Blood & Wine

43 | Iris

"I don't get it," Dasher said, pacing the room. "Why bring me and not Jagger? I could've handled the dead body and the Coven."

I flexed my fingers. Tomorrow night, it would go down. Fynley and Dasher had secured enough werewolves to give us a fighting chance. Calla had enlisted help from Ezekiel and some of the vampires, no more than thirty, and the Fae were helping us portal some witches and werewolves in tomorrow afternoon. The King, the Queen, and the Leader didn't know what awaited them.

"It's obvious," I answered, bringing my eyes up to him. He was so handsome, so perfect, so amazing. A bubbling idiot, sometimes, and a clueless witch. But he would make a powerful Leader, a fair Leader. And he was al mine. "He brought you because Jagger will always be a Second—and if he becomes an Alpha, it will be to a small pack. Jagger knows his way around the werewolf world, and he knows how to lead. You will be inheriting the other werewolf throne in, like, two days."

However that worked.

Dasher paused. He stood shirtless, his skin unblemished and smooth. His cheeks were hinted with pink like he was embarrassed or nervous or upset, but he was calm. Much calmer than I expected him to be. "Don't remind me. I'm trying to get adjusted to the idea as it is."

I shrugged. "You won't be taking it alone. I mean, you will, but you have me. I know enough for us to get by." I also had these cool new abilities I hadn't mastered but had learned to use. In enough time, I would be able to dole out punishments for him. I couldn't wait to tel him, but it had to wait until after everything was over and done.

So much killing would happen to tomorrow.

I almost shuddered, but I kept it to myself. We would win. We had to win. There would be no other option.

"You know more than enough, Iris. Don't sell yourself short." He climbed into the bed with me, laying down with his head at my stomach, his face resting in his arms. His eyes were wide and earnest as he stared at me. "Goddess, you are stunning, do you know that?"

"Yes."

He chuckled. "Let me tell you again anyway—you are stunning. You are so goddam stunning it hurts me to look at you whenever you're across the room because I know I can't touch you."

A smile tugged my lips upward. "You're so cheesy."

"Call me 'grilled' then, baby, because I mean it."

I pretended to puke. "There are other people in this house!" Indeed, Fynley and Eden were in his room, and I didn't hear anything except the occasional peel of laughter from her. Likewise, they couldn't really hear anything from us.

Dasher kissed my hip. "They know you're stunning, too." He kissed upward, not sexually, though. No, he kissed me because he couldn't get enough of me, he couldn't resist touching me, being near me.

Goddess, I felt the same. Even after being a werewolf for seven years—I still could barely control myself around him. The Mating Bond was the most wicked form of magic known to man, and I would swear by that.

"Earlier, Fynley's grandmother wanted me to tell her about you."

"What did you say?"

"I told her you were very organized."

His words caught by surprise, and laughter bubbled forth. "What?"

"You are very organized," he said defensively. "I don't know why, but I love that about you. When you open up one of your seven journals, and you have all these different colored pens, and you write down everything—it's so cute, Iris. It's so cute."