He nodded, and looked down rubbing the back of his neck.
Knowing he still felt uncertain, I gave him a quick hug before going over to the trees.
I put my hand on one of the trunks and studied it, thinking I knew what to do, and a little worried that I didn't.
Doc came over and put his hands on my shoulders.
I twisted around and looked up at him, smiling. "I'm going to get us out of here before I lose all willpower and tear your clothes off."
He raised his eyebrows, and his lips twisted into a smirk as he backed away. Once he stood on the far side of the small circle, he folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the trees, watching.
I felt the magic vibrating in the small clearing, pulled some of it to me, and pushed it into the tree.
Would you please bend aside so we can get out?
I hadn't expected an answer, and I almost lost the connection when I got one.
Why do you want to leave?
I have to do things in the world. I will come back.
Acceptable.
The two trees in front of me shifted, forming an opening just big enough for me and Doc to squeeze through.
Ed and Allan were staring wide-eyed at the circle of trees when we climbed through the opening.
"What'd you do, piss off a dryad?" Allan blurted.
Ed got a sly grin on his face. "Whatever they did, they enjoyed it. Thought you were going to do self-defense training."
My cheeks heated, and Doc cleared his throat as he ran a hand through his now rumpled long hair. I had no idea what had happened to his hair tie.
"We started with accessing her magic. It seems to have worked."
"Did accessing her magic involve giving her mind-blowing orgasms?" Allan was grinning.
"Uh, that might have been a side effect," I muttered. "Damn your noses, anyway."
"We don't mind. I just want a turn, too," Allan said, sliding his tongue along his lips.
My knees wobbled. Apparently, I wasn't completely recovered from what Doc had done to me.
"Yeah, that'd be good," I grinned, though I wasn't sure I could handle any more at the moment.
Light danced in his steel gray eyes. "Should I schedule that with Victoria?"
"Don't you dare," I squeaked.
All three of them laughed.
"Ugh!" I threw up my hands and stalked toward the cabin.
Chapter 20
Sofia
Climbing into Doc's truck with the guys to head back to my dorm room was almost unreal after the amazing weekend. I was both looking forward to taking a step back and seeing how I felt in the morning after some time away from the guys, and dreading being alone.
Well, Victoria would be there, but it wasn't quite the same.
Monday, I would have to break things off with Alex. Not that we had done much together. He needed to know I had chosen my pack. Tonight, I had to face Victoria. She had been completely supportive–in fact, she had been quite enabling. It would still be an interesting conversation.
Doc would ward our dorm room tonight, and then I wouldn't see them again until the next day. I had quietly promised Allan some time alone the following weekend, and we had also agreed to talk a little on how we wanted our interactions to work.
I sat in the back with Allan, Ed sat up front, and Doc drove. When we were turning onto the main road from the small dirt track that led to Doc's cabin, I remembered I wanted to hear how they had all met.
"Do you mind telling me how you all met?"
Ed twisted around and looked at Allan before they both shrugged.
"I guess we should start our story with how we became werewolves. Not sure if you're completely familiar. The condition is hereditary. It's also, um, contagious I guess is the right word. People don't always survive their first change, but if they do, then they're a werewolf, or whatever type of were," Allan explained.
"Yeah, I knew about that part."
"Great, just making sure. So, we were born normal humans, with normal parents, and we loved to go camping as a family. When I was eleven, and Ed was ten, we were camping one summer in the mountains not too far from here. Our family was attacked by werewolves. Our parents were killed, but we survived somehow. We ended up in the foster care system. To this day, I don't know how we managed. We had decent foster parents. Unfortunately, the whole werewolf thing put a spin on our lives, and we didn't want to get found out."
"Wow," I said. "That's terrible. Did anyone ever catch the werewolves that attacked your family?"
"No, not that we know of," Ed replied. "We were just trying to survive, so we weren't really able to do a whole lot other than keep each other sane."
"By the time I met Ed and Allan, the trail was several years cold, and we really couldn't find anything out," Doc added.
I didn't sense any leftover angst about the event, which surprised me. They had been young, and things seemed to have worked out okay for them.
"Did you not have any other family who could take you?" I asked before really thinking about it. If they did have family, obviously they hadn't wanted a couple of teen boys. I kicked myself mentally for asking.
Ed turned around and faced forward, shrugging.
"We aren't sure why they wouldn't take us, so basically no. We don't have any contact with the rest of the family anymore. You and Doc are our family, that's all we need," Allan said.
I took his hand and squeezed, surprised to be included and a little intimidated by it. "So how did you find Doc?"
"We came across Doc after four years of trying to hide what we were. He was out hiking, or hunting deer or something, and we had gone for a run. Shortly after we found Doc, our foster parents caught us sneaking out to go run. Of course, they thought it was something illegal
