It felt like a long time before the shower shut off.
I was drifting, the tears dribbling out of my eyes burning hot, and the puddles of saltwater in my ears and along my collarbones ice cold.
It was even longer before the door opened, letting out a massive cloud of pine-scented steam.
"Landon, look, I — what the fuck?"
Heavy footsteps thudded across the room, vibrating the bed through the floorboards.
I didn't even have the strength to move my eyeballs, let alone my head, so I glanced up at him with my peripheral vision alone.
He had a towel wrapped around his waist, his chest bare and gleaming with a few rivulets of water.
Fuck.
But his shoulders were big. And both of my hands would barely have wrapped around one of his biceps.
Then he dropped the towel.
My heartrate accelerated, ramping up from sleepy-slow to painful in two seconds. The jolt of adrenaline made my stomach lurch and my head pound, but it didn't give me any more energy, somehow.
"What," I gasped. "What are you —"
I cut off with a little choke of protest as he pulled the blankets back and unceremoniously climbed in next to me.
"There's something wrong with you," he said bluntly.
"You're crying. You can hardly move. And the bond feels…all fuzzy and weird."
My chest heaved, and I let out a little sob.
Lucian muttered something to himself I couldn't exactly make out, but he sounded pissed as hell.
That couldn't possibly have been nice going, Lucian, you asshole, right? No way.
"Yeah, and now I know there's something really fucking wrong with you, because you didn't even tell me I sound like a moron."
There was an edge of panic to his voice that wound me up even more, my whole body starting to jitter like I'd had an entire pot of coffee instead of exactly none.
Turning on his side to face me, he slid one arm under my shoulders with shocking gentleness, his hand smoothing over my skin.
He draped himself over me, my side pressed up against all of his naked skin, his cock nudging against my hip.
The scent of shower gel and shower-heated Lucian enveloped me, like a sexy tropical pine forest — which made no sense at all.
But then again, neither did the much I liked it make sense.
"I'm not an expert, but I think the bond's doing this to you. Werewolf mating bonds take a while to settle in. You're supposed to touch a lot, stuff like that. And then whatever the ever-loving fuck happened earlier can't have helped."
Lucian leaned over me, his face inches away, his brows furrowed and mouth set in a frown. "Landon? You listening?"
"What does it matter?" My lips could barely form the words; I could barely feel them. I hadn't moved at all, just lying there in his arms like a lump. "I'm not useful."
"Not useful," he repeated slowly, his expression hardening. "That's not the —" His hand tightened on my upper arm, and the other hand landed on my throat, wrapping around and pushing up my chin, so that I had to look him in the eyes. "You're useful," he said at last. "You'll draw out the Kimballs. And you'll set the damn wards, Jace wants you to."
A little note of bitterness there, and I wished I had the energy to gloat properly. "So we'll do whatever we need to do to keep you functioning. Got it?"
I didn't reply, and he sighed.
"Look, there's something I want to try."
Was it better to be useful, and therefore used, or useless and left to die? That was an interesting, if fucking grim, philosophical question, and one I wished had less practical and more theoretical application in my disaster area of a life.
Maybe I'd have made some progress in thinking about it, maybe not.
I didn't get the chance to find out.
Lucian leaned down, slowly but without hesitation, and set his mouth over mine.
His lips were softer than I'd expected — if I'd thought about it. Which I hadn't.
Soft. Warm. Coaxing.
My lips parted automatically, and my breath whooshed out, mingling with his, as his tongue delicately teased at the tip of mine.
This was not how Lucian Reese, badass alpha dickhead, was supposed to kiss.
It should've been rough, and careless, and selfish, not this sweet tease.
He pressed in harder, his chest brushing against mine as he leaned down, smooth skin and silky hair and heat.
I let out a soft little moan, more of a whimper.
And then, like a switch had flipped, it got rough.
Rough, and demanding, insisting on an answer to a question I couldn't begin to understand.
Lucian devoured me, fucking into my mouth like a madman, the hand on my throat tensing in a way that should have felt threatening — and didn't.
That pressure went straight to my cock and set all my nerves on fire along the way.
The bond flared between us, his magic and mine arcing along it like overloaded current.
It wasn't the torrential rush of my magic from earlier in the day. It wasn't destructive. It sparked, and it crackled, and it lit me up from the inside like a firecracker had gone off in my spine.
The bite scar on the curve of my neck throbbed.
Lucian retracted his lips away. "Fuck, Landon, fuck, fuck, fuck..."
He ducked his head and pressed searing kisses down my chest, biting at a nipple as he passed by.
I jerked away, or tried to, and he did it again, leaving a piercing ache behind as he moved down again, mouthing over my abdomen and making me squirm.