As he stumbled beside me, sometimes half-rousing from his drunken stupor, he mumbled things.
“Didn’t want it to be like this, you know.” A burp interrupted his train of thought, and he leaned on me so hard that I nearly collapsed into the wall. “You… you’re amazing, Aurora. Just can’t… because…”
“I’m weak,” I finished for him bitterly. “Too weak to be your mate. You don’t have to tell me, Kieran.”
Getting him into the bed was a feat of strength and cleverness combined. I wound up having to move the pillows under his head because he refused to lay down right side up. Then I pulled his boots off—and his disgusting, sweaty socks—and left the rest up to him.
Unsurprisingly, he slept in his clothes. I watched him for a moment, his head listed to one side, his lips parted. In a low voice, he moaned, then mumbled, “Aurora…”
The longing inside me was so sharp that it took my breath away. I looked away from him and met my own gaze in the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the bathroom door. What I saw there made me hate myself a little.
Kieran McCade doesn’t want me, that much he’s made clear, but some part of me still wants him to.
It isn’t enough that he thinks I’m beautiful when he’s drunk, or that he sometimes mutters pieces of sentences that might amount to an apology, or worse, an explanation. I need so much more than that from him. So much that I’m never going to get.
“Hopefully I at least got some good information out of Jacen while I was drinking with him.” Groaning, Kieran sits up andmotions toward the window. “Do me a favor and open those blinds? All the way.”
“Are you sure?”
“The sooner I kick my ass into gear, the better.”
What am I doing? Dana would tell me to shine a 2000 watt halogen bulb directly into his eye sockets. With gusto, I openallthe blinds in the room, and watch as Kieran forces himself to wake up.
“I remember taking some notes on my phone before I got completely wasted.” Pulling it out of his pocket, he scrolls until he finds something. “Since Jacen was being so cagey about where his father went and the quarantine, I tried to get info without being too direct.”
“I did the same, although with fewer dares involving Alpha Carver’s underwear.” Kieran groans, and I smirk at him. “Those boxers looked great on your head, by the way.”
“Spare me.” He motions toward my notebook as I flip through it. “So? What do we think the real deal is?”
“Alpha Carver is hunting the fae—I thought at first he might’ve succumbed to the madness, but no one seemed worried about him being missing.”
“I found out the same. Did you get any info about the Eastern Ruins?”
Those words sends a shiver down my spine. “No, what’s that?”
“Come here.” Kieran pats the bed next to him, and I reluctantly sit down, hyper aware of how close our bodies are to each other. “Some of the drunk idiots I talked to last night were bitching and moaning about Carver not taking them on the hunt to the Eastern Ruins. From what I gather, they’re pretty close to your ancestral homelands. They think the fae have been hiding out there, preparing to strike when the pack is weak.”
I shiver. “I’ve never actually seen one of the fae in the flesh.”
“Me neither. Although I’ve heard pretty nasty things. Think they really smell like armpit?” He grins, then ducks his head toward his own armpit and wrinkles his nose. “Speaking of armpits. I need a shower.”
Yawning, Kieran stretches his arms overhead, confirming for both of us that he does indeed need a shower—and confirming for me that even when he’s coated in a thin layer of his own sweat, his scent still makes my heart race and my mind do obscene things.
As he puts his arms down casually, he brushes up against me, his elbow resting behind my neck, his forearm on my shoulder. I have to bite back a moan at the surge of warmth and arousal that goes through me at his nearness, his smell, his touch. It’s like the mate bond inside me has flipped suddenly, going from a constant ache and pain to this yearning that’s somehow worse and wholly different.
“We should investigate,” I say, springing off the bed like my ass is on fire. “After all, we can’t trust Jacen, and all the info we’ve gotten so far is from drunks.”
Kieran’s blue eyes spark as he raises a dark brow at me. “Think you’re up for a mission so soon after a late night of drinking?”
“I’m not the one with a hangover,” I point out. “You look like something that cat dragged in, ate whole, puked, and buried.”
“Ouch.” He puts his hand to his chest in a faux wounded motion. “You wound me, Aurora.”
I shiver at the deep rumble of his sleep-filled voice saying my name. It’s unfair—so incredibly, mind-numbingly unfair that he looks good hungover, with bedhead and a five o’clock shadow, his massive hand splayed on his muscular chest and a far-too-charming shit-eating grin on his face.
I refuse to think of him as my mate. That way lies danger. “Let’s just get ready and head out. You take the bathroomfirst… I’ll pack and grab some fresh supplies while you’re in the shower.”
“Whatever you say, Miss Bossy.” Standing slowly, he yawns and stretches his arms overhead, rolling his wrists. Then he groans and twists to either side. The movement of his body reveals stretches of tanned skin everywhere: his neck, his shoulders, his lower back and, god in heaven, his rippling abs.
