“If you’re trying to stop me getting attached to you, tactile foraging isn’t the way,” he remarked dryly when they’d stopped to eat.
Zio inhaled a hunk of stale bread that was wrapped around leftover sausages. “I’m not trying todoanything. I just figured getting away from the camp would do you good.”
“Since when have you cared about doing me good?”
A muscle in Zio’s cheek twitched and a faint flush stained his skin. He swallowed thickly and cleared his throat. “Do you think I’m some kind of monster?”
“Doyou?”
Zio’s gaze narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” Devan folded his arms across his chest. “Just ignore me, okay? I’m not... feeling myself today.”
Zio slid from the rock he’d been perched on and moved so fast he was a blur until he was suddenly right in front of Devan, crowding his personal space with his bewitching scent. “I upset you, didn’t I?”
“When?”
“When I said our bond would fade and we could be friends. You’ve been in a bad mood since then.”
Devan was used to sampling the emotions of those around him, not having his own served up to him on a plate. “I’m not in a bad mood. I’m frustrated.”
“With me?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“Meanwhat?”
Zio flinched. “When I said it would fade. It’s not going to, is it?”
Devan let his hands follow their natural path to Zio’s hips, pulling him impossibly closer, then sliding his palms under Zio’s clothes. Skin contact calmed him and settled Zio too. “I didn’t like it when you seemed relieved by the possibility that this could all go away. That you might want to go back to your life before you met me. The human in me understands and maybe even feels the same. I don’t know. But I’m not human, and neither are you. Our bond exists, and I want it. I wantyou.”
“That’s what it means,” Zio whispered, his gaze distant, as though he spoke only to himself.
Devan gave him a moment, then brushed his lips along his jaw, barely resisting the urge to scent Zio as his teeth lengthened and venom filled his mouth.Bite him.
“Fuck.” He pulled back, retracting his claws. “Sorry.”
“What for?”
Devan growled and banged his head on Zio’s shoulder, hard enough to hurt them both had they not possessed strong shifter bones. “Everything? I have no idea at this point. It feels like every breath I take makes it hurt more.”
Helplessness tainted Zio’s emotions. The healer in Devan longed to soothe him, but no words came. What could he say? Whichever way they turned, their situation was hopeless unless they disobeyed their alphas and set a grenade beneath a war that had already killed thousands of shifters on both sides.
“Devan.” Zio eased two fingers under Devan’s chin, pushing gently until Devan met his gaze. “I’ve said and thought a hundred times that I wish I’d never met you, but it’s not true. We might not ever get to see what this could’ve been, but it’s still everything to me. Before... fuck, before you, Emma was the only person I’ve ever felt understood me, but with you, it’s even more than that. I feel like, I dunno, youareme, the good parts, at least. I can’t give that up. I won’t.”
A fluttering sensation stirred in Devan’s gut. “What are you saying?”
Zio sucked in a breath and fixed Devan with a steely gaze. “That we have to hold on, however long it takes. Protect what we have until we can make it permanent. I have my orders and so do you, but I won’t take anymore. Devan, youwillbe mine.”
Devan straightened and, with herculean effort, pushed Zio away. “Go over there and say that.”
“What?”
“Go,” Devan growled out. “I need to hear you say it when we’re not entangled. When you’re not as hypnotised by me as I am by you.”
Zio backed up, moving steadily until he was as far away as Devan’s heart could take, a genuine grin warming his usual flinty features. “Which part do you need me to repeat? That you’re mine, or that I’m prepared to wait for you as long as it takes?”