Lily
Elijah’s still-damp body clung to his clothes as he padded back into the main room. Lily stole glances at him as he moved, watching the lithe muscles bunch and release, watching his wet hair trickle down his neck and chest.
She raised an eyebrow at him as he sat heavily on the nearest rug. She’d awoken shortly after he’d gone into the bathing chamber, and had been waiting for him to return. The cold dinner beside her was making her stomach ache, desperate for food, but she’d wanted to eat with him.
She shuffled to the edge of the bed. “What are you doing down there?”
He frowned up at her. She longed to kiss his damp brow. Lily didn’t understand the urge, but she couldn’t deny it either.
“I – I don’t know.” He smiled helplessly. His fingers trembled slightly as they met hers.
The bond snapped taut between them as Lily held out her hand. Worlds collided and stars collapsed, emerging anew, as lightning flashes of phoenix fire wound up their forearms from their joined palms. She felt the electricity tingling between them, and she held on tighter.
She pulled him onto the bed. He settled beside her, shifting uncomfortably, his gaze fixed on the rumpled sheets.
Lily could feel her pulse in her fingertips as she reached for the tray. “Are you hungry?” she murmured, scared to break the sudden tension between them.
He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing before he spoke. “Yes.”
Conscious of his warm body mere inches from the bare skin of her shoulder, she set the food down between them. Her face heated as his eyes met hers, their grey soft as ashes floating up from a bonfire.
Slowly, reverently, he brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She inhaled shakily. “Thanks.”
He smirked, the expression shattering the last of the electric pulse between them. In the more comfortable silence that emerged, they ate.
Cold stew had never tasted so good.
* * *
“What’s your favourite meal?” Elijah asked abruptly, holding out a hand for her empty bowl. She hummed under her breath as she gave it to him.
“Anything with bread.” She grinned. “Oh – bread with cloves of garlic and butter and parsley, all baked together. What’s yours?”
He cleared away the last of the plates, stacking them neatly atop the tray. He took his time, and Lily wondered if he was giving her question that much thought, or if something else was on his mind. But, once the tray was back on the barrel, he spoke.
“Anything cooked on the grill outside. Bell peppers, red onion, corn on the cob…”
Lily tilted her head at him. “On the grill?”
He nudged her as he sat back down, and she made room for him. His fingers twitched, a minute movement she was surprised she caught.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never had a barbeque before,” he laughed. Her face remained confused, almost stoic, and his eyebrows shot up.
She folded her arms over her chest. “Don’t laugh.”
His face softened immediately, and he reached for her as if without thought. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m just surprised.” His hand rested on her thigh, heat smouldering through the thin layer of her clothes.
Shaking her head, she allowed herself a moment – a single moment – to relax into his touch. She could feel Atticus’s hand where Elijah’s was, could see green eyes burning into hers rather than his gentle grey.
“As soon as we get home, I’ll see to it that we have a barbeque.”
Lily stilled. His hand suddenly felt all too much like the stranger’s it was.
“Home?”
“Yeah. Of course. That’s… that’s where we’re going.”
“I don’t have a home. Not anymore.”
Elijah sat up straight. “Is that why you were alone in Oakhame?”
She sighed, dropping her gaze and rolling her mother’s ring around her finger. “It’s a long story.” A half-truth, covering up the heart of it: telling him why she’d left the Blood Moon pack, and her father, would hurt. A half-truth, so that she could focus on the future he’d suggested, rather than the past she’d left behind.
“One you don’t want to tell.”
“It’s not that.” She smiled ruefully. “Okay. It is that.”
Lily didn’t know how to feel. Elijah made her want things she shouldn’t, made her forget things she needed to remember. And, as he smiled, slow and understanding, she wanted to kiss him.
She broke the silence before he could. “I… I had a mate, at home.” It was time to explain, time to give herself to him – to whatever semblance of peace he offered. Elijah captivated her. Perhaps… perhaps it was time to give him a chance. A slim one, but a chance nonetheless.
She had left Atticus behind. But Elijah… Elijah had found her.
He was silent, patient, as she sorted through her thoughts. His hand remained steady on her thigh, fingers rubbing small circles into the taut muscle.
“He wasn’t someone I would have chosen for myself,” she admitted, glancing up at him. “But when I realised what he was – who he was, to me – I would have done anything, given anything, to make it work.” She shrugged. “He didn’t feel the same.”
Elijah shifted closer to her, and she rested her head on his broad shoulder. “He rejected me,” she said, her voice flat.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Like I said – he wasn’t someone I would have envisioned as my mate.”
“Still,” he murmured, winding a strong arm around her, “it hurts. The bond isn’t something that can be explained, and to have it ripped from you – it hurts,” he repeated lamely.
Lily paused. She eyed him closely, noting the hard line of his jaw, the pulse thrumming just beneath his skin. His eyes had darkened, and that was when it clicked.
“You speak as if from experience,” she said, unwilling to make the assumption if it were wrong. But, as expected, Elijah sagged against her.
“Because I am.” She could no longer see his face, but the muscles down his side and legs had tensed. Slowly, as if reaching for a wide-eyed foal, she rested her hand atop his. Their fingers interlocked, and she squeezed.
“Who – who were they to you?” she whispered, tucking her head beneath his chin. Idly, his fingers stroked her arm, the hand tangled in hers a steady pressure.
“I loved her,” he admitted, the words ground out between gritted teeth. Lily breathed in his basil-and-citrus scent, filling her lungs with smoke and fire. “But there were… complications. And she ended things.”
“Complications that you don’t want to tell me?” she teased gently, and he huffed out a laugh.
“I will.” He re-adjusted their clasped hands, toying with her fingers. “I promise.”
Lily wondered why he would make such a promise to her. The instinct she’d buried and locked away, deep inside her chest, rose to the surface with such vehemence that it almost knocked her back. Elijah was a calming presence beside her, and that realisation slammed into her, too.
They were strangers. They were strangers, and yet they were in bed together. Strangers, but unlikely companions. Strangers, but friends.
Friends that wanted to kiss. Well – she wanted to kiss him, at least. Lily sighed.
“Are we…” she muttered, unable to make herself say it.
“Are we?” he repeated, his chin brushing against the top of her hair.
She shook her head. “Nothing.” Needing to cover her tracks, she blurted, “I didn’t love him.”
“Your mate?”
She nodded. “I didn’t have a chance to fall for him. He realised what we were, and he rejected me outright.” She didn’t add the other, cruel things he’d said and implied. She wasn’t good enough to be an Alpha’s mate. Not that Alpha, at least.
“He sounds like a fool.”
She snorted. “I’m inclined to agree.”
Elijah tucked her back against his chest, pulling her snugly against his broad form. He kept her hand in hers, slinging his arm around her waist. Not for the first time, Lily longed to know what he was thinking.
“I won’t pretend to know what fate has planned for either of us, Lily,” he whispered, settling loosely against her. She allowed herself the pleasure of sinking back against him, feeling the rise and fall of his chest on her back. He was intoxicating, and with every breath, every inhalation of that basil-and-citrus-and-smoke, she allowed herself to fall a little deeper.
“But,” he continued, tracing idle circles into the exposed skin just above her hip, “I do know this. Pain comes before joy and, sometimes, horrible things have to happen to us – if only to ensure that we’re in the right place when our time for joy arrives.”