“He’s smaller than me,” John pointed out.
As she poked him in his side, her expression grew serious. “He is, so when he comes to threaten you, which he will, you’ll be nice to him. I love my little brother, and before all this mess happened, we were as close as two siblings could be. He might be younger than me, but he’s chased boys off before who he didn’t like.”
“Noted. Get your brother to like me.”
She laughed. “I think you should work on me first.”
“You already like me, sweetheart,” he murmured roughly, running a finger over the exposed curve of her neck.
Turning her head, she met his gaze, their faces inches apart. “Maybe a little.” Her smile was daring and all kinds of sexy.
He’d told himself he’d be good, to tread gently and ease her into his demands, but when he saw the challenge in her eyes, all his plans went out of the window. He drew her head to him and kissed her, showing her with his mouth how much he wanted her. By the time they pulled apart, they were both breathless and flushed, sexual tension hanging in the air.
“I think you should eat your dessert,” John suggested. Because if she didn’t pull away from him soon, he’d be having her for dessert instead, and he wasn’t sure she was ready for that just yet.
“I think you’re right,” she murmured, picking up his plate and handing it over. “You should eat yours too.”
“What’s your favorite food, Eva?” he asked after they’d finished the cake.
Biting her lip, she made a humming sound before answering. “My mother’s pumpkin pie,” she answered with a smile, but he could sense her pain mixed in there.
Taking her hand, he squeezed gently before asking another question, “Will you come to Logan and Mia’s moving-in party with me tomorrow.”
“Like a date?”
“If that’s what you want to call it, yeah, a date.”
She studied him, her hesitation causing nerves to fizzle through his blood. “Okay.”
As his heart gave a happy leap, his wolf hummed with satisfaction, vibrating through his chest as a smile tugged up his lips. Caressing her face, John watched her for a moment longer, noting the fine dusting of pink over his cheeks, before picking up his fork and digging into the cake she’d passed him.
They talked for a little while longer, John asking her all the questions that popped into his head. Eva obliged, sometimes asking her own, and at some point in the night, his questions ran dry, and his eyes began closing. A distant voice in his head whispered for him to leave and find his own bed, but Eva had fallen asleep too, her head on his shoulder, and whether she’d be angry or not in the morning, John couldn’t make himself move.
She was meant to be his. He could feel the potential of the mating bond growing ever stronger inside of him. A flicker with the promise for more. An eternal blaze with the ability to join them forever.
Chapter 10
Katalina
Katalina stood alone. Snow fell around her, catching in her hair, her scarf, and the wool of her coat, and covering the back yard of Logan and Mia’s home. It had begun in the early hours of the morning and not given up since. The moon was full, though it struggled to shine through the heavy cloud, creating a muted darkness that swallowed her form.
Laughter drifted from inside the house, but it didn’t reach Katalina tonight. It couldn’t break through the building anxiety that increased with each day.
With the falling of the first snow came a knowledge, a promise that would end with blood. Almost a year had gone by since her eighteenth birthday… since her and Bass’s love triggered events that sent Castor on his course. They’d come full circle, and soon she’d be nineteen, and one way or the other, Castor would have his way.
War was coming, and no matter the winner, the universe would have its blood.
She could only hope it wasn’t her own, or any of those she loved, but Katalina wasn’t so naïve to believe her hope would come true. The truth was she’d been unable to stay inside the house, watching her family and friends talk and laugh, feeling the warmth of their love.
Mia and Logan had survived this time, but would they survive the next battle, the next gun that went off? Would Nico? Would Bass? Would Jackson, the father she’d barely begun to know? With so much uncertainty, so much riding on her shoulders, day by day it was becoming a struggle to hold. Pressure built in her chest, an understanding of her fate. A knowing that before the year was through, her blood would run thick and fast across the white snow.
“There you are. What are you doing out here, my winter wolf?”
Katalina turned, showing him the tears falling silently down her face. She wasn’t sure if she was crying for herself or for her friends who would inevitably fall.
It isn’t fair! She couldn’t understand why she’d been brought into their lives to then die. You are the key. The Link. The bridge. The one who connects us all. So many times, so many different versions of the same meaning told from a different mouth. Her friends. Her family. Her pack. She would die for them if it meant they’d be safe. She’d happily give her life. But Anna had already foretold their doom.
Katalina didn’t know how to solve a riddle that spoke of strength when she’d never felt so weak. She hadn’t been trained to kill her entire life like Bass had. She wasn’t fearless like Mia. They told her that her greatest strength was her human heart, but it couldn’t win a war.
