“Yeah, well. I like it when you laugh, so call it even?”
“I don’t think anyone’s winning here.”
Devan’s arm slipped, unbidden, around Zio’s shoulders. “I was lying earlier when I said everything between us was biology. It’s not.I like you, and I wish we’d had the chance to enjoy each other without this complication.”
Zio hummed, leaning into Devan’s embrace whether he knew it or not. “I wish you hadn’t come back. Shit, I wish I’d never met you, but I’m glad you’re staying. Thinking I’d never see you again was fucking me up.”
“It’s going to be really hard. We can’t fool around anymore. The risk of losing control and biting each other is too great.”
“Biting completes the bond, right? I mean, I know it does for wolves, but I wasn’t sure if it was the same for you.”
“We don’t have to bite for a bond to solidify, sometimes the mating process is enough, but the strongest bonds are formed around both. I’d imagine your desire to bite me will be the same as if I were a wolf.”
Arousal scented the air, instant, consuming, demanding.
Zio shuddered. “I never knew I wanted to bite you until you left. Then it was all I could think about. Mostly. I thought about other stuff too.”
“Like what?”
“Like if you were thinking about biting me, or mating. What I’d say if you came back and told me you wanted to.”
Don’t ask him, don’t ask him, don’t ask him.“Did you ever figure it out?”
“No. I mean, I know I want all those things on a physical level, that the bond is making me want those things more than anything else, but I don’t know how I feel about the rest of it. My head... it’s never an easy place to be at the best of times. Right now, I feel like I’m underwater.”
It was probably the most Zio had ever spoken to Devan at any one time, and every word made a sickening sense. In another world, another life, if they’d been born into different bodies, perhaps the decision to be together would’ve been easy. They’d have known each other well enough to love one another. To lie down on the forest floor and let instinct own them. But they couldn’t do that, not now, and maybe not ever.
Zio broke the silence with a heavy sigh. “I’ve got to lead patrol tonight. I don’t think you should come.”
“What if you need me?”
“We have radio comms.”
“That won’t work in wolf form.”
“I know, but it’s all I have right now. I can’t handle the idea of you being in danger, and if the last time we saw each other is anything to go by, it’s as bad in reverse.”
Devan couldn’t deny it. “I’ll take a radio and keep my distance, but I can’t promise I won’t kill anyone who tries to hurt you.”
Zio sniggered. “There was me thinking it was a one-time thing.”
“Zio?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
Chapter Nineteen
Devan squeezed his phone so hard the metal case bowed. “Do you think I’d be safe from it if I sat underwater?”
Dash’s gentle chuckle was marred by the crackly connection. “Maybe. But you’d have to come up for air eventually, and then what?”
I’d go back down and stay there forever. Who needs air anyway?
Dash laughed again—he didn’t need a physical connection to know what Devan was thinking. Then he sighed, humour gone as if it had never been there at all. “To be honest, I have no idea what would make this easier for you. My own bond was fulfilled before I truly knew what it was. I’ve never longed for Luca the way you will for the wolf because he has always been with me.”
“Can you imagine how it would feel if he wasn’t? Or if he was, but you couldn’t be, like, actually with him?”