She looked up at me, pain and regret shining from her eyes. “I wasn’t by your side. I should have been. My wolf…I felt her more than I’ve ever felt her before, and she was telling me to run to your side and take her place there. I left you to fight alone.”
Pride swelled up inside me, thick and heavy. She would have risked her life for me. The way she was thinking...she was pack. She just didn’t know it yet.
I shook my head at her. “I love that you wanted to do that, but you’re not ready yet. You would have slowed me down and put me at risk because I would have only been able to focus on protecting you. You made the best possible choice under the circumstances. Someday, you will be ready to fight by my side.”
She nodded unhappily. “Thank you for saying that. It’s what I was thinking, but I also felt like a coward. Thank God your pack came to help you. How did they know?”
“I have an empathetic bond with my pack. It’s my blessing. I can communicate with all of them from pretty far away. Gage and his force know when the call is serious and they’ll drop everything to instantly come running if I want them to.”
“So... you have Bluetooth communication with them?” she asked.
I laughed. “White Fang. Bluetooth. I guess you could call it that.”
“I didn’t hear the call. Or whatever was supposed to happen.”
A long sigh escaped my lips. “We’re not yet fully connected, and you’re not yet properly White Fang.”
She closed her eyes. “We’ll never really be fully connected, will we?”
“Daphne. You are my mate. My woman. My love. Isn’t that enough?” I hugged her trembling body to mine.
It took her a long, long time to answer. “If I stay with you, I guess it will have to be.”
Nineteen
Daphne
It was the night of the full moon.
The air felt electrically charged. Energy thrummed and pulsed through my veins. Standing by my open window, I could hear the distant howls of wolves.
I’d felt this weirdness before. I’d gone two decades and some change thinking I was a completely normal human, but I had to admit to myself that on the full moon, my pulse got a little faster, and the hair on the back of my neck would stand up. A storm would brew deep inside me, and I could never place it.
And now I knew where the feeling came from.
I wanted to talk to Killian about this strange wildness inside me, but he had been keeping his distance today. When I woke up, he was already gone. He didn’t join the pack in the dining room for breakfast. I saw him once, talking to Gage and Talon, his expression grim, which wasn’t surprising. We’d been attacked on pack property and he’d killed people the night before. That weighed heavily on my mind too. We hadn’t made love the night before.
There was a lot on his mind, and I wanted to be an ear he could talk to, but for me to do that, he’d have to talk to me.
The rest of the pack seemed on edge too. Sarah was polite but distracted. I didn’t know if it was the moon, the attack, or both, so I decided to spend some time by myself, sitting on the back porch, trying to read.
Pack members kept popping their heads out to say hi, but they seemed distracted. So was I.
Finally, I heard the sound of Killian’s boots as he made his way toward me. I recognized the sound of his footsteps before I even turned to look at him.
“Come to my room with me? Sorry, have you eaten dinner? I hadn’t meant to neglect you today. I wanted to spend some time with you.”
I nodded. “I’ve eaten. I’m fine. I expected you to have a lot to follow up on today.” I rose to my feet and followed him into the house and to his room.
He’d left his window open, and a cool breeze rushed into the room. A full moon hung in the sky.
“Are we…are we supposed to have a mating ceremony tonight?”
He walked up behind me, placing his hands on my shoulders and gently massaging them. I let out a groan. I hadn’t realized how tense I was.
“We’ll do it at the next full moon. It’s too soon for you. I want your heart and mind to be fully committed.” His hands moved down my back and I made a low growling sound of pleasure.
My God, I really was a wolf.