, and the reason why. If that lone wolf had gone for him … Jack was right, I’d have killed him. The way Jack had killed him to protect me. Maybe I was wired wrong, somewhere deep inside, because I was equal parts disturbed at the murder and touched that he’d do that for me.
I took one last glance at him, sleeping on his side, curled around the space where I’d been, and then I slipped out of the door. I half expected Cas to still be up, nursing a drink at the kitchen table while he fretted about ways to keep us safe—there’d been a chance we were already safe, that mating three males would have deterred the rogues, but the wolf today wrecked that hope—but the house was still and quiet. I paused before the kitchen window to let the moon’s rays tingle over my skin and reached out for my mates. They were all sleeping.
I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to wake someone up and tell them about the buzzing in my veins. I’d put them through enough shit this past week. I definitely didn’t need Cas getting any more anxious. Waking him to tell him this went against my ingrained instincts to protect my mate, even if he happened to be my alpha. Even if it meant keeping a secret from him for a couple hours.
Instead of waking anyone up, I poured myself a glass of sherry—it was all we had in the cupboard—and forced it down, wincing at the taste before I pulled open the kitchen door and trudged outside to the bench. It always calmed me to sit out here, with the hushing of the sea, the cool brush of the wind on my face, and the light of the moon on my skin. I shivered as I sat on the wrought iron, stretching out my jean-clad legs. I had yet to change into pyjamas, thanks to Jack falling asleep with his arms around me. Not that I was complaining. I hadn’t lied earlier; since mating, I needed their touch more and more.
Movement caught my eye by the cliff’s edge and I grinned, spotting a white canine shape trotting over.
“Hey, you,” I said. “You left without saying bye the other night. Kind of a dick move if you ask me.”
The dog paused, sitting and cocking his head to the side before he whined.
“Oh, fine.” I sighed. “I forgive you.” I stretched out my hand for him to sniff; he butted his head under my palm instead. I took the hint and stroked him, laughing as his tail thumped the grass. “Fancy getting up here with me?”
The dog didn’t need telling twice; he clambered up onto the bench, turned around his tail twice, and flopped down with his head on my knee. Almost like he knew what I’d said and un
derstood. I peered at him, a flutter on unease going through me. But the shield let him through. He was just a dog—safe. I stroked down his head and along his back, pleased when his tail wagged continuously.
The tingles in my blood didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Being under the moon was actually inflaming it. The pins and needles grew until my face was hot, until my blood vibrated with the sensation, and I winced, biting my tongue to withstand the pain.
It hurt.
“Sorry, buddy,” I gasped, pushing him off. “I gotta go inside.”
As much as worrying Cas was the last thing I wanted to do … I needed my alpha, my mate.
LYRA
“Lyra?” Cas asked, pulling his door open. He was sleep-bleary, his pale hair stuck up on his head and his silver eyes hazy until they fell on the strained expression on my face and cleared in an instant.
“Cas,” I slurred, weaker with every second. “I feel weird. Wrong.” I tipped forward into his open arms, shuddering with relief when he bound me up tight.
“Do you need a doctor?” he asked, his muscles tense as stone with how much restraint it must have taken him to ask and not simply drag me to see the nearest one.
I gasped as the prickling inside my blood got stronger, whimpering as I pressed my face into his shirt. Along the hall, two doors opened simultaneously. Gray and Jack must have felt it, this wrongness in me.
“Lyra?” Gray asked sharply, rushing towards me.
“I don’t know,” I answered Cas, every word an effort. “Maybe I do need a doctor.”
I swayed, my eyes sliding shut as the world pitched around me. Cas held me tight.
“Talk to me, Lyra. Tell me what it feels like.”
“Like … like needles inside me. Running through … my blood…”
“Shit,” Gray swore. “Shit. What the hell’s wrong with her?”
“Gray,” Jack snapped before Cas could. “Get yourself together. She needs us to be calm, not lose our cool.”
Gray growled, the sound inflaming the boiling in my blood or maybe that was because Cas gathered me up in his arms and set me on his bed, a ray of moonlight falling through his window.
“Shut…” I murmured. “Curtains … moon makes it … worse.” I felt like hell. It wasn’t just the needles in my blood. I felt weak, like I had flu—sick and hot and nauseated. Cas rushed to close the curtains and I whimpered, curling around myself.
The bed dipped beside me and suddenly I was pulled into a bony lap, Gray’s arms winding around me. The pain dipped.
“Feels … better,” I slurred.
“With him holding you?” Jack asked, and I knew his mind was whirring. I kept my eyes screwed shut, battling a wave of sickness, but I felt his weight on the end of the bed. His warm hand rubbed along my calf and up my thigh and the pain eased a bit more. I gasped, the needles receding. My muscles relaxed and I slumped against Gray’s chest, his presence and his warmth a serious comfort.
I heard Cas talking on the phone but a few seconds later, he sat beside me, pulling my hand into his and holding it tight. I shuddered out a breath and breathed, “Shit.”
“Back with us?” Gray asked, gripping my shoulder tight enough to bruise.
“Trying to squeeze me to death?” I joked, my voice a little hoarse. He relaxed his grip instantly, stroking my shoulder instead. I sighed, all the breath leaving my lungs as I slumped fully against him, better now I had Cas’s hand in mine and Jack touching my leg.
“Lyra,” Cas said when he put the phone down. He had his serious alpha voice on but I could still hear his worry. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep because I felt weird, then I went outside. The moon made it worse.” What was it? What was wrong with me? Inexplicably and all at once, I felt like crying.
“You said it felt like needles in your blood.”
I nodded, wishing I hadn’t when my head flared. “It does. Did. Will it come back, if you stop touching me?”
“Let’s not find out,” Gray said sharply. I relaxed further into him, my mate instincts rearing their head since the pain had stopped fogging everything. He was scared—they all were.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, trying to sound calm about it.
Cas lifted my hand, his lips tingling my skin as he kissed the back of my hand. “We’ll figure out what hurts you. I called the doctor.”
I nodded, but I was falling asleep. With them all here, and the pain and tingling gone, my body was realising I’d laid awake for three hours without a single second’s rest. And whatever was happening to me … it was taking a serious toll on my body.
I meant to warn them I was gonna sleep but I drifted off before I could form the words.
CAS
I tried hard to be calm, but something unknown—sinister—threatened my mate and I wanted to react. To act. I wanted to hunt what was hurting her and tear it to pieces. This wasn’t a new urge. It wasn’t mate instinct that made me want to kill what hurts her—I loved her, madly, and had no limits. I wanted to keep her safe, and happy, and I’d do anything for it.
This new threat, these needles in her blood, this pain … I didn’t know what to do. Was it sickness? A curse? Poison? I seethed inside the whole time I held her hand, so gently, like she was glass. My temper got shorter the longer I wait for the doctor to get here.
It was night, and I tried to be forgiving because of it, but where the fuck were they? This was my mate—my mate hurt so badly she had fallen against me, then fallen asleep.
A knock on the main door made me sigh, relief a knife stabbing my chest.
“I’ll get it,” Jack said, murmuring sorry to Lyra’s sleeping form before he let go of her. She whimpered but didn’t wake. My temper, an explosion waiting to happen, snapped more at that sound. But I could not break, not when Gray was pale, his fear strong, and Jack’s hands shook. I would be strong for them.
The doctor was a faerie woman, Marie. Almost thirty, with blonde hair tied away from her face and a green colour to her pale skin. I looked at her as she came through my bedroom door, not letting go of Lyra’s hand for a second. “Thank you for coming,” I said. “I am Casimir Mrozinski.” After a pause, I added, “I phoned you.”
She nodded briskly, watching Lyra. “What happened?”
“My mate, Lyra,” I said, telling myself to be calm, to not let fear into my voice. “She was in pain. She say it is like needles moving in her blood. It hurt less when we touched her and she could fall asleep but…”
Marie nodded, coming close and using her hands to tell us to turn Lyra onto her back. Gray didn’t let Lyra go, stubbornly clinging to her, but I gave a stern look and he released her, scowling. I could tell him Marie would help, that she could heal Lyra’s pain, tell us how to help our mate, but I was not in the mood to explain. It should be common sense.
Gray held her left hand instead while I held her right, both of us watching the doctor check Lyra’s eyes, her wrist, and other parts of her.
“She’s in a restorative sleep,” she told us. “That’s good—her body’s already trying to heal whatever’s wrong with her. As for what that is … there’s no signs of poison, either natural or of magical origin. And I’ve never heard of anything like what you described. You said it was worse in the moonlight?”
I nodded, trying not to grind my jaw.
“Perhaps something linked to her wolf nature, then? I’ll do some research, see if I can narrow down her symptoms to a cause. For now, keep her rested, make sure she eats and has lots of fluids. No alcohol.”
Gray snorted.
“We will follow every instruction,” I said in a hard, pointed tone, giving him a strong look to settle him. I did not want to be too hard though—he was afraid, and I knew that fear well.
Marie nodded. “Keep her out of the moonlight if it exacerbates her symptoms. If she gets headaches or other aches, she could try taking painkillers like paracetamol, but I wouldn’t expect that to touch whatever’s hurting her inside. That seems supe
rnatural in nature.”
She paused on the threshold, her things gathered up and replaced in her bag. “She might feel better when the moon has set. If it doesn’t improve when the sun has risen, call me. I can put her in a temporary healing coma with my power, but I’d rather avoid that.”
I nodded, my stomach sinking to my feet. A healing coma? It was that bad? “Thank you for coming,” I said, and had to use every strength in me to release my mate’s hand. I walked the doctor into the kitchen, pulled a twenty-pound note from my wallet, and handed it over.
Marie shook her head. “You don’t need to pay me. I heal on a voluntary basis—I have the shop to make money.”
The apothecary in Whitby’s centre. I had walked past it before.
I looked at her, steady. “You came in the night. And volunteers need to eat.”
“Can’t argue with that logic,” she replied, tucking away the money. “Call me if anything changes, and I’ll come right back.”
I nodded, waiting for her to leave so I could shatter in the quiet of the kitchen. With the door locked behind her, I gripped the edge of the table in both hands and bowed over it, my head hanging.
She had been my mate for three days and I had failed her. My Lyra—hurt so badly her body forced her into sleep to heal. My eyes stung with furious tears but I blinked them away, grinding my teeth.
“Alpha?” Jack asked.
I took a second to compose myself before lifting my head. “Yes?”
Jack looked at me for a long second, worry for Lyra on his own face. “The doctor said she could be fine in the morning.”
