CHAPTER NINETY ONE - AERON
CHAPTER NINETY ONE - AERON
I stay awake watching her. Watching them. They’re curled into each other, holding each other so tightly.The awful stench of Knox is long gone from her skin, but I can feel my Wolf urging me to grab her, to claim her, to make her ours again. I clench my jaw, fighting down the feral thoughts. I can’t do that. I saw the way she reacted, the way she half jumped when she realised we were here, in her room.She needs time. Cain needs time too. Hell, we all do. I slip from the bed as quietly as I can. I know they will heal. I know we’ll move on from this and it’ll all be some horrible memory we can forget about.And soon enough we’ll be welcoming our pups. Our pups. That thought sends a shiver of something through me.I glance back at her. She still looks so fragile and yet she’s proven she’s not. She’s shown everyone her strength, her fierce fight for survival. I feel a wave of pride at that. That she is our mate.I creep out of the room, shutting the door only enough to give them privacy and then I walk along the hallway. We’ll need a nursery. We’ll need cribs.My heart leaps at that and I stalk through the spare rooms, taking each one in before I pick the perfect one.And then I stand for hours taking in the space, the lighting, the fireplace, all of it, planning it out, mentally constructing how this room would be. I want to decorate it myself. I want to paint the walls, get a bookcase and fill it with books to read to our pups while they drift off to sleep. I want to build the cribs myself, from scratch. And I want a couch right by the fireplace so that we can all rest and sit with them when the weather turns cold.I head down the stairs, bumping into Axel who asks how both my brother and my mate are. I grunt back a barely coherent reply because I’m too fixed on this task, on doing this, on providing something for us all.I need supplies, I need wood, I need furnishings too, and paint. I call out to TJ in my head, giving him a whole list of things to get. I want this to be perfect. I need it to be. And besides, it’s a good distraction for me, it’s something to keep me occupied until Rosalie and Cain are better.My heart aches with such a feeling. It’s not exactly longing. It’s not exactly pain but I can see it, I can feel it, we’re so close to this; the future that we all wanted.And now that Knox is dead, we can all sleep safely, all three of us can take the time to focus on us now. Our family.