I gave it some time to let the goodness of being tucked close to Abel penetrate completely before I said, “Sorry I was a bitch earlier.”
“Can’t guarantee you, this situation continues like it does much longer, that I’m not gonna be a dick. It’s gonna get to us. All of us. We just gotta be aware and not turn on each other.”
I snuggled closer. “Seems like two hundred years on the earth makes a guy pretty smart.”
There was a smile in his voice when he muttered, “Whatever.”
He barely got out the er in whatever before he was standing, me held in his arms so tight, I feared he’d break my bones.
“Abel, wh—?”
Suddenly, I was on my feet but pushed back.
Abel crouched in front of me like he did when he was going to leap to wolf.
“Abel! What’s going on?” I yelled.
He turned only his head to me. He was baring his teeth and I saw his fangs extended.
“Run!” he roared.
I started to turn to run even as he leaped to wolf, so beautiful, so big, so proud. I loved him as wolf, all his dark mixed with silvery fur, his intense brown eyes, his intelligent face.
But right then, I couldn’t do what I usually did when my man was wolf, which was to admire him and think he was awesome.
I couldn’t do this because he’d landed on all fours, but he immediately bent low over his two forepaws, snarling at what appeared to be nothing.
Until it was something.
Something that made me freeze.
Abel barked a canine bark at me, circled around until he was in front of me, and backed me up using his hindquarters.
But I was mesmerized by the sparks that were swirling in the space Abel as wolf had been snarling at.
Green, violet, and red ones, sparkling and streaming, like they were in a centrifuge, round and round, going fast.
So cool, so beautiful, it was mesmerizing.
Abel kept backing me up, barking constantly and very loudly, as the sparks kept going.
And on a turn, they disappeared, but in their place were two people.
One was a tall, very slender, unbelievably beautiful African American woman with a full, longish Afro of soft black curls, big, dark brown eyes, and incredible cheekbones. She was wearing a choker made of three lines of oblong bone, feathers hanging down at the bottom. She also had on a brown suede halter vest and seriously low-rider suede pants with fringe down the sides. Last, she had large, gold hoops in her ears—the insides of which had dangling spikes—as well as kickass leather bands wrapped around each wrist and rings on every finger, including some that fit snug between the top and middle knuckle and one that covered her whole finger, from the nail bed over the bottom of her last knuckle.
She was fabulous and her outfit was amazing.
I took her in and then I looked to the big man at her side.
And every inch of me turned solid.
Because it was Abel.
Boots. Jeans. Thermal. Tall. Dark hair. Lean but powerful body.
Top to toe.
Except he had no scar and his brown eye was where the blue one should be and vice versa.
“Holy shitoly,” I whispered.
His eyes went from Abel, as wolf, to me.
“You called?” he asked, lazily lifting his brows.
And he asked this just as the door burst open and the room filled with snarling, snapping wolves.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Beauty and Pain
Abel
Do not attack! Abel ordered Callum, his brothers, and Ryon even as he leaped to man.
But he figured they weren’t going to attack anyway.
Because he was standing before them.
Even though it wasn’t him.
Keeping his eyes pinned to what could be none other than his brother, Abel prowled to his jeans and bent to snatch them up.
“We’re lucky girls,” he heard murmured and looked to the woman with his brother.
Her eyes were on his cock and she was smiling.
She was also addressing Delilah.
Abel ignored the woman checking him out and looked back to his brother as he jerked on his jeans. He barely had them over his ass when he felt Delilah’s hands on him, one at his lower back, one at the side of his waist. Then she had the side of her front pressed to the side of his back, pressed deep, as close as she could get.
It should have made him feel better. In any other circumstance, his mate’s silent support would have made him feel better.
Staring at his blood brother, he didn’t feel better.
The others prowled the room, keeping a distance, remaining wolves.
He felt Delilah move, staying close, which was the only way he’d let her move, and he knew she’d nabbed his thermal Henley when she pressed it into his hand.
He kept eye contact with his brother, losing it only when he pulled the shirt over his head.
Even when he tugged it down his stomach, he still said nothing.
“You wanna start?” the vison of him asked. “Or you want me to do it?”
“You,” he grunted, and Delilah pressed even closer.
“This is Teona,” he stated, curling the woman in the curve of his arm closer. “My mate. My witch.”
He saw in his peripheral vision that she waved a hand in a half circle in front of her. “Hey.”
Abel didn’t take his eyes off his brother. “You?”
He watched the man tense.
“I’m Cain.”
Abel stared.
“Seriously?” Delilah whispered.
“Abel, is everything all right?” Lucien asked from behind them. He knew the vampire had been standing in the door since the wolves came in, but Delilah jumped against him when she heard Lucien speak.
“Meet my brother, Luce,” Abel invited. “This is fuckin’ Cain.”