But when something big happened—like the death of my parents when I’d been nearly thirteen—he always came by to check on me. No matter how much physical distance was between us, he could no doubt feel my distress through our mate bond.
“How are you?” he asks, deep voice low and eyes roaming over me in search of injuries.
I shrug, stepping to the side in a silent offering to let him in.
A bit of surprise flashes across his face before it returns to its unreadable default. I’ve never invited him into my apartment before.
But I’m so drained today, and though I’m too prideful to admit it, I don’t really want to be alone right now.
I take a seat on the couch, folding my legs beneath me and reclaiming my teacup. Akim takes the chair across from me, ever respectful of the unspoken boundaries I’d placed between us long ago.
“Want to talk about it?” he asks.
I can’t help a little smile. Among all his other talents, Akim is a great listener. Short spoken himself, he is known throughout our pack for being someone who can be confided in, and who will offer sound advice no matter the situation.
“My friend,” I say. “He died today. He didn’t deserve to die.”
Akim settles back in his chair, silent as he waits for me to continue.
I wrap the gray blanket a little tighter around my shoulders, recalling the whistling sound of Grayson’s cellphone coming from that bodybag. I fight back a shiver.
My throat goes tight. I swallow, searching for more words and finding none that don’t threaten to open a floodgate. I settle for a shrug.
“We’ll light a candle for him tonight at Hera’s and Henry’s mating ceremony,” Akim says.
I nod. I can’t dislodge the stupid lump in my throat. My cousin’s damn mating ceremony. With all that was going on, I’d forgotten about it entirely. I check the clock on the wall behind Akim. I need to leave here in an hour if I hope to make it on time.
Ugh. FML. Like, seriously.
“I can let everyone know you’re not up to attending,” Akim says.
I almost tell him to do just that, but Hera is my favorite of my rowdy ass cousins, so I peel myself up from the couch.
“No,” I say as I stand and stretch. “I’ll go. Thank you, Akim.”
My apartment is one large open space, with the living room flowing right into the kitchen and bedroom. It’s too big to be considered a true studio, but the only segregated room is the bathroom. I figure Akim will see himself out as I hop in the shower and turn the water to burning-ass hot.
As it turns out, no matter the temperature, the water can’t wash away the foul stench of the day. Still, I spend half the hour I have to get ready under the spray.
Akim was right; I’d light a candle for Grayson, and that would do a little to soothe my soul.
Wolves believed that lighting a candle under the full moon in the name of the departed ensured that you’d see your loved one in the afterlife. I’d lit candles for my mother and father when they passed, just as Akim had suggested all those years ago.
I think maybe I’ll also get tipsy tonight. Drink a little moonshine before running under the full moon.
These thoughts have soothed me as much as they are able as I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around myself. I wipe down the fogged up mirror over the sink as I stand in the lingering steam, peering at my reflection.
Look here, I tell myself. All you gotta do is get through today and tomorrow. That’s all you ever have to do.
These are words Akim said to me just before my parents’ funeral, when I hadn’t been sure I could face the people, the pyres, the knowledge of it being the last time I set eyes on my mother and father.
And I’d clung to these words through the years, had repeated them to myself a thousand times on nights when the world seemed too cruel to want to live in.
People like Grayson James had shown me that the world could also be kind and beautiful. And that was something to be celebrated, to be grateful for.
This mental exchange of negative thoughts for positive ones is also something Akim taught me.
I open the bathroom door and see that Akim has not seen himself out. He sits in the same position as the one I left him in half an hour ago.
And as his dark gaze roams over me, over my moist and exposed skin, I see the predator that will one day head our pack, the alpha that other wolves will bow to.
12
5:06 p.m.
Heat spirals low in my belly.
I can’t help it.
The wolf in me responds to the wolf in him. She always has—the lusty little bitch—despite my insistence that ain’t nobody got time for that.
I swallow and move over to the closet where my sparse wardrobe hangs, picking out a black t-shirt and ripped jeans. I feel Akim’s eyes on me as I toss the clothes on the bed and move over to my little dresser, where I pull out under garments. I toss those on the bed as well.
I keep my back to Akim while I finish drying off, but his gaze is like a touch on my skin. I’m trying to put on my bra and thong when I feel the heat of him behind me. I swallow again.
Damn, a bitch’s throat is hella dry all of a sudden.
Go figure.
I turn slowly. Akim has seen me naked a thousand times. Wolves are not as shy about that sort of thing as are humans. When we shift into our animal forms, we have to get naked, anyway, or risk ripping our clothes, so pretty much everyone in the pack has seen each other’s bare flesh at some point. It really isn’t that big of a deal.
But
