I blinked awake to find myself straddling Matt. We were fully clothed, but my hands rested on each side of his face.
Mybarehands.
No.
I started to pull away, but he reached up and grabbed them. Held them there, against his face, with surprising strength. I hadn’t drained him this time, not like before.
“This stops now,” he whispered. “Give back what you took.”
My heart thundered. What if I couldn’t give it back to him? But I’d done it, with Cara and the flowers. And with him, that first time.
“Do it, Angel.” His voice was hoarse, almost unrecognizable. “We have to see this through.”
My first reaction was denial. But he wasright. We had no future together unless we could conquer the beast inside me.
So I gritted my teeth and embraced the battle. It didn’t want to give the energy back, and it fought me.
Matt witnessed my struggle through the link.Use your alpha power. Force it to yield.
I reached deeply and brought the power to bear. His eyes gleamed as I did so. Not the usual emerald. They had undertones of metallic gold, just like in the dream.
I didn’t pause to wonder about it, just kept bleeding the energy from me to him. Until his hands tightened on my own, and he pulled mine away from his face.
“That’s good, Angel. Better than good, to be honest. I feel great.”
I could sense that he glowed with good health. I sat back on him, and then tried to slide off.
But he grabbed me and spun me around so that my back was to him, with his big body curled around mine. He wrapped me in his arms.
My heart pounded. “It might happen again.”
“And if it does, we’ll deal with it,” he said easily. “That beast is a part of you. And I will learn to live with it, too.” He pulled his thighs up against me and sighed. “We aren’t human. I sometimes wolf out when I dream. You’ll have to handle that. I will learn to handle your psychic-vamp-babe.”
“My psychic-vamp-babe?”
He laughed. “Yep.”
It felt so good to be wrapped up with him. Like it was meant to be. But then I remembered what I’d seen.
“Was that old man with the belt,” I said slowly, “your father?”
He stiffened behind me, but I felt him nod, his cheek rubbing on my hair. “Yeah. My pa. Crazy old bugger. He lost his mind after his mate—my ma—died.” He took a deep breath. “As she was giving birth to me at the time, he never had much use for me.”
“I’m sorry.” I sent a pulse of support along the link.
He shrugged. “Ancient history. He’s dead, now.”
I assessed the undercurrents. “You blame yourself for his death?”
“My brah came across him beating me. Told him to stop, and he wouldn’t. So my brah challenged him for the alpha position of our pack. My pa wouldn’t yield, so he had to kill him.”
The pain vibrated beneath the words, and I tried to assuage it. “Sounds to me that your brother would have had to challenge your father, regardless. You weren’t the cause of it. Only the catalyst.”
Some of the chaos along our link abated. “My brah has told me that, many times,” he said. “But somehow, coming from you, it’s different.”
“Well, I may not have fur and a dick,” my heart twisted because I didn’t know for certain about the fur, not yet, anyway. I swallowed and continued, “But female intuition will top those any day.”
His arms tightened around me, pulling me close. “No arguments here, Angel. You can use that power on me, anytime.”
