Chapter 156: Friends Do This All The Time

Nova glanced up at Maverick to see he was watching her. Without looking away from her or saying a word, Maverick rolled up his sleeve, revealing a red mark on his forearm brighter than Maria’s even.

"Touch it," Maria ordered.

Nova glanced over at her. "What?"

"Don’t ’what’ me. You were thinking it too."

"I was not."

"Well, everyone else in here was. I want to see what happens. So does Mav. Yes you do, Mav. Don’t act like you don’t. You absolutely do. And so do Freya and Dante."

"I wouldn’t say I—" Freya started.

"We do," Dante finished.

Nova reached for Maverick’s arm without a word.

Maverick pulled it back. "Excuse me. That’s my arm. We haven’t even been introduced properly and she’s already grabbing. Buy me dinner first."

Nova’s laugh came out before she could stop it.

Maverick looked at her, offended. "She’s laughing about it. She’s not even sorry."

Maria threw a pillow at his head. Maverick caught it, tucked it under his arm, and extended the other one to Nova like a man accepting his fate.

"Are you sure you want me to?" Nova asked, just to be sure.

"Don’t make it weird, Nova."

"We’re past that, Maverick."

"Touch it right now. Alpha’s orders," Maverick said.

Nova shook her head, still smiling, and pressed her fingertips to his mark.

She felt Maverick stiffen next to her.

WHOOSH.

The fire in the hearth roared red.

But Nova didn’t notice that or hear the sound because a series of images flashed in her mind. The Moonfire arena. Maverick yelling orders as wolves shifted inside. Blood on the ground. Something coming from the far side she couldn’t see.

Pain cracked through her skull like a fracture spreading through glass.

The room pitched sideways, her vision smeared, and Maverick’s voice hit her ears the way sound hits water, muffled and distorted and gone before she could hold onto it.

???

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER — VAELSTROM MANOR

Nova’s eyes snapped open on a gasp that tore through her chest like a starting gun.

She was on her side. Her good side. Arms were wrapped around her and her back was pressed against a chest that was warm and solid and breathing in a steady rhythm that did not match hers because hers was currently sprinting.

"Hey, Nova. It’s okay. Just me," Maverick said softly from behind her. His voice was close enough that she felt it in his chest before she heard it in her ears.

Her body relaxed on its own.

He didn’t move.

Then something in his chest started rumbling, a low vibration that pressed against her back. It was a noise and sensation she recognized because both of the Thunderfangs did it too. His wolf was purring.

Maverick stiffened behind her and the noise was cut like someone pulled a plug.

Nova didn’t comment. It must be an Alpha wolf thing.

Yes, she had a mate. Yes, she was laying with Maverick Emberclaw. They were fully clothed. Friends did this all the time. Maria shopped on her holo-band while Nova slept on the hover yacht. Sierra probably had fallen asleep on someone’s shoulder at dinner or something at least once. This was normal. People who were comfortable with each other ended up horizontal sometimes. The context was medical. She had passed out. He had caught her. Gravity did the rest.

"What happened?" Nova managed after a moment.

Maverick exhaled once through his nose, the sound carrying the specific amusement of someone replaying a recent event and finding it funnier in hindsight. "It turns out touching my mark was a terrible idea. Now we know. For future reference. Hands off the glowing symbol on the Alpha’s arm. Lesson learned."

Nova let out a laugh. The sound surprised her because laughing felt wrong given she had just passed out but on a scale of one to SWAT it landed at a one.

She turned onto her back to look at him. He propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at her with an expression that was warm and unhurried and carrying zero urgency to be anywhere else.

"How long was I out?"

"Forty-five. Yes, in that time I carried you here and a healer came to look at you. Freya moved fast. She had someone at the door before I made it down the hall."

Nova had been expecting hours. Forty-five minutes. They moved her to a bed, fetched a healer, and had her examined in forty-five minutes. Freya ran a household the way the High Luna ran the keep, except the results included tea and kindness instead of jail.

"Thank you for taking care of me," Nova whispered.

"Always."

The air between them tightened. He was the one tightening it. She could feel it happening and she couldn’t move.

He leaned forward until his mouth hovered an inch from hers as her heart thudded violently in her ears.

Was he going to kiss her? The thought arrived slow because her brain was not fully back to regular speed. Friends do not kiss each other while horizontal on a bed.

"Just spoke with Tavian!"

Nova jolted so hard her shoulder screamed. Maverick closed his eyes, his jaw tightening once before the expression smoothed into something that was tolerating the interruption the way you tolerate a fire alarm during a bath.

Maria rounded the doorframe at full conversational velocity, holo-band in hand, looking at the screen and not at the two people on the bed whose proximity should have been a clue.

"We are going back to Thunderfang. The Alpha wasn’t aware the High Luna had done any of that and he had the correctional center clear the charges. All of them. Gone." She looked up from the holo-band, beaming. "Anyways, Mav, you get to come too. Tavian said a guest suite would be prepared. Isn’t that great?" Her eyes landed on Nova. "Oh wonderful. She’s awake. No unconscious transport."

Nova’s heart was still pounding. Derek Thunderfang. In a hospital bed. Eyes closed. Monitors beeping in rhythms that were too mechanical for a man whose heartbeat she had memorized with her cheek on his chest. She was eating herself alive over the fact that he was there and she was here and the here involved laying next to an Alpha whose lips had been an inch from hers and the guilt hit her so hard it tasted like venom she’d brewed herself.

What the hell was wrong with her?

"Maria." Maverick sat up, dragging a hand down his face. "I sent you with my holo-band so you could ping your mate so he wouldn’t worry. And you come back to me with a travel itinerary."

"Tavian said you bailed us both out of jail. It’s the least they can do." She clapped her hands. "He also said Lightning Nectars for you, Nova. Astra isn’t invited unless you are injured. I told him you were fine. He asked how fine. I said ’vertical.’ You being vertical right now is very important to me, Nova. Don’t ruin this."