Page 128 of The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate
I feel a small movement of her hand on my thigh—her thumb at the inside seam of my fatigues, slow, the same touch she gave me in this same posture just before the start of the run.
Her hand comes up to my jaw. She turns my face toward her. Her eyes are dry, and her lips aren’t. Mine finds hers without thinking.
The kiss is slow.
She gets all of it. Everything I’ve ever held back from giving her. Her mouth softens against mine, and a sound breaks out of her that I feel in my teeth, in the hollow of my chest, down low where the bond sits. I keep my mouth on hers, and the curse line at her collarbone is warm under my fingertips when my hand finds it.
She exhales when we break apart. “Don’t die in that compound, Lucas.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise you.”
“And you bring me out with you. Both of us.”
“Both of us. I promise you that, as well.”
We stay like this for a long time, quiet, the bond between us open wide. I drink in the warmth of her as I place my cheek at the hollow of her throat, where my mouth finds the mate mark and rests there.
She is asleep within minutes. My arm goes around her. The bond settles.
After five hours, she stirs.
Her eyes find mine. The composure settles back over her face within a single breath. The softness she let me hold, she puts away now, and I watch the strategist take over.
“How long?”
“One more hour.”
She nods. We crawl forward to the lip of the outcropping to join the others. I run them through the rotations I tracked while they slept. Sienna corrects me on two timing windows I had wrong. Darius’s mouth tugs without him looking away from thetarget. Violet is on Sienna’s other side, on her back in the moss, listening. Lydia is behind Violet, her good hand pressed open in the dirt.
The plan is clear. Darius takes the south; I bring my line down the slope. We hit hard, draw the compound out, and on my howl, the north team moves through the service door.
The sixth hour comes.
Darius reaches for Violet. He pulls her against him by the back of the neck and presses his forehead to hers, his eyes closed. I can’t hear what he says to her. Whatever it is, her mouth tightens. She nods three times.
I turn to Sienna and take her face in both hands. “Behind Lydia and Violet. You see Zion, you go the other way. Once you’ve got Lillian, head north. Don’t double back. Don’t look for me. Run.”
“I’ll do it.”
Her hands have come up and gripped my wrists. The pendant catches the light at her throat.
“I love you,” she murmurs.
The bond opens wide between us. I pull her in and kiss her, hard.
“Come back to me,” she whispers.
I let her go. I look over at Lydia. She holds my eyes, her face pale and set.
“See you soon, Lucas,” she says quietly.
I nod.
I strip and bind my clothes to my left arm, the cord drawn tight at the elbow joint. Darius does the same beside me. We shift at the lip of the outcropping, the line of wolves at our backs ready to move with us. The Silvercrest wolves pour after me down the slope toward the wire. Darius’s gray form breaks south with his line.
