Free Head Above Water (Gemini: A Black Dog #2) by Hailey Edwards Page B

my head at the pale spot, but he kept it covered. “What is that?” I’d noticed it the first time we met, but I had yet to ask what it meant. “Can I see?”
    His fingers peeled aside, and I got my first clear look at the full design of his tattoo.
    A tiny figure in white ink stood in the pitch black forest with her head tilted back and hair spilling down her back. She stared up at the sky, where the moon ought to be.
    “I had it done days before she went missing,” he said softly. “It was her idea. She never did like how dark and lonely the woods looked on my arms, so I promised to ink some life into them, starting with her.”
    Throat tightening in sympathy—how could he stand living where his sister had been murdered when I couldn’t stomach the sight of water not inside a bottle?—I nudged the topic away from his loss and back to warg business. “Is it normal for betas to evolve?”
    “Yes.” The change in topic relaxed him and chased the pallor from his cheeks. “It makes for a difficult transition, because it means more clashes with the alpha as those same primal urges to protect and lead emerge.”
    I scoffed. “From where I’m sitting I don’t see Bessemer doing much of either.”
    “The alpha tendencies manifest in us all differently, and he’s a power among our kin.” A breeze ruffled his hair. “He wants the best for his people, I still believe that, but he doesn’t see that strangling their free will makes them weaker, not stronger.”
    “Hmm.” I cut my eyes toward him. “You don’t say.”
    Delicious irony would have made me laugh if not for the circumstances of our rendezvous.
    His lips flattened in a mulish line. “Everything I do, I do to protect the pack.”
    I drew my knees to my chest and rested my chin on top of them. “Wouldn’t Bessemer say the same if I asked him?”
    He twisted so he faced me head-on. “You just accused him of being a tyrant, and now you’re comparing us?”
    “Yes.”
    “I want to be insulted that you think I’m a dictator in the making, but I doubt you would have made that climb for Bessemer.” His eyes narrowed. “Yet you made it for me.”
    “I know what it’s like to blame yourself for the choices you’ve made, to doubt they were the right ones even when you felt there were no other options at the time.” I hugged my legs closer. “I didn’t want you to be alone.” I bit my lip to keep from adding, Like I was.
    That tiny crack in my armor allowed the fingers of the past to dig into my memory and pry it wide open.
    “You’re too slow.” Trilling laughter. “Hurry up.”
    “My foot hurts.” I limped as sand clotted the wound and salt stung my eyes. “I want to go home.”
    “Don’t be a baby.” Lori twirled under the moonlight. “I’m going in the water. Yell if you see Mom or Dad coming.”
    “No.” I crossed my arms over my chest, shifting foot to foot, wishing she would get her toes wet already so we could get back before our parents noticed us missing. “Let’s just go back. Before something bad happens.”
    “Ellis.”
    I snapped to attention. “Sorry.”
    The weight of his arm blanketed my shoulders. I wasn’t sure when he had gotten so close, but I didn’t pull away when he tucked me against his side, or when he urged my head onto his shoulder so he could rest his cheek on my hair. I sat there, stunned, and allowed him to hold me.
    Aunt Dot tried to comfort me when the past rode me hard, but I pushed her away, not feeling I deserved for her to make everything okay when Lori would never be held or touched by a loved one again. Isaac got in a hug here or a squeeze there, short and fast enough I didn’t have time to register what he was doing until he was gone.
    I’m not sure why, but for the first time since the night I lost my sister and cried myself to sleep on my mother’s lap, I entrusted another person with a portion of my sorrow. This man who mourned his own loss, so sharp and fresh, he was unable to