The Luna's Bodyguard [a mature werewolf romance]

Ch 17: All I Need

OPHELIA'S POV

Addy and Fallon were nowhere to be seen by the time we returned to the dance floor. When I asked if they were okay, Nate checked his phone and found a text from Addy saying they were going home early and to be safe. I felt a tiny prickle of disappointment that Fallon had fled, so soon after his apparent outburst regarding my propriety, followed by a niggling sense of concern. He'd turned me down at every possible chance, infuriatingly determined to see me married to the Crown Prince. Did this outburst suggest that he did in fact care, or was it simply the mate bond driving him to act rashly, like a possessive alpha male from one of my stories?

I shook my head, angling for the bar. Addy had done most of the drinking up until this point; it was time to turn my blood to static and find my own narrative in the white noise, free of destiny and monarchies and pending assassinations. I simply didn't believe Nate when she said that there was an army back home; not that I really thought of Carn Liath as home anymore. Home was my backpack and the things that persisted from place to place. The janky guitar I'd won from a game of cards after an open mic. The stack of library cards bound by a grubby elastic band, each one with a different name, the girl in each picture a little older, a little colder.

And of course, home was Aurora. Nights spent entertaining ourselves with silly games, like folding a piece of paper in half and finishing each other's drawings. Prank calls from public telephones using spare change we'd found in the gutter. Asking food court cafes for cups of hot water to warm our hands and pinching food from trays left behind, making up stories of what we'd do if the world ended, or if the alarms stopped working in the mall and it became our playground overnight. Her quiet presence at the bus stop, when the weight of reality settled in and there was nothing left to say.

Home was also in the short, sharp words we traded like blows when the novelty of close quarters wore off. The paranoia that underlay my every waking moment, winding my nerves in a tight spiderweb of attention, so that every string somebody plucked in my vicinity would alert me to potential threats. The icy adrenaline that flooded my veins when my suspicions proved correct and I spotted somebody tailing us, or even worse, when I didn't, and they caught me off guard. The desperation of every waking moment after, as we fled or I fought when running wasn't possible, using my surroundings to take down men twice my size, with proper training, even though I'd always struggled to shift.

Ah, the nostalgic pain of it all! The split lips and swollen eyes. The kitchen knife that went clean through my hand, severing a nerve and rendering it numb and useless for two days. The fire poker that skewered my stomach, making me delirious with fever and leaving a wicked scar on my mid drift. The fear in Aurora's toffee brown eyes and the blood spatter that freckled her nose as she tried to put me back together, time and time again.

Our lives were intertwined at the roots. The ring on my thumb was rightfully hers, but she'd given it to me anyway, refusing to let me pawn it, so I would always have something to remember our father by. Aurora was my life. How could I not go through with this?

"A pornstar for the lady," the bartender said, snapping me out of my reverie. The music flooded back in, as did Nate's warmth. "And a gin and tonic for the gentlemen."

"Thanks," Nate said, flashing him a winning smile. When the bartender turned his back, he swapped the tall glass and the cocktail around, passing me the zesty tonic.

"So you're a sweet tooth," I found myself saying, trying to figure out where we'd left off. I'm just a girl tonight, I reminded myself fiercely. A girl who deserves a night off.