Impulse

“That’s not foolproof, even if you take them every day at the same time.” Every slip-up was the same. Frantic math. Counting the days while the failure rate throbbed through her head with the rhythm of her pounding heart, and the grand finale—the memory of her mother’s crazed eyes as she shoved her under the bathroom sink. Hide, hide, hide.

She grasped at Julio’s hand and waited for the irrational fear. Waited for the worry in her gut to break open into terror.

It didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I realize this is scary for you. I should have been more careful.”

She wet her lips, mostly to give her time to be sure her voice wouldn’t shake. “It’s on me too.

I wasn’t thinking. But hell, it’s stupid. I don’t even know what would happen if we had babies.

They could be human. They could be anything.”

Julio studied her for a moment, then touched her hand. “Hey. I would be there if you got pregnant. I mean, how depends on a lot of things, but if we had a kid… I wouldn’t let anything bad happen.”

Her eyes burned, and she had to squeeze them shut and look away. “I know. If I didn’t, I’d be having a panic attack.” Knowing was a relief. Wanting…oh, Christ. That was an urge she thought she’d stomped out. She had plans and college classes and glorious dreams of independence, and babies seemed mutually exclusive to all three.

He pulled her closer. “Just…remember that, okay?”

“I will.” She relaxed back against him, soaking in the heat of his body. “You know it’s not about you, right? You’re not like your father.”

He tensed. “No, I’m not.”

Stroking her fingers along his arm, she concentrated on finding her own quiet calm. The soft, comfortable place where her power could whisper over him, accepting and loving. “We don’t have to talk about him, if you don’t want. Miguel doesn’t really like to.”

It took a moment for him to speak. “I don’t hate him for the way he kept pulling at me all those years, but I do hate him for what he did to my mother. And to Carmen and Miguel, even before he risked their lives with those stupid fucking spells.”

The spells meant to wake the inner wolf had failed spectacularly with Carmen. But their father had tried to force the magic on her. With Miguel they’d coaxed, and Julio’s younger brother had made the decision.

But not blindly. After the time she’d spent with Miguel and Kat, Sera knew that. “He could never lie to Miguel, because Miguel could always hear his real thoughts. I don’t know if that made it harder or easier. Maybe harder.”

Julio met her gaze. “Sometimes I think Miguel only agreed because he figured he’d need to be stronger to survive everything that was going to go down.”

“Like his big brother?” Sera touched Julio’s cheek, tracing a line down to his lips. “You’re not strong because you’re a wolf. I think he knows that.”

“No.” His gaze turned bleak. “But physically, I can survive things that would kill a human in a heartbeat.”

Torture. She ghosted her thumb over his lower lip again, then pressed her forehead to his.

“Tell me?”

Julio barely moved, except for the fine tremor that shook him. “Knives. Heated wire. Pretty much the only part of the theatrical torture guidebook they didn’t break out was the car battery.”

The ground was cooling beneath them, stealing warmth, but this moment was so fragile.

They were lost together in a world where no one else existed, and she took her time stroking her fingers over his cheek. “Kat told me you stayed strong for her.”

“Well, it’s a lie.” He snorted. “The only reason I didn’t crack and blubber all over everyone is because I didn’t want to give the bastards the satisfaction.”

“Uh-huh.” Another circle, stroking from his cheek to his neck and back. “You still kept her in one piece. They picked the perfect way to crush her, and you fucked it all up. If you’d let her see what you were going through, it would have broken her before Andrew and the others found you.”

He relaxed into her touch. “I grew up with an empath. I know how it goes.”

“You did what you could to protect her. And that’s the unfair part. That’s the balance.” She cupped his cheek and nuzzled his nose. “You alphas get all the power, and all the responsibility.

You have to protect everyone else and you never get to be the one hurting.”

“There’s never any time for it.”

“There’s right now.”

He chuckled. “Naked, in the woods, with spiders biting your ass?”

“You’re the only thing that’s bitten my ass this week.” Not that the thought didn’t make her squirm her way back on top of him—just in case. “I know what the first thing on my not-smothered list is.”

He slipped both arms around her waist and pulled her closer. “What’s that?”

She caught his gaze and held it. “Now might not be the time, but if you don’t think you can share things with me, then I’m not a partner. When you keep all the responsibility, you keep all the power too.”

Julio arched one eyebrow. “You think I’m playing Mr. Tough Guy? That I’m not vulnerable?”

“I don’t know.” She smoothed the furrow from between his brows and tried to pick her words carefully. “I know you like me. But you keep coming into my life at the low points. When I’m beat up or bruised or broken inside, and you pick me back up, and sometimes…” She swallowed hard and made herself ask. “Do I give you anything back?”

He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “Being with you… It’s loud and quiet all at the same time. Does that make sense?”

“As much sense as being sheltered and free.” A sharp breeze cut across through the trees, and she shivered. “Okay, I want a bath. Or a hot shower. If you’re nice, I’ll share with you.”

He got to his feet with her in his arms. “If? How heartless.”

She laughed and closed her teeth on his jaw. “Poor Julio. Maybe I’m trying to go easy on you. I do have the sex drive of a twenty-two-year-old, you know, and you’re an old man.”

“I’ll show you old.” He swatted her hip, and she laughed again and kicked her legs, trying to squirm out of his grip.

Laughter. She’d laughed more in the past week with Julio than she had in recent memory.

Josh hadn’t laughed unless he’d thought she wanted him to. Like everything else about their relationship, his laughter had been a bribe, a calculated action meant to keep her too content to go running home.

Everything about Julio was honesty. Painful, sometimes. He wouldn’t fib or sand the sharp edges off the truth, even when they bruised her. But he let her laugh. He let her feel. He made her hope.

He was everything she’d known he would be the first time he’d touched her. He was the kind of strong a girl could drown in, but he wouldn’t let her. If she tried, he’d drag her up and tell her to start swimming again.

Hell, maybe if she let him, he’d teach her how to fly.

Chapter Eleven

“I don’t want this last one,” Julio murmured in Sera’s ear. “You still hungry?”

“Maybe.” But her lips found his throat instead, and she kissed her way down to his shoulder with complete disregard for the remains of their late breakfast.

The pancakes were cold anyway, so he pressed a hand to the back of her head and guided her mouth to his with a pleased growl.

With most of the pack gone for their own day-to-day business, Sera seemed to have no problem squirming into his lap. Not that she’d skimped on the possessive touches while they’d been around the other wolves, but now she bumped the picnic table back to give them more room and tangled her arms around his neck.

“Well, I guess Carmen didn’t warn you,” a male voice drawled from the direction of the house, a low voice