As Cara bent to talk to the toddlers, their mother turned to me.
“Thought I’d collect Trix for the evening,” she stated. “If that’s all right with you?” When I smiled and nodded, she continued. “Cody and I are taking the twins for a supper by the lake. You and Cara are welcome to join us.”
“Trix’d love that, and I can’t speak for Cara,” I replied, but thoughts of a certain tall Dire urged me elsewhere. “I’ll take a rain check, though.” I pulled the leash from my pocket and snapped it on before handing it to the Sabre.
“Shall I bring her back to you?” she asked. “Or can we keep her overnight?”
There was a note in her voice that had me looking more closely at her.
She shrugged. “They’re having nightmares. I thought Trix might help with that.”
My heart twisted. “Take her tonight. See if she can calm them.”
Kitani’s face lit up. “Thanks, Anna. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
I laughed. “Well, it’s Trix doing all the work.”
“No.” Her beautiful eyes grew liquid with tears. “It’s because of you that I have them back. It’s a debt I can never repay.”
“There was a Unicorn involved, too,” I reminded her. “Very involved. I was just the unhired help.”
She laughed, and reached out to give me a one-armed hug. Cara rejoined us with a hand holding onto each toddler, and we walked together back into the building. The Watcher continued with them through to the front doors, where Cody waited for them with a large basket of food and blankets in his arms. A very domestic look for a warrior.
I turned to take the stairs, in search of my own version. He found me in the hall leading to the cafeteria.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
One look at him confirmed the suspicious undercurrents to the words. His eyes flared chaotically, and as he loomed close, I got a whiff of pure animal musk coming off him.
It almost swept my knees out from under me, and I whispered back to him through gritted teeth. “She told me I had to resist you until she had me trained.”
He actually growled. “That may not be possible, Angel. Not from my end, anyway. I might be willing to take my chances.”
Effing hell.I’d never had my body respond like this, with an aching, overwhelming need to have him take me, right there, in the hall full of students. But memories of him lying beneath me, his heart barely beating—
“I’m not willing to risk that again,” I said through a clenched jaw. “If what we have is real, then we have to be patient.”
This time his growl was loud enough that the Dires passing us in the hall veered away. I stopped dead and turned to face him. I had to know the truth.
“Did you bite me in a dream?”
He went very still, but the glow in his eyes flared wildly.
I pressed him. “Cara told me that fated mates can interact in each other’s dreams. Did you bite me?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Yes.”
The word was barely decipherable, but it was like a sword striking through to my heart.
“You were really there?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
I wasn’t sure how much of the human was staring down at me. The scent emanating from him was pure beast, and fur kept breaking free along his arms, then shedding to fall to the floor. My heart pounded so hard I thought it might burst free from my chest.
“Does that mean—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Something changed in his eyes as the certainty of the beast flickered with the less secure human. He guided us out of the press of students until we stood by the wall, and placed his big hands on each side of my head, blocking their curious stares with his body.
