Hell or High Water (Gemini Book 3) by Hailey Edwards Page B

a few more hours. So Moore and Job have gone into town to purchase a tarp large enough to accommodate them. We need this area contained by sunrise when the humans start waking.”
    “You’re doing a great job.” I patted her arm. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
    She beamed at me with such pride, my chest swelled right alongside hers. Dell’s shoulders hadn’t hunched once since we left Villanow. Her gaze hadn’t touched the ground in submission, except when she’d bumped heads with Graeson at the gas station. Her cocky stride had turned more than one head, and when Moore had dared put a hand on her in a proprietary manner earlier, she had slapped him. Not hard, for a shifter, but he rubbed his jaw thoughtfully after.
    All in all, it was a huge and welcome change in the woman who had cowered before her previous alpha and who had once gone willingly to Moore’s lap with empty eyes because a more dominant wolf had patted his thighs in expectation she would obey.
    Dell was coming into her own, grabbing life by the tail, and despite the grim circumstances, I was glad to be here to see it.
    “The dominance fights start at daybreak.” Anticipation thrummed in her voice. “They would have started tonight if not for all this. The sooner hierarchy is established among our wolves, the sooner they can settle. Having an injured alpha has everyone on edge, and it’s dangerous for us to be so near humans until we’ve bled off some of that aggression.”
    What I wanted to ask was “Haven’t we bled enough already?” but the wargs knew their animals’ needs better than I did. I trusted Dell. If she told me they needed this, then I believed her. “Are you fighting?”
    “Yes,” she said, voice hard. “Graeson protected me from Bessemer. Our ex-alpha has a thing for dominants, and it almost killed me, but it was worth tucking my tail to keep him off my back. Graeson has told me to bide my time for years.” She clenched her jaw. “Well, I bided and this is the time.”
    “I’ll be pulling for you.” I kept my endorsement too quiet for sensitive wolf ears to overhear. “You seem happier now. I’d like that trend to continue.”
    “Me too.” Movement caught her eye, and her voice trailed to a whisper. “I hope everything…”
    A man dressed in tight jeans, polished boots and a sleeveless T-shirt that somehow managed to look more expensive than the last pantsuit I purchased stepped into the clearing. With his hair cut short and a bottle of chilled water in hand, he looked like a model who had been sucked through a portal from the nightclub where he had been partying—if the paper neon band around his wrist was any indication—into an enchanted forest.
    “Oh my God.” Dell blurred into motion, leapt the creek bed and sprung for him, wrapping her legs around his waist and burying her face at his neck. “You’re back. How are you back?”
    Gripping the undersides of her thighs so she didn’t fall, the man picked his way toward me, careful his trendy boots didn’t slip on dry leaves and dump him on his ass.
    “Hey, coz.” Ice glazed his voice. His eyes were arctic blue, and clear of Charybdis’s influence. “Long time no see.” Glancing down at Dell, he softened his expression a fraction. “Does she do this for everyone, or am I special?”
    Hearing the unexpected snark in his voice, Dell reared back in his arms, and the color drained from her face. “You’re not Isaac.” Her nose wrinkled. “You smelled different, but it was close. So close.” She used her warg strength to break his grip, then backed up to me. “You must be Theo.”
    “I am.” He cocked his head. “Who are you? One of Isaac’s girls?”
    Arms linking around her middle, she blinked fast. “No.”
    “This is Dell.” I hooked my arm around her waist, and Theo’s eyebrows climbed his forehead as my open affection with her stunned him. Had I needed more proof he was untainted, he had just given it to me in spades.