Everyone's Mate (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 31

I took a second to notice the wide eyes and arched eyebrows of my onlookers. Rio had stopped leaning and was now avidly watching. A few of the others were giving him questioning glances, flickering back and forth from me to him, as if to say, "Is this kid serious?"

As the wolves beneath me shook the snow from their pelts and snorted, I jumped down quickly, putting all my weight into the jump to slam down hard on the warrior who had butted in. He hadn't expected it. Some part of him must've thought I had given up and retreated to the tree for safety.

The brown wolf yelped loudly as I wrestled him into a submissive position, letting him bite my forearm so that I had the opening to punch him in the throat and nose. It startled him into complacency. I knew they were both holding back – a human couldn't hope to subdue a werewolf. Even at half his strength, it was still difficult to do.

He tapped out soon after, meaning he was done. My arm was bleeding now, but it was worth it.

It was me and Danika left again. Seeing what I had done before, she was finished with fooling around. She rushed me again, catching me off guard with the same tactics from before.

Except when she finally rammed into me, it was with a human shoulder, not tooth or fang.

I fell to the ground with a naked girl on top of me and was so bewildered that she easily got me into a headlock, an easy position to break my neck in. She'd won.

I tapped the snow hard, letting her know I was done. I dropped the stick I had been prepared to hold to her throat. It was useless now. She grinned and shifted back seamlessly into her other form, sitting there wagging her tail.

"Why, Danika?" I asked, pained, rubbing my neck and rolling over. "That was more of you than I ever wanted to see."

The rest of the group were howling with laughter. Rio looked particularly unnerved, settling for a wry grin as he came over and helped me up off the snow-covered ground. 

If he looked a little proud, too, nobody said anything.

"You did good," He whispered in my ear, making my cheeks go bright red before laying a casual arm across my shoulders. I was brought into his warmth and dare I say it – against the frigid winter wind, he was a positive shelter. His form all but blocked out most of the cold, and for a second I reveled in it, leaning further into his side. He smelled like sweat, pine needles, and cinnamon.

"You really did do good," A warrior said, and I recognized this one in one of Rio's family photos. His youngest brother. He looked a lot like Rio, though his hair was a brighter shade of brown and his eyes were green instead. He lacked the war-torn charisma that Rio naturally had, and his complexion was clean of scars. Because of the weather, his cheeks were pink and frost bitten, his breath coming out as steam. "I didn't expect that tree trick. You might just be good to have around."

"Imagine if he still had his wolf," One of the others chortled. "He would've throttled you!"

"No way," Another chimed, and the others quickly shoved him, until it devolved into a wrestling match between all of them.

It was a rare scene. Usually everyone around Rio was stoic and serious. Seeing them play with each other like overgrown puppies put a smile on my face.

I felt his arm tighten around me and looked up to see him watching me, a rare look on his face. It caught me off guard and made me go silent, made my mouth go dry.

"We should get going," Rio said after a moment, pulling his gaze away from mine. "We've got ground to cover and a long time until any of us gets some shut-eye."