“What for?”
“To keep you warm. You’re the only idiot who didn’t bring a camp bed. No one else is sleeping on the ground.”
“You are.”
“Got a pillow now, though, haven’t I?”
So many emotions tumbled through Zio, too confused to make sense of. He hadn’t brought a bed because the only one left had smelt too much of Emma, and being cold as he slept was cathartic. At least, it had been until Devan had come along. “I don’t understand.”
Devan left his boots by the tent entrance and stepped into Zio’s personal space. “You don’t have to. Just let me take care of you a little, okay? It’s all I can do right now.”
Zio was struggling to remember a time when Devan’s soft voice hadn’t completely owned him. When he hadn’t obeyed his gentle requests without question. “Whatever you want.”
“No, Zio. Whateveryouneed.”
Zio knocked his head against Devan’s shoulder, trusting Devan to already know that what he needed was a few hours of solid sleep. A break from angsting over the mess lingering between them and fretting over the safety of his pack. His family.
Devan wrapped his arms around Zio, his embrace loose enough to be platonic if it wasn’t for the supernatural chemistry swirling around them, trapping them in a vortex of instinct and desire. Zio greedily breathed in Devan’s scent, saturating himself in it as a deep-rooted fear that he might not get the chance again drove him to cling to Devan, claws sliding out to hook into Devan’s clothes.
“Easy,” Devan murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“But what if you do?”
“I won’t. Everyone making the decisions has ordered me to stay put. We can’t bond or do anything that might cause us to lose control, but we can be together, Zio. Like this. Likepack.”
Pack. The one thing, until Devan had come along, that Zio had believed he truly understood. “I can’t handle you touching me, but I can’t cope if you stop.”
“I’ll only stop if you ask me to.”
“I won’t. I can’t.”
“Then let it go.” Devan pulled back. “I’ve tried to fight it, to stay away, and it only hurts more.”
Zio couldn’t imagine anything hurting him more than Devan’s absence and the loss of his touch and his scent. He let Devan lead him to the bed-shaped nest he’d made of sleeping bags and pillows. “You’re going to stay, aren’t you? You won’t leave while I’m asleep?”
Devan gestured for Zio to undress. “I’ll only leave if someone gets hurt and they need me, but with the reinforcements Varian is sending today and no active patrols, that shouldn’t happen.”
“Famous last words.”
“I know, but it’s all I’ve got.”
Zio stripped his clothes. Devan did the same, and they crawled into bed. Zio closed the scant distance between them the moment Devan’s back hit the ground, twining their legs and laying his head on Devan’s chest.
Devan’s heart beat like a metronome, slow and steady, while Zio’s pulse ticked like a broken clock.How is he so fucking calm all the time?Then he remembered the crazed beast who’d saved him from certain death, the shifter who’d been so out of control he’d have killed his own pack brothers if Zio hadn’t stopped him.He’s as dangerous as I am. More.
It should’ve scared him, but it didn’t.
Chapter Twenty
Zio talked in his sleep. Devan couldn’t say how he’d never noticed before, but as the day passed to Zio’s fidgeting and muttering, everything seemed brand new. Devan tracked the shadows across the tent as he lay on his back with Zio in his arms, fingers tangled in his silky hair. Zio’s scent intoxicated him, and his bared neck called to Devan like a siren, but as the brief winter sun came and went, he resisted.Pack.
Withstanding the urge to investigate the hot length pressed against his thigh was harder. Human Devan knew that fooling around was among the most dangerous things they could do when it came to controlling their instincts to bond, but natural arousal, combined with the heady madness of simply being together, made rational thought impossible.
As Zio slept, Devan lay awake, imagining all the things they might’ve done if things had been different. Uncomplicated. How throwing each other around in bed would become less necessary and more fun. Perhaps they’d take their time. Find a patch of sunlight to roll around in. Devan had been with too many partners to count, but Zio—
“Gods, whatever you’re thinking about, please stop.”
Devan blinked and glanced down.