Page 77 of The Lunatics

If my birth parents had told me anything, I didn’t remember it. But then, I’d been so young when they died that they probably hadn’t seen a reason to tell me anything yet, trusting there would be plenty of time later.

If not them, then someone else should have warned me. A surviving adult. Another wolf who had already been through this. Anyone. All this secrecy surrounding the MacKenzie wolves was turning into a huge liability. How many others of my kind had been bonded only to learn these same things the hard way? Wouldn’t it be so much easier, and hell,safer, if we were allowed to warn each other?

I felt like I should apologize again. For my ignorance. For upending Michael’s life in such a disastrous way. For putting him in danger.

He stopped pacing and looked at me. “Don’t.”

I dragged in a shaky breath. “Did I just project all of that to you?”

He nodded.

Son of a bitch.

“This isn’t your fault,” he said.

I stared into the fire, feeling miserable. “I still feel like shit about it.”

“Now you know how I’ve felt since dropping my mate into a city on the brink of war.”

I wrapped my arms around myself and buried my nose into the collar of his sweater, breathing deeply, distracting myself with his scent. “Maybe we can hide out here until we figure everything out. Become hermits.”

He cocked a brow at me. “Do you think my mother will let us?”

In my head, I saw her ordering a full-scale invasion of the White Mountains to find him. I sighed. “No.” He needed to learn control. Tonight. We couldn’t stay here and we couldn’t go back to the city until he did. “I have an idea.”

He waved a hand at me. “By all means.”

“What if I tried going to full power and showed you how to cage it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t… I don’t really know. You remember during the security meeting when I turned my focus to you and the bond flared up between us?”

He nodded.

“I just did the same thing to snap you out of your lunacy. Maybe if I blow it wide open, I might be able to… I don’t know, draw you into my mind and have you learn how the cage works through me, if that makes sense? It might not even work, but desperate times…” I shrugged.

He folded himself down beside me. “It’s worth a try.”

I scooted closer, so we were pressed together again. “Give me your hands.”

He reached out. I threaded my fingers through his. A now familiar heat sparked between us and suffused my body, flooding me with awareness. I closed my eyes and retreated into the back of my mind, where that small piece of him had taken up residence. I had no idea what I was doing, and was more than a little worried that what I was about to attempt might somehow blow up in our faces. This was sheer bluff and blunder, but there was an instinctual drive behind it that spurred me on, and I put my faith in that like I did the Goddess. She wouldn’t have dropped us into this without a way through it. I had known before being bonded thatmated pairs were put through the ringer, but I also knew that there was always a way forward for them, if only they were bold enough to search it out.

I focused on Michael’s presence in my mind and dropped all of my shields—both the ones on my power and the ones on my thoughts. The world around me came alive. Michael’s heart hiccupped as my power crashed over him, and my own skipped a beat as well. Then they thundered forward together like we were back in the forest, racing through the trees.

Goddess, the smell of him. Thefeelof him. I wanted more. No, I needed more. This awareness of him was like a drug, and me an addict. With my walls down, I was left open to him in a way I hadn’t been before. His presence seemed to expand, pushing into my mind, taking up even more space than it had a moment before, and in a way that made me feel like it might be a permanent change. I decided to worry about that later as I traced the connection, bridging the gap between us until my mind brushed against his. And then I pushed into him, pausing when I reached his own mental barriers.

Let me in,I whispered.

He hesitated.

I squeezed his hands, rubbing my thumbs over his heated skin.Please, Michael.

I brushed against his mental shield again, light but insistent. I wouldn’t break through his defenses. That would be wrong. He needed to concede for this to work. To let me in of his own volition. Anything else would be a violation.

With a sigh, the barrier crumbled, and for the first time since we were bonded, Michael stopped suppressing.

There was nothing between us now. I sat in my own skin, holding Michael’s hands, but somehow, I was also inside of him, holdingmyhands. He opened his eyes, and I saw myself through them.My hair was wild from our flight through the forest. His sweater absolutely swamped my shoulders, and he liked that. He liked seeing me in his clothes and knowing that with every breath, his scent filled my nose. There was a fierce possessiveness to him I never would have expected. A deeply woven set of primitive instincts. To Michael, I washis. And he was mine.