Chapter 20: What Are Your Plans, Exactly?

Chapter 20

What Are Your Plans, Exactly?

A hard, insistent pounding—of a totally different kind than I’d been enjoying before I fell asleep—startled us both awake a little while later. By the angle of the sun, no more than an hour or two later.

Ugh.

Drew rolled me off of him with dizzying speed and flopped me onto the mattress, and was on his feet before I could even blink the sleep out of my eyes. He had his claws extended and lips drawn back in a snarl to show his fangs.

He’d made it to the door before I could get it together, because aside from still being groggy as hell—well, Drew. Naked, and prowling, and half-hard. Who could have more than a single brain cell available under those circumstances?

“Don’t answer the door like that!” I managed, and Drew stopped with his hand on the doorknob.

“Why not?”

“Because they’re helping us, remember? You don’t need to maul anyone. Or flash them.” I shook my head, trying to clear out some of the cobwebs, and pushed myself up to sitting. The room swayed around me. “Who’s there? And don’t come in right now!”

“Don’t worry, wasn’t going to, we could all hear you, and believe me, I don’t need a visual to go with the soundtrack,” came through the door.

Nate. And…hell. We could all hear you. Once you’d hit peak embarrassment, it had to get better, right?

“Glad the lube worked out for you!” Nate called out cheerfully.

Nope. No, it did not get better.

I buried my face in my hands for a second.

Drew started to laugh.

“At least one of you has a sense of humor,” Nate said. “Anyway, are you both alive and more or less well? Yes? No? Maybe so?”

“We’re fine,” I mumbled.

“What?”

Right. He didn’t have werewolf ears. “We’re fine!” I yelled. “Give us a minute, would you?”

“No need to get snippy,” said the snippiest human being I’d ever met, with no apparent sense of irony. “Calder made breakfast. Come downstairs, Arik wants to examine you both.”

Calder made breakfast? I tried to imagine him in an apron and my brain nearly shorted out.

Footsteps retreated down the hall, and silence fell. I dared to lift my head and peek through my fingers.

Slowly, Drew turned around, and even more slowly, his claws retracted. “Is that one of the people you trusted with your life last night?”

“Both of our lives, and yes,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “Anyway, it worked, didn’t it?”

Drew sighed, shook his head, and crossed back to the bed, giving me an even better view than he had going the other way.

Instead of getting right back on top of me like I’d expected, he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled my hands away from my face, holding them tight in both of his.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “It did. I woke up feeling clearer than I have for fucking ever. Since before…before. I didn’t realize how screwed-up and foggy everything had gotten until this morning. And yeah, I know you told me,” he added apologetically. “But it didn’t sink in. I can’t believe what I did to you. I can’t believe you didn’t run.”

You would’ve caught me, and then it would’ve been worse.

But that didn’t need to be said out loud, and anyway, it only accounted for a small percentage of my reasons for staying.

“You’d probably have died. And I’m fine. Really.” The smile that took over my lips had to be so soppy. “So much better than fine. I think I’ll be able to taste breakfast.”

Drew frowned. “Because they cast some kind of spell to fake a mate bond? I mean, real bonds allow some sharing of senses, sometimes. But a fake one? I’m not trying to rain on your parade,” he said as I started to argue. “I’m so fucking happy—Ash, seeing you happy is all I want, and making you happy when I touch you? That’s like nothing else.”

My heart thumped ridiculously, followed by a little wave of queasiness. We’d been fake mates for a while now, and the magical enhancement didn’t make it any less fake. Drew wouldn’t feel that way as soon as Arik removed his spell. First the warlocks’ magic that drove him to claim me, and now Arik’s magic that made his instincts believe he already had.

It didn’t seem fair that it felt so real.

“But it makes me nervous when people do magic on me when I’m unconscious,” Drew went on, startling me out of my own thoughts. “And it makes me doubly fucking nervous when they do magic on you when I’m unconscious. It makes me sick that I completely lost it and couldn’t take care of you.”

I squeezed his hands. “It was my turn to take care of you, Drew. And anyway, I think I racked up quite a bill for us. And since I don’t have any money, I told them you’d pay.”

Drew stared at me for a second and then burst out laughing. “That’s fair. I’m surprised you didn’t just pick my pockets.”

Against my will, I started to laugh too. “Honestly, I’m kind of surprised Nate didn’t pick your pockets. I think it’s only because we know Calder and Jared that he didn’t.”

“That’s a hell of a coincidence,” Drew said with a frown. “They never called or told us where they were going. And we somehow ended up here anyway? Are you sure they’re on the level?”

Well, shit. I didn’t know why, exactly, but I’d been putting off mentioning the whole “Ash might have magic” thing. Maybe because I had no idea how Drew would react. In large part because of our experiences, and also partly because I’d gotten the impression that werewolves weren’t all that fond of magical humans in general—which kind of pissed me off, I mean, what, we weren’t allowed to even the playing field a little?—he didn’t have the best attitude toward warlocks.

And what else could you call a male human with the same kind of magic Nate had? I’d be the weakest, most untrained warlock in the world, but…the word might actually describe me.

I hadn’t even had time to come to terms with that reality-shaking information, let alone figure out how to present it to Drew.

But I’d have to, because I couldn’t let him start questioning our hosts’ motives. This many hair-trigger alphas under one roof had to be trouble even without adding suspicion into the mix.

I couldn’t quite meet his eyes, staring down at our still-joined hands and hoping whatever raging hormones were responsible for the way he currently felt about me would soften the blow a bit.

“There’s something I haven’t told you yet,” I said, having to force the words out of my very tight throat. “Nate and Arik think I probably have some magic. When Nate did magic, I saw it in a way they said a non-magical person wouldn’t have. And they think that’s why we ended up here. Why I chose them out of all the other options. Like…divining, or something, I guess, only unconscious.”

A long silence fell. The air in the room felt compressed, my lungs not able to suck in enough oxygen.

“Magic,” he said at last. And then in a tone of unflattering skepticism, “Magic? You?”

I yanked my hands out of his before he could feel them shaking, shock and hurt coursing through me.

“Yeah, me, and I know I’m about as unspecial as a person can get, but do you really need to sound that surprised?”

Drew blinked, mouth open. “What? Unspec—the fuck does that even mean? I only, come on, Ash. Werewolves can smell magic. I’ve never noticed that scent on you. And besides, everyone I’ve ever known with magic has been a total asshole. You’re the opposite of that.”

The only people I could remember knowing with magic were the warlocks who’d tortured us and also Nate and Arik, so…okay, I could see his point.

And the bit about werewolves being able to smell a mage mollified me a little, too, even though it probably meant my magic was so weak he couldn’t even detect it.

Still.

“I could see Nate’s magic, Drew. I believe them. And seriously, it’s not that unlikely, is it? I mean, I know I’m not that interesting. But this would be kind of cool. If I had…something. Something about me that wasn’t completely ordinary.”

Drew’s lips quirked up. “You mean unlike the amnesia, and the mysterious past, and the way you look, and the way you keep rolling with punch after punch when a normal person would just go down and stay down? Yeah. You’re totally average, babe.”

I blinked at him, biting my lip, trying to decide how much of that could be construed as a compliment.

The last part, sure. The rest? I definitely didn’t look average. The average person didn’t have visible ribs. I knew he hadn’t meant to hurt my feelings, but…yeah.

“So maybe the magic fits right in with all the other weirdness,” I said finally. “Anyway. I don’t totally hate the idea, okay? It’s cool. It’s interesting. Maybe I’ll never do anything worthwhile with it except find this place, and maybe it’s not good for much. It won’t make me much more useful. But it’s something I know about myself. I don’t have a lot of that.”

“I’m sorry.” Drew reached out and picked up my hands again, wrapping them in both of his, and I was too weak to stop him. God, I’d never get tired of how it felt to have him touch me now that I could appreciate it. Like every time his skin and mine met, my whole body lit up from the inside. “If you’re happy, I’m happy. And—Ash, listen to me. You don’t need to be useful. I mean, that’s not why you exist. That’s not why I want you around. Okay?”

That I did believe. From the beginning—driven by all the weird magic and mating instincts and what have you, but who was counting—he’d been willing to keep me around and protect me no matter how inconvenient I became.

Once we got the magic off of him, that might change.

But I couldn’t accuse him of being insincere.

“Okay.” I forced a smile, because the searching, intent look in those dark eyes deserved some effort on my part. “As long as you don’t hate me for the magic thing?”

His eyes darkened even more. “I could never hate you.”

When he leaned in to kiss me, I met him halfway.

***

Breakfast could have been more awkward.

Maybe.

It started with me saying, “Sorry we’re late for breakfast!” as Drew and I hustled into the room, having gotten dressed in a hurry and run downstairs, following our noses through the big house’s living and dining rooms and a couple of hallways.

I gave the group in the kitchen the brightest smile I could manage and hoped they didn’t notice the hickeys on my neck or the way Drew and I looked like we’d just fucked in the shower.

That hope died when Nate got up from his seat next to Ian and peered at my neck, saying, “You should probably buy a scarf. We left you some eggs.”

Matthew and Arik were also at the big scarred wooden table that dominated the kitchen, their plates already empty. Introductions went smoothly enough, Nate gave us the eggs, and then no one seemed to know quite what to say.

“What are your plans, exactly?” Matthew asked after half of our food had disappeared.

At least the eating-and-staring hadn’t taken long; maybe food had been this amazing before my bout with not being able to taste anything, but in the moment it seemed impossible. I had to actively force myself not to moan and make everything ten times as awkward.

Luckily Drew spoke up, because I had my mouth as full as a chipmunk’s.

“We’re going to keep heading south,” he said, making me swivel my head and stare at him. We were? We hadn’t even figured out a permanent solution to his problem yet, let alone mine!

“This spell I put on you isn’t going to work for you long-term,” Arik put in, and I nodded at him frantically, chewing as fast as possible. “Drew, you’ll start to lose your shit again if you’re separated from Ash for more than a few hours. And Ash, by the way you’re eating your breakfast—because it’s fine, but it’s not that good. I’m guessing the spell helped with your problems too?”

I managed to swallow the last of the food in my mouth to say, “I can taste again. And feel, too. It’s amazing.”

Matthew raised a hand to his mouth, coughing in a way that didn’t even come close to covering his laugh, and Arik made a face.

“Yeah, I figured that out by the noise last night—”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Nate muttered.

“Not like you are, either,” Ian said, and then, “Ow!” Nate glared at him and pulled his elbow back. “I’m not complaining,” Ian muttered.

“Neither of you were trying to sleep in the pack house last night. You got to leave once the show started!” Arik scowled at them both. “Anyway. Ash. Good for you. I wondered if it might work both ways, but I didn’t want to say anything in case it didn’t. But either way, the spell’s not a long-term solution.”

“Why not?” Drew had finished his breakfast, and he pushed the plate away, leaning his crossed arms on the table. For comfort while digesting, or alpha posturing? Maybe some of both. “If it works, it works. Is it going to wear off, or is it something that stays until you undo it?”

“It probably won’t wear off,” Arik admitted, though he didn’t look happy about it. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. The longer it’s on you, the more real it’s going to feel to you. Breaking it’ll feel like breaking a real mate bond. And that’s fucking awful.”

“Since when do you care about people’s comfort?” Nate asked, almost managing to make the question sound innocent, big brown eyes all wide and limpid. “Is this personal growth?”

“I don’t care,” Arik snapped, with a toss of his long blond hair over his shoulder and a sniff. “It’s professional pride. I’m not sending these two out into the world with a spell that’s a bad solution when we could possibly solve their actual magical issues.”

“We have other issues besides magical ones,” Drew put in, and thank God, because who knew how long those two could’ve bickered over us without bothering to actually consult us about it. “We can come back later if we decide that’s the right way to go, and frankly, I don’t see why there’d be any rush. I don’t have a problem with leaving it as-is. Also, it doesn’t sound like you actually have anything concrete. You just want to try, which is great, but it’s also not a guarantee. Ash? Back me up here?”

I turned to find him leaning in, his face so close to mine that I could’ve closed the gap and kissed him with the tiniest motion. His dark, gorgeous eyes drew me in, making me not want to look anywhere else—ever. Grateful as I was that someone at the table had thought to ask my opinion, I knew my judgment on this couldn’t be trusted. Being Drew’s fake mate wouldn’t be quite as perfect as being his mate for real, but—

Oh. Oh, fucking God. I wanted to be his mate for real.

There was nothing in the world I wanted more, and this spell would be the next best thing. Only for me, though, because I could make a rational decision and Drew couldn’t. The thought of Arik fixing what the warlocks had done to Drew and then lifting his spell, so that Drew wouldn’t want me anymore, left me panicked and nauseated and clammy-palmed and desperate, and that was selfish, so incredibly, horrifyingly selfish, and I hated myself—

I pushed to my feet, my chair scraping and clattering along the floor as I shoved it back.

They all stared at me, and Drew jumped up too. “Ash, baby? You okay? What did I say? What did I—”

“I need some air,” I choked out, and basically ran for it. I’d noticed a back door while I’d been eating, so I dodged around Nate and Ian and stumbled out, letting the door bang shut behind me.

The air turned out to be cool, fresh, and scented with a dizzying variety of plants and flowers and herbs—all of which grew in rows and plots in a huge garden stretching out in front of me. Did I have allergies? No idea.

I drew another deep breath. No sneezing, so maybe not.

The garden looked like a decent place to run away in, so I headed down the nearest row, turning to fit between something bushy with blue flowers and something tall and viny that had been propped up with wooden stakes.

My head spun, and I fought the urge to hide under one of the flowered things and throw up. Whoever cultivated this garden doubtless wouldn’t appreciate it.

How could I ever look Drew in the eye again? How could I look myself in the eye the next time I stood in front of a mirror? I’d been this close to agreeing with him that the spell could stay indefinitely, getting everything I wanted—most importantly Drew himself, but also his help figuring out my past—while throwing everything that would be best for him out the fucking window.

Drew wouldn’t prioritize me over his own well-being if he were in his right mind. No one would. Staying all magically fucked-up for my convenience? He’d have to be nuts. And taking advantage of the way he happened to be magically fucked-up and nuts at present would make me absolute fucking scum.

The back door banged again, and I winced and scurried further into the garden, even knowing that my blond hair in the bright sunlight would stand out like a beacon amidst all the greenery.

Rustling behind me told me I’d failed to get away, and Drew’s hand on my arm gently turning me to face him didn’t surprise me at all.

“What’s wrong?” He gazed down at me seriously, brows furrowed, eyes dark with concern. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and let him make all the bad decisions he wanted as long as it meant I’d never have to let go of him.

“We have to fix you.” We had to, or the devil on my shoulder would take over completely. “Finding out what happened to me over a year ago isn’t as important. It’s not like I’m going to get even more suspected of assault and car theft if we wait a few more days.”

“Okay, that’s your opinion on what we ought to do, but that’s not what I fucking asked. Ash, what’s wrong?”

I doubted saying I was fine would fly, but it crossed my mind.

“I’m tired,” came out instead, sounding equally lame.

Drew’s frown deepened. “You’re tired. No, fuck that. Maybe you could tell me what’s on your mind instead of—”

“Oh, yeah, and you’re a poster child for full disclosure,” I snarled, yanking my arm out of his grasp. “Maybe I get to have some privacy inside my own goddamn head?”

Drew went too still, rigid, like he had to hold himself in check.

And then he took a step back. Away from me. It shouldn’t have hurt so much.

“Of course,” he said stiffly. “You can have all the privacy you want. But we still need to decide what we’re doing. You want to stay and let those two fuck around with us until they think of something. I don’t. So we need to settle it one way or the other.”

Drew blurred a little, and I blinked the moisture away. He didn’t react. Every other time I’d so much as shed a tear in front of him, he’d gone into full-on alpha protector mode.

Not that I needed him to, but…it wasn’t helping me calm down at all that he didn’t seem to give a shit.

But we did need to settle it, even if I couldn’t seem to act my age.

“We should stay a little longer.” I tried to clear my throat. It didn’t work. “Arik said this isn’t a good solution. It’ll only be worse the longer we let it go.”

“Only be worse?” Drew demanded sharply. “Is this so fucking terrible?”

“It won’t work,” I said, doggedly determined to argue him out of what I wanted more than anything in the world, even though a hard, throbbing ache had lodged itself under my ribs. “Fake mates was never a permanent fix for anything, even though it worked for a while. Twice, even. But it won’t keep working forever.”

Drew didn’t reply. He rubbed his hand over the back of his head, making his hair stick up like hedgehog spikes, and I had to clench my own hands into fists to keep from reaching out and smoothing it down—or maybe fluffing it up even more—and touching him, kissing him, forgetting everything but how it felt when that irresistible heat sparked between us and the whole world outside of it melted away.

The garden rustled around us, louder than it ought to have been given the mild breeze. Maybe it had magic, too? And we’d gotten it all worked up arguing in its peaceful confines?

“It doesn’t have to be fake,” Drew said abruptly. “The mating. We could mate for real. That’d solve all of this.”

Mate for real.

My abdomen clenched with arousal and nausea and longing, so much that I almost doubled over.

I could just…let him bite me. Belong to him forever, and he’d never know he hadn’t made the decision rationally. That our mating might be real, but the feelings driving him to want it were still, and always would be, conjured out of magic and trickery.

“No,” I gasped, digging up a strength of will I’d never known I could have. “Hell no. That’s not happening.”

The expression on Drew’s face could’ve turned Medusa to stone.

And then it sharpened, turning predatory and intent. Cruel, even, his eyes glowing faintly and glittering beneath that with something so far from the kind, affectionate Drew I knew that it made me stumble back a step.

He followed me, prowling, hands flexing the way they did when the claws started to come out.

“You’d want it,” he said, so softly it almost got lost in the susurrus of the leaves. “You’d lie there with your eyes closed. Not moving. Waiting for me to do anything I wanted to you.”

I backed up until I crashed into some kind of tall plant with spiky branches, one of them poking me in the neck, and stopped, panting, pinned like prey.

Drew closed the gap, looming over me so that I had to tip my head back into the leaves. He slid one hand behind me, down my back and brushing softly over the swell of my ass, cupping me, rubbing in little circles.

That gentle, coaxing pressure had me fighting not to arch into him, plaster myself to his bigger body and offer myself up. Everything below my waist went all hot and tight, cock aching and a slow, steady throb of awareness pulsing between my legs.

Another circle, fingers tracing the crease of my ass.

He didn’t touch me anywhere else.

He didn’t need to.

Drew leaned down, lips almost brushing my ear. His heat and scent surrounded me, and my head went light and floaty.

“All you need to do is say yes. You know I’ll do everything else. Strip you. Spread you. Mount you. Bite you once you’re moaning and writhing on my knot. Claim you, Ash. One fucking word, and all you have to do is give yourself up to me.”

All I had to do was give in, give him everything—everything he already had, because I was helpless against him and didn’t want it any other way. Yield. Stop fighting, the sweetest surrender I could imagine.

Even if I spent the rest of my life being the most loving, submissive mate an alpha could possibly ask for, I’d still know I’d taken advantage of him. That he hadn’t chosen me for real.

“No,” I whispered.

Drew’s hand stilled. His rough breaths tickled my ear and made me shiver, even though my body felt like I had a hundred degree fever.

“All right, your call,” he murmured.

And he stepped back and took his hand away.

I could still feel its imprint, the heat of his palm arrowing into the center of me, the outline of his fingers.

Without anything to lean on, or to hold onto, I swayed where I stood, the branch scraping the nape of my neck and making me wince. Pain. I’d missed it, but it added another layer of misery onto the more-than-enough I already had to deal with.

Drew’s face had hardened into a neutral mask that nearly broke my heart. I could still throw myself on him, pull him down into a kiss, tell him I’d changed my mind and beg him to take me…

“I’m not letting them fuck with me any more right now, though,” he said. “I’ve had enough of warlocks and shamans fiddling with my head and my body. You don’t have to pretend to be my mate if you don’t want to. I’ll deal with it. I’ll be stable enough without it.” He paused, maybe waiting for me to argue, but I was all argued out. My throat felt like it had a giant hand wrapped around it. “We’re going to head to your hometown and deal with that situation, unless you have a better idea.”

I didn’t. I shook my head.

“Then I’ll let them know, pay our bill, and we’ll get out of here.”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and strode away, down the length of the garden and back to the house. Watching him go felt like saying goodbye to everything that could’ve made me happy.

Principles were so fucking overrated.

I stayed in the garden for a while, so no one could see me cry but the flowers and the bees.