Hunt Me! (I Crave The Chase) - Page 205

So I changed tactics.

I used the hope I had—the little resilient sliver that was oddly Jeffrey shaped. I thought about him. I thought about the curve of his smile. Thought about the freckles that decorated the top of his ass. The way he giggled when I bit at the back of his knees. The way his sweet little toes curled when I slurped his cock down. The way his dark eyes were full of warmth. The way he made me feel—whole, strong, appreciated.

Like when he looked at me I was everything I’d always wanted to be.

When the door opened, my eyes opened too.

Harry was laughing, and the sound was relieved-happy-exhausted. And I knew then, that we would be okay. That I would survive this. That I had done what I had to do. There was no denying then, human or not, fated or not—Jeffrey was my mate.

Because my hands were human as I wrapped them around the bars, pressing against them, my heart in my throat.

I sensed him before I saw him.

The silvery threads of our bond reaching toward each other. They wound tight the moment they tapped, braided and thick, twisting, twining—until two ropes became one, and I could…fuck.

I could breathe.

Just like that, my wolf snapped back in my head, its snarling, foaming teeth softened. Gums no longer exposed. Hackles no longer raised. What had been feral grew docile, needy soft.

Because Jeffrey was here.

He was here?—

He was okay?—

He was.

“Hi, big guy.” Jeffrey approached the cage first, his hair a blood-sticky, wild mess. Distantly I recognized that he wasn’t alone. That he’d brought my brothers with him—Silas too, and my Dad. They’d all appeared at the last possible minute to save me. And I knew that—and I was grateful.

But I only had eyes for one person.

One perfect, wonderful, beautiful person.

He smelled like blood, his and others, and his eyes were bright. But they were different just like his scent was.

The brown was gone, replaced instead by?—

Lavender. Like my favorite blossoms. The ones that scattered along the mountain back home in the spring.

“Jeffrey—” My voice cracked, my hand scrambling through the bars for him the second he drew close enough to touch. “Are you okay? You—they said—I—you look so beautiful. You—Butters? He—You’re a wolf—he—what?” My jaw fell open, eyes wide. “What—I mean?—”

“I’m okay,” Jeffrey pushed up against the bars, as eager to get close to me as I was to get to him. My fingers curled in the fabric of his shirt. It smelled like Butters but I hardly cared, gulping in great, greedy lungfuls of his scent. I hadn’t let myself hope that I’d ever smell it again. “I’m okay.”

He smelled different but the same.

Like himself, but more concentrated.

And beneath the zing of orange, and the flavor of home there was the fizzle of magic too. His wolf, still new, hiding beneath the surface of his humanskin. I couldn’t wait to see it. Couldn’t wait to run with him. To chase him. To listen to the thrum of his paws hitting the dirt and know that he was mine. No injury could take him. And the moon mother would smile down kindly on us both.

My mate, my lover, my savior, my Jeffrey.

“You were hurt—” I tried to shove between the bars, and while my humanskin was smaller than my alphaskin had been, I still couldn’t manage it.

Behind Jeffrey the hunters were releasing Jules and Harry into my Dad’s custody. Butters was talking to Silas, tail thumping. Theo was hanging near the back, tears running down his cheeks, like now that things were finally over, he could finally let go. Dad was speaking to the head hunter—the one who’d found me in the woods—and I knew I should tune in.

They deserved an apology too, and I’d give it to them. But right now…I couldn’t. I couldn’t be an alpha. Couldn’t be their brother. Couldn’t be anything other than what I was. A scared man who had almost lost everything, but somehow gained it all instead.

I knew I should care what was happening, but I didn’t.