128 | WHITE FLAMES AND ASH

Blue gets home soon after I have a chat with Darine about what just happened. I think I’m still in a little shock when my mate barges into the room and draws me into his arms. Darine doesn’t so much as flinch when Blue comes in, acting as if he’s not even there until she finishes her sentence before looking to my mate wearily.

“I take it you know?” Darine asks him blandly. She’s still a little pale and shaky from the encounter, though she was hiding in my bathroom the whole time. Now she’s just wringing her hands, clasped tightly in her lap.

“Yes,” Blue growls, but his voice is more unsteady than angry. His strong arms tighten incrementally around me, his face buried in my hair. I try not to cringe away from him, but the knowledge that I’m probably getting Revenant all over him eventually has me pulling back.

“You may want to bur that,” I murmur to Blue when I see just how much viscera and chunks have stuck to his t-shirt and pants. They’re plain, now smeared with the Revenant bits. “I’m going to shower, but if you give those to me, I’ll salt and burn them after I’m done.”

“Just salt and burn?” Blue asks quizzically, tilting his head. “That sounds like a witch-thing.” He mutters after I shrug.

“Apperently its a Guardian thing too.” I reply and turn to my now slightly green friend. She’s grimacing at the two of us, her nose wrinkling as her eyes flick over the Revenant bits. “You should probably-”

“Thank god!” Darine springs up and all but runs to the door, but pauses as she reaches it. “Call me, Scar.” She tosses over her shoulder before hurrying from the room. I let out a breathy laugh as I hear the front door slam behind her a moment later, then the sound of her car’s tires on the road.

“I’ll shower first, if you don’t mind,” I tell Blue, shuffling towards the bathroom wearily. My body’s a little achy now, faintly worn out, but not nearly as badly injured as last time. The wound in my side hurts, burning faintly under my shredded shirt. Blue reaches out and catches my wrist before I can get too far.

“Red,” He begins, his voice a little hoarse. I pause, tangling our fingers together and squeezing as his emotions tsunami through me in a rage of fear. Fear for me - for my safety. I can sense how close to the edge of sanity his wolf is driving him. The need to ensure my safety after I faced another enemy.

And suddenly, I really don’t know if I can be alone right now.

“C’mon.” I pull him with me to the bathroom. “We should talk anyway.” I insist, pulling a little harder when he hesitates.

I pretend this isn’t about to get a little weird. Pretend that, though I’m still running on adrenaline and fear from the fight with the Revenant, this is nothing. It works…until I shut the door behind my mate. Habit has me moving automatically to the shower and twisting the knobs to get hot water flowing through. Blue says nothing as I shrug out of my shirt and pants, leaving my bra and underwear on as I go to him and try to clinically help him out of his ruined shirt and pants.

It’s harder than I originally thought, my face burning hot as tension fills the minimal space between us. The second I see more of his bare skin, my body reacts. The call to complete the union between us surges in me and it’s only because of the slight pain in my side that I’m able to resist and put a little space between us. My eyes refuse to life from the chiseled planes of his chest, tracing every ridge of muscle and-

“Red,” Blue murmurs huskily, his voice barely audible over the rush of water from the shower and roaring of my pulse in my ears.

“Relax, I’m not trying to seduce you,” I tell him, my own voice oddly thick. I clear it, turning my eyes from his now bare chest. “Keep your underwear on if it makes you feel better,” I add, going into the shower. Blue lets out a shaky laugh.

“Uh, sure.” He finally sighs and I hear him follow me after another long pause.

“So,” I begin, keeping my back to him as I rinse myself off under the gloriously hot spray. “I killed a Revenant.” I state the obvious, allowing myself to actually digest the last hour. I stare at the white tile of the shower stall and swallow as a wave of emotion barrels into me - my own this time. I hadn’t even realized I’d been shoving them down until now.

The first emotion to surface is surprise, followed closely by fear. Surprise I was actually able to pull it off. I killed a powerful creature who was trying to kill me. And the fear…I shudder as I recall just how close my best friend came to becoming a casualty. *What if I hadn’t noticed the Revenant until it was too late?* Darine’s human, frail, an easy kill. And something whispers in the back of my mind that, had my friend not run for cover, the Revenant may have tried to drink Darine dry.

Blue places a hand on my shoulder, sensing the churning emotions inside me and direction of my thoughts. His touch sends a surge of calm through me, not trying to bury my emotions, but soothe the ragged edge chipping at my sanity. I suck in a breath, forcing my limbs to relax as I remind myself that everything worked out. Even if my imagination begins spinning from the amount of scenarios that *could* have played out. If I was just a degree less lucky, just a second too late…

I turn to face my mate, walking into his solid body, and take comfort in his embrace. Water continues to slick down my back, but we hold each other for a moment as I process it all. I close my eyes as my anxiety dies down to a more manageable size and finally pull away from my mate.

“Let me help you with your hair,” Blue tells me after another pause, reaching past me to the waiting bottle of shampoo before I can nod. My side’s still achy, and though I know I could do it myself, I’m glad he’s here to help. Blue starts to massage in the shampoo and I close my eyes again. My whole body suddenly feels heavy, drained of energy as Blue scrubs un the soap and cleans my hair.

To his credit, my mate stays clinical about the whole thing, though I can sense the sexual tension just under the surface of his stoic demeanor. When my hair is rinse out, he steps out of the shower stall and pulls the curtain closed, allowing me a little privacy to finish, but stays in the room with me. I think I’d freak out if he wasn’t close by, the hum of our connection keeping the pacing beast that’s my wolf calm.

I finish showering quickly, scrubbing soap into my skin until it’s bright pink and I feel squeaky clean. When I shut off the water, Blue passes me a towel and waits while I wrap it around myself and join him outside the shower. He says nothing as he, also clad in only a towel, leads me into our room.

The odd domesticity of the moment hits me like the cooler, less humid air of the room. I shuffle to the closet on autopilot and pull out clothes for us, marveling at how easy it is for us to exist in a perfectly calm and relaxed moment. There’s no weirdness hanging between us, only acceptance and understanding. I vaguely wonder if living with him as a mated pair would be like this. Soothing and…perfectly normal.

When we’re both dressed, I take a minute to grab our ruined clothes and take them to the white-ash heap outside where the Revenant’s pieces had burned, and set fire to them as well. They go up in the same white flames a second later and nearly disintegrate into white smoke and ash. My mind eases, and I feel the rest of my tight muscles relax as every remaining part of the soulless creature is destroyed.

I go back inside and find Blue waiting for me in our room, laying on his side of the bed and watching me expectantly. I let out a sigh and sprawl out beside him, processing how I’m about to say this…but it needs to be said. This is what I need to do. Still, I hesitate as one of Blue’s arms snakes around my waist, loosely holding onto me as if I’ll fall off the side of the mattress at any second.

“Hale’s coming back tomorrow,” I tell Blue after a long moment. My mate says nothing back. He knows what I’m about to vocalize…and he doesn’t like it. “We need to go on the offensive now that I’ve gotten better.” I don’t want to say that I’m at one-hundred percent, but after the close call - Darine almost getting caught in he cross-fire, I know this is something we need to do. “We’ll start by tracking them, like Hale’s been and I can see if we can team up with the others or something.”

“You know I don’t like this,” Blue growls, tightening his hold around my waist almost imperceptibly. I scoot closer to him, until our bodies are touching, the extra contact makes his arm loosen a little.

“I know.” I murmur back, reaching up to trace the faint outline of his jaw. “But where does it end? We need to end this. Sooner rather than later.”

“Just…” Blue lets out a long, heavy sigh. “Just promise you’ll be careful.” He presses his face to my neck, lips skimming over the scar of his mark. I nod my agreement, making sure he can feel the honesty in our mental connection and close my eyes against the faded light in the room.