Chapter 18

Reagan:

I woke up with arms wrapped around me. I was warm and safe, and I didn’t want to move. I couldn’t even remember how it happened. Noah had been reading and I couldn’t for the life of me fall asleep. He’d let me sit next to him on the bed, reading along with him.

When I moved, Noah growled behind me. I giggled, moving again to see if he would do it twice. He did, his arms getting tighter around me.

“Can’t, breathe,” I tried to say. “Noah.”

“Hmm?”

“Noah.” I pulled his arm up, getting it away from my stomach. He grumbled, letting me move it.

The sun hadn’t come up yet, so I laid there for a while. I had nothing better to do anyway. I considered going back to sleep, but I knew we had to get up sooner or later to start heading home.

Noah woke up, rolling onto his back and stretching out on the too small bed. I moved onto my back too, watching him yawn and then glare at the ceiling.

“I look forward to seeing my bed again,” Noah said. “I don’t know how we both fit on this thing.”

It was a double, and so much smaller than the king in his room. If we’d fallen asleep in that one, then we wouldn’t even touch in the night.

“When did you want to get going?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes. “There’s probably a few things I have to take care of with Emma. I have no idea what I’m going to do about any of those girls I met.”

My heart hammered. “Even Lucy?”

Noah shrugged. “I’ve never tried dating before. When she left yesterday, she didn’t ask me out again. Am I supposed to go ask her out?”

“Do you want to see her again?” I asked, my chest feeling heavy.

“I need to, don’t I?”

“No,” I said, when it should have been a yes. “I mean, I guess. Do you want it to be her then? You want her to be your mate?”

Noah sat up, pushing the covers off. “I don’t want a mate.”

We left it at that.

It didn’t take long to pack my bag up after my shower. While Noah got ready, I called home and talked to the kids for a little while. Lizzie had a long story to tell me about one of her classes, and how they got to do experiments with dripping water onto inked paper. Pippa had a story too, but hers was about a tree she’d accidentally killed in the woods.

“I think your big brother wants to talk,” I said when Noah walked out of the bathroom.

“Wait!” Pippa said. “You’ve not heard the end of my dreadful tale. There was a fire. I told you, this is what happens when people make me wear pants!”

Noah took the phone then. He had to try and calm Pippa down when she declared that the world wouldn’t shackle her in fabric prisons. While I thought there would be no convincing her, Noah wanted to try anyway.

The conversation went on for about ten minutes before Pippa agreed to get dressed and go to school. The call ended right before Noah finished with his bag.

The two of us stopped by Emma’s office, finding her having breakfast with Mary. I got hugs from both of them, but Noah opted out.

“You two headed home?” Mary asked.

“Yeah, we want to hit the road in the next hour,” I answered. “We’re a bit antsy about the kids.”

Emma sat at the edge of her desk, crossing her ankles at the same time she crossed her arms. “Do you think you might be coming back? Lucy was asking me about you yesterday, Noah.”

“What was she saying?” Noah asked.

“Ya know, the usual.”

“What does that mean?”

I rocked up on my toes and back down again. “She probably wanted to know if you seemed interested.”

Emma tapped her nose. “Yup. I think the two of you could get along just fine if you wanted to.”

“Why wouldn’t they want to?” I asked.

Emma looked to Noah. For the first time in days, I couldn’t read anything in his eyes. I had no idea what the hell went on between them, but it set my teeth on edge with worry.

“We should head out,” Noah decided, tugging on the end of my shirt. “I have Lucy’s number, so I can call her when I get home.”

The voice in my head was loud, but she said nothing. More like an exclamation of something I didn’t understand. The voice was angry. Worried. It pulsed with bright green.

“Do me a favor,” Emma said when Noah started pulling me to the door. We both came to a stop, but I bumped right into Noah. He caught me, tucking me against him. “Lucy is a really, really good kid. If you aren’t interested, then don’t lead her on. Listen to your wolf if you can’t hear your own voice.”

“I’m no heartbreaker,” Noah said, his head held high.

“Only yours, right?”

“Thank you for having us.” Noah opened the door, leading us out.

Noah moved fast through the building, dragging me along with him. I wanted to give him a reminder that my body wasn’t like his. I couldn’t keep up with a wolf. But I kept up fine. He had my hand in his and I didn’t sense any hesitation. He held me tight, getting me to the door at a pace we could both keep.

We got halfway to the gates when I brought us to a stop, holding Noah’s hand hard enough that he lurched to that stop. I didn’t know how I could even do that. It must have been our Mend.

“What was that? With Emma,” I elaborated.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you tell her something you didn’t tell me? About Lucy?”

Noah ran a hand through his hair, eyeing the gate. “It’s nothing. We talked yesterday and I was telling her that I’m not too sure about Lucy. Or any of the girls, really.”

Relief—pure and simple— soaked into my bones. It was wrong and I didn’t know why I felt it at all.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, feeling how dry my mouth had gone while we stood there in cold wind and silence. “You don’t have much time.”

“I know,” Noah said, nodding. “I know.”

I felt the need to ask a question I didn’t want the answer to. I stepped forward for it, my fingers tangling with Noah’s again. “What happens if you don’t find a mate in time?”

“My pack loses its only chance to gain its true power back. They’ll be weakened irreparably, and it would take nothing for someone to come along and take us out, stealing what little power we have. My people would all die.”

I knew that. I knew that I was an asshole for any part of me being happy that Lucy wasn’t on his mind. But she should have been. She needed to be.

“So… You kind of need to make it work with Lucy.”

“Or someone,” Noah said.

My heart kicked.

“Noah! Reagan!”

Growling started up in my mind, long before I even saw Lucy running toward us. Noah dropped my hand, letting it fall back to my side. I felt colder, and the wind blew a little harder than it had been before.

“I thought you were staying another day,” Lucy said when she came to a stop in front of us. “Why are you headed out so soon?”

“The kids,” we both answered.

Lucy laughed. “Wow, you guys do that a lot. Well… it was really nice getting to meet you both. Noah, I actually wanted to know if you’d like my number. We can, ya know, talk.”

I waited for Noah to tell her he didn’t want it, absolutely positive the cold boy I knew would come through, being straightforward so he could get it over with.

Instead…

“Sure.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, as Lucy did. The two exchanged them, and I watched like a hawk to see if he let his fingers touch her. He didn’t, and that might have been the only thing keeping me steady. The two typed on each other’s phones, then handed them back and put them away.

“Maybe I can call you tonight before bed,” Lucy said. “I like going to bed, talking to someone.”

“We can do that,” Noah agreed. What the fuck happened to his hesitation? Would he push that all aside for his people? I would have understood if it had been solely a duty thing, but it had to be real. He had to mean it.

Oh, maybe he wanted to mean it. Maybe he thought he could fall in love with her.

“I really like talking to you,” Lucy said.

“I like talking to you too.”

Lucy moved in, her arms out. In two seconds, she had them wrapped around Noah’s neck, standing on her toes so she could reach him. I watched his hands, thinking I would see them take her by the hips in the same way he’d done with me.

Lucy moved back. The wind blew at Noah, something odd hitting me in the face. It was a smell that was nothing like Noah. I’d buried my face in his chest enough to know what Noah smelled like. Now, that smell on him was all wrong. It was all her. And not me. Not me. Not me…

When my eyes locked onto Noah’s, I heard it again. It was loud in my ears, as clear as before as one word wrapped around me like vines claiming a wall. The word ruled me, my breath and heartbeat dropping out at the echo of it.

MINE!

“I hope I see you soon,” Lucy said to Noah. “You too, Rea.”

My blood turned to fire as I borrowed my sister’s tongue, doing what she would have done. Calm, she would have told me to be. Calm, because they’ll know otherwise.

“Same,” I lied, commanding my hands to stay at my sides, and telling my fingernails they could have her blood.

The second Lucy left, I felt different. I was taller, madder, hungry. I was awake.

I slipped in front of Noah, stopping whatever he’d been about to say to me. My hands went to his shoulders as I smiled. “I think we need snacks for the road.”

“Uh, okay,” he agreed. “What do you want?”

My smile widened as my hands traveled to every part of Noah that Lucy had touched, erasing her scent and replacing it with mine. “What do you want?” I echoed, my hands smoothing down his chest.

“To know what you’re doing,” he laughed.

“You’re all wrinkled,” I said, touching his shoulders again, then letting my hands trace themselves down his back. I felt his shoulder blade, and my stomach fluttered. “I have to fix it, so you don’t look like a mess.”

“Oh, how terrible that would be. What would other people think?”

“That I let my Mend run wild.”

“You’d never let me do that, would you?”

“No.”

Mine.

***

I spent most of the ride home pretending to be asleep, listening to Noah singing along with his playlist. Music was such a beautiful thing, and I’d had so little of it for half my life.

I’d tried really hard to actually fall asleep, but I stayed wide awake the whole time. My mind raced as I tried to logic away my feelings. If they weren’t real, fine. Surely, my crazy brain had been trying to throw me off.

But they were real. They lingered. They burned.

Fine, so it could have been a crush.

But it didn’t feel like a crush.

It was there like a constant pulse under my skin. It felt weaved into me like the magic I had but never wanted. That pulse was just Noah. He lived inside of me and it was so much more than our bond. That bond made me feel like I’d known Noah all my life. It told me when there was something uneasy in him, and it called out to me at night. Everything else, I didn’t know where it came from.

When we arrived at the house, I tried to get the bags for Noah. He pulled them both from the trunk, smugly laughing at me while I clicked my tongue.

“Let me carry my own bag,” I requested.

“No.”

I gasped at his cold delivery. “Is that it then? You don’t even consider it for a second? Maybe I wanted to carry your bag too. I can be the gentlemanly one.”

Noah made a face. “Why would I let you carry the bags when I could do it much easier? Hell, I could carry you too.”

Tempting. Really, really tempting. I liked the thought of him tossing me over his shoulder. Then maybe tossing me onto that couch pit in the sunroom. Then tossing himself onto me…

“You want me to kick your butt?” I threatened.

“You wouldn’t dream of trying.” Noah closed the trunk.

“You think that? You wanna fight?”

He set the bags at his feet, walking around me in a circle. We eyed each other and I tried to put as much menace into my stare as I could manage. It might have worked if I could have kept a straight face. Noah didn’t do any better than I did.

“You wanna see something cool?” I asked.

“What might that be?”

I stopped stalking around in a circle, then bent to pick up both bags before I made a break for the door. Noah yelled to me, but he couldn’t keep up. I bolted through the door.

“Noah!” Allison and Clare screamed. I hadn’t noticed the whole family had been in the living room. Noah barely got inside before every single kid charged at him. He dropped down to his knees, his arms opened wide for it.

I stood out of the way so they wouldn’t knock me on my butt. I leaned against the counter, watching Noah as he buried his face in the hair of each of his babies, giving them all a greeting. My eyes stung, but it was a beautiful thing to see. I wished I had something like that.

“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” Pippa said when she stepped back. “Did you find any girls you liked? Can I have the numbers of the other ones?”

Noah looked to me, still bent and with several babies hanging off him. “Um, there was a girl.”

My stomach dropped.

“Awesome!” Pippa said. “Since you must be in a good mood, I guess that means it’s a good time to tell you I did something bad—”

Someone knocked at the door. I set the bags down, and went to get it so Noah could finish up his hugs. I wished I’d turned the lights out and told everyone to pretend we weren’t home.

“You could have called to say you were coming back,” Leon said, stepping forward without quite coming inside. A girl stood beside him, and she looked a handful of years older than me. She had similar features to Leon, but her hair was an icy blond with equally cold eyes.

“It’s almost like I didn’t want you to know I was home,” Noah said, groaning as he stood with two kids hanging off his body. “Weird.”

Leon looked over my shoulder as if I didn’t exist. “Do you have something to tell us?”

The girl beside him rolled her eyes. “Are we going to play this game? I’d like to get home before the smell of sticky-fingered children soaks into my shirt.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re more than welcome to leave my home any fucking time if you have a problem with our kids.”

I didn’t know where the words or the fury behind them came from, but I felt no fear standing tall, my arms crossed. Noah chuckled behind me.

“Our kids,” Leon repeated. “You’re staking a claim now?”

“I am,” I said, eyeing his foot as he inched himself closer into the house. “And I’m staking a claim on this home, so stay the hell out of it.”

Noah grabbed me around the middle, pulling me against his body. He pushed the hair away from my shoulder.

“While I absolutely love every word coming out of your mouth,” Noah said, “a fight would result in blood on our carpet.”

I put my hands on his, still wrapped around me. “Then hold me the fuck back.”

He growled at my ear, setting me on fire and making me tingle in all new places.

“But also, get away from my house,” Noah said to Leon. “Don’t come by just to insult me.”

Leon glared at the girl beside him. “Alex, I would appreciate it if you could keep your mouth closed. We came her to address the fact that our alpha Mended, and he didn’t tell anyone.”

“What?” Noah said.

Pippa sheepishly stepped over to us, wringing her hands. “Okay, so people were talking shit about the fact that we had an Alium here, and I got a little angry. Long story short, I told them to shut the fuck up because Noah and Reagan Mended, so she’s not going anywhere. It got around.”

Noah stared daggers at his sister, letting go of me. “Pippa,” he snarled.

“Sorry,” she said. “The good news is that the party is already being planned, so you don’t have to do a thing!”

“Pippa!”

“Sorry!” she yelled, running halfway up the stairs.

Leon clapped his hands together, getting our attention again. “Noah, you keep suggesting you can play the part of alpha, but you don’t seem to respect what that entails. Mending means that your little Alium is permanent here, and you didn’t bother to mention it. What were you thinking?”

Shut him up.

“Is this what you came here for?” I asked. “To insult him? We had things to do. Ya know, things to save the pack. It was more important than announcing our Mending. The party could wait, but our trip couldn’t.”

“Did I ask you?”

Noah moved fast, and I suddenly had several kids behind my legs. They held on, watching their brother storm over to the door.

“So nice to see you,” Noah said, “but since I’m not in the mood to murder either of you in front of the kids, I’ll just—”

And he slammed the door in their faces.

“Nice,” Jamie said, coming out from behind me.

“Thanks,” his brother said. “I’m going to start making dinner in a little while, so everyone needs to go get cleaned up first. Go.”

They all scattered in several different directions, calling out what they wanted to eat. It made me smile.

Noah sighed, stretching his arms out as he walked to the stairs. “If you’ll excuse me… I have a sister to kill.”