The taste twisted emptiness inside me, rekindling feelings I’d only recently managed to sublimate. Was it merely air-conditioning that turned my extremities into ice blocks? No. It was the knowledge that I was completely alone…
Then Orion’s warm hands enclosed my cold fingers. He chaffed my digits between his palms, forcing my focus onto the physicality of the friction. “The tattoos are being manipulative,” he observed, “but this is good. We need to talk.”
“Talk?” All I could seem to do was stare at his lips. Why were they so far from mine? Why were only our hands touching?
“The Big Misunderstanding is my least favorite romance trope,” Orion continued, as if my one-word mumble had been a coherent answer. “So I’ll say it again even though I’ve said it before. I’m not giving you space because of a lack of attraction. Our physical connection is undeniable. But our commitment needs to be based on more than that.”
I swallowed and managed to get multiple words out this time even though they felt like saw blades in my throat. “Because I chose you for the wrong reasons last time. Because I broke a pack bond last night and this thing”—I waved my hands between us—“is trying to fill in the void.”
Orion nodded as if he really did understand how the emptiness kept trying to push me to form a new connection without thinking the repercussions through first. Then he shuffled a little closer until our knees just barely touched.
When had we sunk down to kneel on the floor rather than standing facing the doors that weren’t going to open anytime soon? I tried to clear my mind with very little luck.
“That and because I know my own weaknesses,” Orion answered, his earnestness as sweet as his aroma of cactus flowers. “I’m afraid of losing you,” he admitted, “which makes me want to force a bond before you’re ready. Have you ever planted a fruit tree?”
Despite the intensity of the moment, I smiled. With Orion, conversations often circled back around to gardening. Since fruit trees felt less loaded than the previous topic, I shook my head and waited for him to elaborate.
“When you set out a new sapling in your orchard,” he rumbled, “it doesn’t quite know what to do with itself. It might bloom right away, but the nursery staff inevitably cut away roots when they dug it up. So the tree’s foundation isn’t strong enough to support fruiting.”
“You’re saying I’m a newly planted apple tree?”
Orion shrugged. “I just know that pinching off blooms the first year or two is the right move there. It won’t hurt us to pinch off a few blooms.”
I got what he was saying, but the yearning inside me felt far more imperative. We were already touching. It would be so easy to rekindle the matebrand, to wake up the remaining tattoos and tap into something powerful…
“Did I ever tell you my mother was a sex worker?”
The subject change dragged me back into the real world just as Orion had intended it to. I shook my head, rethinking the story he’d told me about his ungrounded childhood. “Was that why your alpha didn’t give you and Maya a real home after your mother died?”
“No, that’s why he let our mother stay in the first place. I was never granted permission to call Chief Wells father, but I do share half his DNA.”
My eyebrows drew together. “That means…” Perhaps the yearning was messing with my thought processes even more than I’d considered. Because I’d already known that Chief Wells was Donovan’s father. This new information meant Donovan and Orion were half-brothers rather than merely close friends. And since Maya was Orion’s sister…
“Maya was born before our mother met Chief Wells. Her father…” Orion shook his head. “Unknown. But not Donovan’s father.”
Well, that was a relief. And also—
“Then Maya could be my blood sister.” The words came out before I had time to think them through. But they tasted right on my tongue. After all, the poem hadn’t definitively said my sister would be the one doing the betraying. It had just wrapped her existence up inside the prophecy. And if someone was my sister, I’d far rather it be Maya than Gabi.
On the other hand, if Maya was forecast to be compelled against her will…now seemed like a very likely moment for that to happen.
“She’s alone in enemy territory,” I started, tamping down emptiness as blood began pounding in my eardrums.
Orion was already on his feet, pulling me to mine before eying the ceiling tiles. “Looks like we’re about to change this stuck-in-an-elevator trope from romance to action-adventure after all.”
Climbing up an elevator shaft had been one of my lessons as a teenager, one Celeste hadn’t been invited to take part in. At the time, I’d thought I was going to die as Gabi critiqued my form yet offered no assistance. Now, I was more sure of myself and I also had Orion by my side.
So it was easier than I expected to settle my brain as we scoped out the pitch-black elevator shaft from the edge of the opening we’d hoisted ourselves out of. Dim lighting shone up through the gap where a ceiling tile had rested, casting eerie shadows on Orion’s face while the oily scent of lubricant cut through his signature aroma. But his eyes sparkled as he considered the ledge roughly eight feet above us, visible through the darkness only because of our shifter eyes.
“Lucky break,” I murmured, noticing the same thing he had. The insides of elevator shafts were usually smooth, but whoever designed this one must have wanted to make it easier for maintenance workers to navigate. So they’d added a ledge just large enough for someone to stand on at the base of each door leading to a hall.
“I’ll give you a boost,” Orion suggested, gaze flicking to the gap between the elevator car and the wall. He was obviously doing the same math I was. The first one up would have the safer go of it, guided by a partner. The second one…well, if they didn’t make the solo leap, it would be a long way down.
“No,” I countered. “I wouldn’t be able to pull you up after me.” And that was the only way out—for both of us to make it onto the ledge, to pry the door open, then to find a stairwell.
I half expected Orion to go alpha and refuse to allow me to take on the more dangerous role. Instead, he nodded. “You boost me then.”
As he spoke, Orion was already shedding clothes, handing over each garment so I could tie it around my waist or tuck it about my person. He clearly intended to cross the distance in lupine form, which made sense even though his claws would have just as much trouble gaining traction on the metal as Ari’s had swiveling onto that ledge back in Prince’s territory.
In other words, Orion was about to take a very real risk. Still, it was hard to remain focused on the upcoming danger when the warm fabric he passed over smelled like him. Like cactus flowers and the heat of the desert.
Perhaps that’s why his next words didn’t reawaken the emptiness inside me even though he referred directly to my packless state. “You were a lone wolf before Vega. How did you handle it then?”
“I had Celeste and Gabi.” The fact I had neither now, not really, hung in the air between us. Gabi had never actually been a friend, while Celeste and I were no longer quite what we’d been.
Rather than providing trite condolences, Orion shifted, the electricity rolling off him like, yet unlike, what had sparked from the elevator keypad just before it ground to a halt. For my part, I stuck out a knee, opening my arms and preparing myself. Orion’s claws would be sharp and I didn’t want him to notice my pain when he made contact. Knowing him, he’d pull back if I flinched, and that could make him miss the ledge…
I was breathing too fast, terrified for a different reason than I’d been when climbing my first elevator shaft with Gabi. Then, I’d been scared of falling. Now, I was scared Orion might do so. Would do so if I couldn’t maintain my equanimity as he turned my body into a staircase.
Pain is only pain, I told myself, bracing for claws as Orion backed up then ran toward me.
Only, Orion must have somehow managed to shift his hands and feet just the tiniest bit human. Because his paws were as soft as a cat’s when they struck my leg, my chest, my shoulder…
Then he was perched on the ledge above me. First as a wolf, then as a man. He appeared to be feeling around for a handhold, or rather a foothold. Whatever he ended up looping his legs through, it enabled him to dangle his entire upper body over the emptiness.
I wanted to tell him to be careful, but I wanted more to get him away from the drop. So I readied myself to leap up, to grab his hands…
…and his phone vibrated where I’d stashed it in my pocket. I took it out, glanced at the screen, then bit my lip.
