Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

They crept out before dawn, leaving Ashley sated and exhausted in her giant bed. Connor didn’t ask why and Mac didn’t bother to state the obvious--they both understood that Blake would be home soon. A fight would distress Ashley, and it was a miracle there hadn’t been one already.

Connor wondered if Jud and Blake and Mac were even aware of the careful dance they’d been engaged in since Ashley’s arrival. So many potentially violent situations had been defused by calculated acts of deference. Blake might be leading the dance, but Jud and Mac were playing along.

For now.

Connor wasn’t a part of it, not really. But he followed Mac down the hall anyway, because something inside him felt uneasy, and the safety of Mac’s room tended to smooth the sharpest edges of Connor’s disquiet.

Except it didn’t this time, not even when he was settled in his usual corner of Mac’s couch with a beer in his hand and the hypnotic crackle of the fire as background noise.

"You’re quiet," Mac observed. "Even quieter than usual."

Connor rubbed a hand over his chest, but the ache wasn’t something he could scrub away. It went deeper, just as it always had. "I was different tonight, wasn’t I?"

"Yes. But you were bound to be," he pointed out. "She’s a wolf, Con. Not human."

Humans were all he’d ever known, and even that had been terrifying at times. Sex was primal. No matter how steely his control, fucking stripped it away, leaving instinct and feral hunger driving his body while thought and reason slipped through his fingers.

Mac made it safe. His wolf obeyed Mac without question. The human women they fucked together liked his wild edge and his porn star growls, and Mac always kept him from going too far or revealing too much.

But Connor’s memories of those encounters were always blurred. Vague, like a dream, even though they satisfied his physical needs.

"I was there," he said finally, staring at the fire. "The first time she touched me, I felt my wolf surge. Like my control was slipping and he was coming out. And he did, I think--I wasn’t holding him back. But I remember everything."

Mac smiled faintly. "You mean she kept you both there, man and wolf."

Both parts of him. Together, if not quite fitting cleanly. "Was it different for you?"

"It was..." He trailed off. "I don’t know, man. It’s good in a way I didn’t know existed. I finally understand what Lucas has been talking about. But I’m not looking for a mate."

Mac kept his voice steady, composed, but Connor knew him. The pain was there, bubbling just beneath the surface, a wound that would never fucking heal. Because Ashley wasn’t the first female wolf they’d found.

Just the first they’d found sane.

"She’s strong, Mac. That’s not going to happen again."

Grimacing, Mac stared into the fire. "Ashley’s not Serena. I know that."

No, she wasn’t. Serena had been shattered even worse than Connor, driven mad by instincts that had twisted inside her. She had tried to hurt herself when she wasn’t restrained. She had tried to kill herself.

In the end, she’d begged for mercy, and Mac had been the one to give it to her.

"I’m not Serena, either." Connor kicked Mac’s leg lightly. "You saved me. If a confused wolf needs a mate, who could be better than you?"

That made him laugh, a full, delighted laugh that rolled from deep in his chest. "I’m not a dumbass. If you can’t think of anyone better, I’m not gonna clue you in."

Connor huffed and finished his beer. "Yeah, sure seems to be leaning that way, huh? Doesn’t mean it’s better. Blake doesn’t know the first goddamn thing about how humans interact. You think he’s explaining shit to her?"

"I don’t think he has to." Mac had drained his glass, and he refilled it before continuing. "Overthinking shit doesn’t really get us anywhere, does it?"

No, never, but Connor couldn’t stop it. It was as if the instincts he’d been born with were locked up inside him. Sometimes they spilled free. The rest of the time, connecting with them was like playing one of those cheap, stupid games they sold at gas stations and in dollar stores. He was a little metal ball rolling through a plastic maze, slamming into dead ends because nothing came naturally to him the way it did to the rest of them.

Except tonight.

Connor returned his gaze to the fire, as if he could find his answers in the dancing flames. Of course, there were no answers. But, unlike Mac, he couldn’t stop thinking. "Do you figure she’ll pick him?"

"It doesn’t matter what I think." Mac stared at him, searching, a hint of a frown creasing his brow. "You don’t want her, do you?"

Connor tried to think of the right answer, but he just rolled into another dead end. "I don’t know," he grumbled, more frustrated than he wanted to admit. For a few hours, things had seemed clear. But even though every fucking touch was branded in his memory, the clarity Ashley had brought him had already dissolved. "It felt good. But she didn’t feel..."

"Like ours." Mac must have realized what he said immediately, because he grimaced again. "Yours, I mean. Like yours."

"Yeah," Connor agreed blandly. "Like mine." But he was only barely paying attention, because that word...

Ours.

Connor might feel like he was trapped in a maze, but Mac had a way of tilting his perspective and sending him hurtling straight to the finish line. His nerves and agitation had a source, and it wasn’t Ashley, but what she represented.

There were females out there. Healthy, strong females. Even if Ashley chose Blake, there would be another soon enough. Mac could fight it all he wanted, but someone would see the things in him that Connor saw. The strength and safety, the fierce protectiveness.

Connor was broken inside, but Mac was whole. And, someday soon, he’d look at a rescued female and think mine, and that would be the end of ours.

Suddenly, Connor was fiercely, selfishly grateful to Blake. Let the bastard stomp and snarl and metaphorically--God, hopefully metaphorically--piss in every corner of Ashley’s room. The two of them would get their happy fucking ending.

And Connor would get time. A little bit of time, before he was the one left behind for good.