As much as he’d love to slip a hand inside Lynk’s waistband and wrap it around the turgid flesh, the choice wasn’t his. Lynk was breathing hard, his body responding in all the right ways, but his eyes, which always seemed to know more than he was telling, were too wide, too startled.
Reeling in his desire, Kieran rolled to the side and propped himself up on one elbow while he smoothed his palm over Lynk’s stomach, trying to calm rather than arouse. “If I promise to behave myself, will you let me sleep beside you while you rest?” Lynk looked a little surprised, but didn’t comment for a long time while he studied Kieran, perhaps searching for the truth in his eyes.
Kieran kept his expression neutral and gave nothing away. Whatever decision was made, he wouldn’t sway his mate one way or another.
Then just when he thought Lynk wasn’t going to answer him, a soft, tentative smile curled the corners of his lips, and his head tilted almost imperceptibly. “I’d like that.” Resisting the urge to whoop like a little boy on Christmas morning, Kieran scooted up the bed and under the blankets, holding back a corner for Lynk to cuddle in beside him. To his utter delight, Lynk snuggled right up to his chest, sighed softly, and closed his eyes.
Flawless 29
Ignoring his persistent erection, Kieran wound both arms around Lynk, pulled him closer, and kissed the top of his head. “Thank you.”
“No,” Lynk whispered. “Thank you.”
Kieran didn’t know what the gratitude was for, but he wasn’t going to question it right then. For the first time in his life, he felt like everything was right in the world and he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
30 Gabrielle
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Chapter Three
It wasn’t easy getting to sleep with his body so hyperaware of his mate’s proximity. While he’d enjoyed everything Kieran had done to him, right down to his aggressive, take-charge attitude, Lynk had been hard-pressed to control the anxiety that swarmed him. If they had any chance at a future together, he was going to have to come clean with the werewolf. Wrapped up in Kieran’s arms, feeling safe and cherished like he’d never felt before, it was hard to worry about those kinds of things, though.
He must have eventually drifted off to sleep, because the next thing he knew, Kieran was trailing wet kisses down the back of his neck to wake him up. “You have to meet Varik and Demos in about an hour,” he mumbled, not pausing in his attempt to drive Lynk out of his mind.
Why on earth would he want to go meet a couple of vampires who would take him to see even more vampires when he had everything he wanted right there in bed with him? Oh, right, because Torren had reason to believe that their brother, Thane, resided somewhere within the walls of the Snake River Coven.
Finding their brothers was top priority, not to mention that Lynk missed having his family close. He wasn’t stupid or naïve, however.
Finding Thane in Snake River was going to incite a war he didn’t know if he was ready to fight. If the coven was holding Thane prisoner, that meant they’d also held Torren’s mate, Aslan, as a slave at some point.
In the best of circumstances, Torren wouldn’t let something like that slide. Factor in Aslan, the man he loved more than anyone on Flawless 31
earth, and it was just asking for a battle of epic proportions. Then there was the little detail about Snake River being the former home and coven of not only Stavion, but all of his Enforcers as well.
While he hoped to find Thane quickly and mostly unharmed, if they found him with that particular coven, all hell was going to break loose.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Kieran’s hand slid up Lynk’s chest and stroked him in slow circles. “Everything is going to be okay, Lynk. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that. Do you realize that we’re screwed either way you slice this? If we find Thane, then Torren is going to want to wipe out the entire coven, not just because of what they’ve done to our brother, but because of what happened to Aslan. If we don’t find Thane, we’ve still made an enemy for bringing Snake River under suspicion. There is no way to win this one.”
“If they have your brother, they need to be brought to justice, baby. What I’ve learned since I’ve been here is that these kinds of things don’t just happen in twos and threes. There is no telling how many people they are holding or have bought, sold, or traded in the past. They have to be stopped before anyone else gets hurt. In my book, that’s a win.”
“You don’t think Stavion will fight against it? That is his old coven.” Lynk rolled until he could face his mate, very interested in what Kieran had to say on the matter. He loved listening to the man talk. Kieran was intelligent, but he didn’t use fancy words or act like he was better than anyone. He simply told it like it was.
“Honestly, no. Jory came from a situation like Aslan’s, but even worse. There is not a single thing in this world that is more important to Stavion than his mate—not Haven, not his old coven, nothing. And that’s exactly how it should be.”
Lynk wondered about the eagle-shifters who had held him and the faerie, Camdin, in that abandoned slaughterhouse. “The shifters from Pennsylvania—they’re not in the holding cells at the house in 32 Gabrielle
Evans
Casper.” Okay, so not a question, but he wasn’t even sure what he wanted to know, let alone how to ask it.
“No, they’re not.” Kieran growled, and for the first time, it was frightening rather than sexy. “They’re here in Haven, in the basement cells at the main house. They want to find out who
