This was Austin.

So accepting.

So joyful, somehow, that it was impossible not to feel the same way around him.

“Yeah, I mean, never say never, right?”

I snickered. “We need to work up to that,” I murmured, need infiltrating my voice, even though I hadn’t really meant for it to.

“I figured as much.” He winked. “Give us time. We’ll get you ready for anything.”

I laughed outright at that, my grin making an appearance as I stared at his cheeky smile, at the light in his eyes that was for me and me alone.

I reached down, finding it impossible not to touch that smile, not to feel it against my fingers, and as I traced it with my pointer finger, I hummed, “I thought it would be like that too.”

“Was that why you were nervous?”

His gentle question had me hitching a shoulder. “I guess. I mean, maybe I’m kinkier than I thought. Mostly, I was nervous. I-I haven’t done it in so long—”

“A lot like riding a bike. You can’t forget how,” he told me.

I snorted. “You didn’t feel like a bike.”

His eyes twinkled again. “Glad to hear it. But you know what I mean.”

“I do, and while you’re not wrong, it was so long ago that it feels…” I blinked, because what I’d done with Kian was so different from how I’d acted with Austin.

I’d been a little ashamed of what we’d done the first time, because it was outside of marriage. It had hurt, and we’d had to hide, and I’d been terrified his mom would come back from work early and would catch us. I’d been petrified of being called a slut, of us being found out…

I couldn’t feel much more different now than I had back then.

In a good way.

I’d trusted Kian, or so I’d thought.

I’d loved him, or so I thought.

While those emotions weren’t negated in the face of what had just happened, I realized how different I was now. Almost night and day. Back then, Sabina had been innocent, hopeful, and trusting.

This Sabina? Free from pain at last, but I’d been through the grinder, I’d had to travel a long way to reach this point. I knew what pain was, had felt loss and grief, and I’d known what fear felt like—the kind of fear that made you choke up at night when you got into bed, because you were so damn scared, you felt like you could wet yourself.

My father never forgot.

He never had, never would, and I was his daughter. I’d shamed him. Shamed the family. That wouldn’t die.

But I could.

And only my death, in his eyes, would lessen the shame I’d brought to us.

I cleared my throat at the heavy thoughts, and when his hand was there, cupping my chin, urging me to look at him, I did as he silently asked, because he’d been gentle with me. Gentle when another man might have responded aggressively to what I’d done.

“What was that?” he inquired.

And I couldn’t blame him for asking.

“It was…” I blew out a breath, because how did I put into words what I didn’t even know I’d done? “I-I think I was putting memories in your mind.”

“Memories? Of what? Someone treated you like that?” His voice went from confused to angry, but it wasn’t an anger I had to be scared of. It was for me. In my defense.

Kali Sara, I wanted to cry at the thought.

He wanted to tear apart my past. Rip into my memories because they dared hurt me.

What a man.

“My parents,” I rasped. “That was how my father treated my mother.”

His mouth tightened. “Then he was a disgrace. Disgusting.”

I nodded. “I know. I’m sorry I did that, I didn’t mean to, it just happened.”

He tipped his head to the side. “Is it something I did to make you feel that way? Something that made you feel unsafe with me?”

I shook my head as my eyes widened at the thought. “No! Not at all!” I clambered onto my knees, not stopping until I straddled him again. I lowered myself so my tits were against his chest, my elbows on the ground beside his head, not letting him look away without registering how much I trusted him with me and my body.

My perfections and imperfections.

“It was instinctive. A defensive maneuver, to be honest, even though I know Ethan and Eli are just like you, I’ll still do it.”

“Why?”

“Because my she-wolf insisted.”

And just like that, his concern whispered away on the wind. “Ah.”

His acceptance, so immediate, had me blinking at him. But it was the truth. I hadn’t fed him a lie. That part of me I’d discovered earlier, the part that was able to growl deep in my soul, and who had feelings and thoughts and urges, was the one behind that ‘scan.’ Because me? I didn’t have a damn clue where to start with my powers, never mind do something I sensed was advanced.

I bit my lip, relieved at his acceptance. So relieved, in fact, that I dropped my head to his and pushed our foreheads together.

I sighed, letting it brush over his lips. “Thank you.”

“For what?” His brow furrowed in genuine confusion.

“For not getting mad at me.”

“I wasn’t mad.”

“What were you then?”

He snorted. “Confused. I had all these thoughts in my head, and they weren’t mine. I didn’t know where the fuck we were, but then, all of a sudden, I’m doing weird shit and thinking weird shit?” His eyes flared wide like the memory was too real. “It was surreal, and I’m just glad those thoughts weren’t like, I don’t know, burrowed away in my head or something.”

“No, they were my memories,” I assured him.

“How did you do that?”

“I don’t know.” I wasn’t lying, and the deepening of the furrow in his brow confirmed he knew I wasn’t.

I reached up and traced the furrow, gently lining it with my fingertip, before I trailed it up to his hairline.

“You’re more powerful than we expected,” he said softly, “but then, why wouldn’t you be when you unite an alpha and a beta together?”

“And you,” I inserted.

He shrugged. “I’m nobody.”

I shook my head, annoyed. “Don’t say that! That’s so wrong.”

His nose crinkled. “I’m not, love. That’s okay—”

“No, it isn’t. Eli says he’s putting you on the council.”

“I don’t think that will work.” A sigh gusted from him. “He can start the ball rolling, which he has, but he can’t make a place on the council. That’s something the entire pack has to agree with, and honestly, that’s not going to be easy. If he wanted to create a space for Brandon, then I figure the pack would allow that. But with Ethan on there already, and then the fact that I’m a twin—”

“This twin shit is really pissing me off. What the hell is wrong with these people? There’s nothing wrong with being a twin!”

“It’s a cultural thing,” he replied softly. Sadly.

So fucking sadly that I wanted to scream.

Either that or sob on his behalf.

I didn’t like it, not one bit, and I sure as hell didn’t like that he was thinking of himself as some kind of poor relative.