“What are you doing here?” asked Shaya, flustered—and annoyed with herself for being flustered. She knew she sounded particularly cranky, because she
was
cranky. Menstrual cramps could do that to a girl. “Are you following me?”
“It’s harder than I thought.”
“If I were you, I’d do the intelligent thing and fuck off,” she growled.
“No.”
She growled again. “Has anyone ever told you you’re unbelievably stubborn?”
“Frequently. But, really, it’s not stubbornness. It’s just that I can say no without feeling guilty.”
His lopsided smile miraculously made her want to smile back, but she would
not
. “What do you want?” His eyes went slumberous.
“You. In my bed. Naked. And wet and ready for me.” When she gaped at him, he shrugged innocently. “You asked.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, seeking patience. But she simply wasn’t a patient person. “I don’t have time for this. Move out of my way.”
“I’m here to help.”
Her words came out through clenched teeth. “Nick, not today, okay.” The asshole actually put a jar of Bolognese sauce in her cart. She returned it to the shelf with a huff. “You can harass me again tomorrow.”
“I don’t harass you, I just show up wherever you are.”
She growled when he put the sauce back into her cart and also a bottle of garlic oil. “Stop putting things in my cart!”
Picking up on her wolf’s unusual prickliness, he frowned. Sure Shaya and her wolf were snippy, but this was different. “What’s wrong with your wolf? She’s a little…off today. Come to think of it, so is your scent.” He leaned in and brushed his nose against her neck. “
Oh
.”
“Yeah,” she said with a sardonic smile. At least one good thing would come from her menstrual cycle starting: he’d leave her alone for a few days, knowing seducing her wouldn’t be possible. And he wouldn’t send her a message similar to the one he’d sent last night that went a little something like:
If I was lying in bed with you now, if I had my hands on your body, where would you want me to touch you first?
Her traitorous body had responded to that, just like it was responding to his very presence now. But getting him to go away would be simple enough. Not simply because seduction wouldn’t be possible, but because no wolf liked to be around menstruating female shifters. Shifter PMS was a bitch—a time filled with excessive fatigue, mood swings, irritability, cramps, bloating, aching breasts, tension, increased appetite, sleeplessness, and hot flashes.
“So that’s why you’re snippier than usual,” said Nick. “It explains what your pretty ass is doing out of bed so early, too—you usually have major trouble getting up in the morning.” It also explained why her breasts were bigger than usual. But he wouldn’t comment on that. He wasn’t stupid.
She gasped, indignant. “I get out of bed just fine each morning, thanks. And I’m
not
snippy.”
If he was sensible, he’d walk away. Female wolves with PMS were likely to eat someone’s face off at the slightest provocation. But this was
his
female wolf. And right now, she needed someone to take care of her, whether she’d admit it or not. He curled an arm around her shoulders and used his free hand to push the cart. “Come on, baby. Tell me what stuff you need, and I’ll help you get this over with. Then you can go home and lounge on the sofa all day. Doesn’t that sound good?”
It did, actually. Nonetheless, she snapped, “I’m perfectly capable of putting items in a freaking shopping cart.”
“Of course you are. But if I help, you’ll get out of here sooner.” Despite her grumbles and the string of unprovoked insults she flung at him as they strolled down aisle after aisle, Nick aided her in loading the cart and then helped her bag the items. When he offered to pay, he thought she’d break his jaw.
“I’m not a charity case,” she hissed. Slightly mollified by his apologetic look, Shaya fished the money from her purse and held it out to the cashier…who was staring lustfully at Nick and wearing a seductive smile. Shaya cleared her throat particularly loud. “Do you see something that you like, because he doesn’t,” she spat. Apparently the guy waiting to be served behind her thought that was pretty funny. Shaya wasn’t at all amused.
Holding the grocery bags with one arm, Nick gently but firmly took Shaya’s hand and pulled her to him. “Ready to go home, baby?” Her response was a low growl that made him smile. As she ranted in the parking lot about how much she liked to walk thank-you-very-much, he placed the bags into the trunk of his car and then guided her into the passenger seat.
She continued ranting all the way home, and he did what any wise male shifter did when his mate had a PMS-induced tantrum—he kept his mouth shut and nodded along. She was still ranting when they pulled up outside her house. When he retrieved her bags from the trunk of his car, Shaya went to take them from him, but he shook his head and advanced up her driveway.
Shaya growled. “I’m—”
“Perfectly capable of carrying your own bags,” he finished soothingly. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t do it for you, does it?”
“Stop with the therapist tone!” Realizing that something about the yard was different, Shaya took a moment to study her surroundings. “Did you mow the lawn?”
Nick shrugged. “It kind of needed it. You only just noticed? I did it yesterday while you were at work.”
Huffing, she marched to the front door and unlocked it. “Do you have to be so fucking nice and helpful?” she growled.
“Now, Shay—”
“It’s hard to hate you when you’re nice and helpful!”
“Good. I don’t want you to hate me.”
Ignoring the murderous look Shaya shot him, he walked right on into the house like he had every right. She followed him, watching with growing agitation—like she wasn’t agitated enough!—as he began puttering around her kitchen. “Okay, look, you’ve earned a gold sticker for ass-kissing. Now get the hell out and—” She gave a startled yelp as he lifted her, sat her on the kitchen counter, and then stood between her legs.
Nick handed her some Tylenol and a glass of water. “Here. Take these.” It was most likely sheer stubbornness that made her hesitate. “You’re in pain, baby. Take them.”
There was enough authority in the latter words to make her bite back a snappy comment. Her wolf reluctantly backed down too. Conceding to herself that she did in fact need the pills and that refusing would be stupid, she sighed inwardly and snatched them from his hand. Once she’d washed them down with the water, he took her glass and placed it on the counter.
“Good girl.” He moved his hand to her stomach and gently massaged it, hating that she was in pain and feeling totally helpless. “Now…would you rather curl up on the sofa or go lie down in bed?”
“I’m not an invalid.”
“Every male shifter knows that when his mate has PMS, it’s best for her to curl up on the sofa or in bed and enjoy doing absolutely nothing.”
“I’m not your mate.” Her wolf sassily swished her tail at her for that offensive comment.
Wearing a reprimanding expression, Nick
tsk
ed. “Yes, you are, baby,” he insisted softly, tapping the tip of her nose. “You always will be, no matter what. You were made for me, belong to me in a way you could never belong to anyone else.” He soothingly combed his hand through her red corkscrew curls. “I love how soft your hair is. Like silk.” The compliment seemed to disarm her, and he got the feeling that she hadn’t gotten a lot of them in her life. “What will it be: the sofa or the bed?”
She sighed, slumping in defeat. “Sofa.” Her eyes widened as he curled her legs around him and carried her to the living area. He placed her gently on the sofa, where she immediately curled up like a fetus, and handed her the TV remote. Instead of leaving the house, he disappeared back into the kitchen. Hearing the banging of the cupboard doors, she realized he was unpacking her groceries. A part of her wanted to yell at him to get out, but then she’d have to do the unpacking herself, and she’d much rather stay where she was. So, instead, she turned on the TV and began flicking through the channels until she found something she wanted to watch.
When Nick returned to the living room a little while later, it was to find that she was crying. Putting the chocolate bar and cup of coffee he’d brought in onto the table in front of her, he crouched down and cradled her face with his hands. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“This damn movie,” she said, sniffling. “The dog just died.”
It took everything he had not to smile. He kissed her hair. “Maybe you should watch something else.”
“I can’t believe they called the movie
My Dog Skip—
it sounds like such a happy movie, doesn’t it? You don’t think the dog’s going to die.”
He swiped her tears away with his thumbs. “That’s a good point.”
“I know you’re trying not to laugh, Beavis.”
“How about we talk about something else? Distract you from the movie?” She looked about to snort at that, but then her expression shifted from annoyed to speculative. “You want to ask me something.” She shrugged, as if it wasn’t important. “Ask.”
Shaya bit her lip, unsure. When she noticed that Nick’s eyes had tracked the movement and he was staring at her mouth, she quickly released her lip from her teeth. His eyes moved to hers, daring her to ask her question. “Why were you sent to juvie?”
He sucked in a breath. “Ask me anything but that.”
“I want to know.” His hands slipped away from her face as his expression closed down. She could almost feel him pulling away emotionally. When he went to stand, she fisted her hand in his T-shirt to stop him. “You can’t expect to earn someone’s trust if you keep things from them.”
Knowing she was right, he sighed tiredly. “Why do you want to know? Do you really need more reasons to think badly of me?”
“You can’t call me your mate and then deny me the right to know these things,” she said softly. “Tell me.” A minute or so later, he finally nodded, but she didn’t release him.
Nick inhaled deeply, preparing himself to go back to a time that he hated—preparing himself to reveal something that might make his job to earn a place in her life even harder. “I wasn’t born in the Ryland Pack. My family is originally from a pack in Manhattan. They don’t have a plot of land; they purchased an apartment block that’s near a wooded area. The entire pack lives inside the block, and they use the wooded area to run in. One day, I was walking with my sister through the woods when we came across four human males. Their ages ranged from seventeen to twenty-one.”
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen. My sister was twelve. They knew what we were, and like many humans, they weren’t too happy about our existence. But they were happy enough to rape my sister—or, at least, to try. Two of them held me back, wanting me to watch, while another pinned my sister down. They threatened her that if she shifted to her wolf form, the others would kill me. In turn, they threatened me that if
I
shifted, they’d kill
her
. The fourth one was ready to record the whole thing.”
When his eyes took on a faraway quality, she prodded, “Nick?”
His focus returned to her. “I shifted. My wolf was too enraged to hold back, and I didn’t want him to. They were going to hurt her anyway, so obeying them seemed pointless. I killed the kid who’d tried to rape her, and I badly maimed two of the others. The fourth human ran off and got help.” He waited for disgust to contort her expression, or for fear to enter her eyes. But she said nothing, and her expression remained blank.
Hopeful, he continued. “I might have been executed rather than sent to juvie, but the video clearly showed what the humans’ intentions had been, and that it was self-defense. Still, I was thirteen and I’d killed a human and maimed two others on my own. The human authorities were nervous about it. I think they thought the likelihood was that I wouldn’t get out of juvie alive, so problem solved.”
“But you did get out.” And she was proud of him for that. How could he have thought she’d judge him for doing what most shifters would have done in his situation? Hell, Trey’s wolf went feral pretty often.
“I quickly realized that the guards were being paid to target certain shifters—most likely by relatives of the humans who’d been hurt at the shifter’s hands. So I encouraged all the shifters in the place to band together into one pack rather than existing in small groups. It gave us more protection. While each one of us always had someone looking out for them, it made it extremely hard for the guards to target anybody.”
“And you were their leader, their Alpha,” she easily guessed. He was a natural leader. He truly was born to be an Alpha…and yet he’d left that position behind for her. The question was for how long?
“At first, no. Another wolf acted as Alpha, but the other shifters didn’t really follow Merrick. They just didn’t want to challenge him, didn’t want a psycho on their case. And he made everybody’s life miserable in that way that bullies do.”
“So
you
challenged him.”
“I killed him.” And he’d always hate himself for it. “I didn’t mean to. I really, really didn’t. But he wouldn’t submit, wouldn’t back down. He was
enjoying
the fight, the blood, even the pain—it was weird. Merrick was totally messed up in the head. It went too far.”
Shaya’s voice was soft, nonjudgmental. “If he wouldn’t submit, what choice did you have?”
“It’s still more blood on my hands, Shay. Like I said, Merrick was messed up…but did he really deserve to die for that? He was only fifteen years old.”
“And you were only thirteen, and you were in a life-or-death situation. You chose your own life over his. Anyone else would have done the same thing.” To her dismay, he didn’t look convinced of that; too much guilt stained his expression. “It can’t have been easy to tell me all of that. Thank you.” He simply shrugged. “How did you end up becoming Alpha of the Ryland Pack?”
“My family moved there while I was in juvie—they didn’t want to be near the bad memories. Unfortunately, it was taken over by another Alpha three years after they settled there. He was the type to rule by fear and intimidation. He punished the slightest transgressions, caused divides within the pack, isolated the weaker members, and forced many of them to fight in the underground fighting club he owned—including Eli.