Beast (Norseton Wolves #1) (5 page)

Christina pulled her pillow over her head and let out a long sigh.
So much howling.
Maybe the Norseton wolves didn’t need to shift for the full moon, but it seemed that their ladies did. She could hear them out in the desert, baying at the moon. They’d gotten their bites—their own marks—so they shifted now. For the first time. Christina, on the other hand, remained fur-free and two-legged. An undesired mate.

Anton was out there with them. He hadn’t wanted to go, and he told that to whoever it was who’d come to the door. He’d said he had too many things to do, but whoever it was had convinced him that he was needed out there. An extra pair of eyes on the wolves’ mates, who might be disoriented in their new beast forms. They may run off and forget there were women inside them.

They howled and howled and howled. She’d never hated the sound so much, never hated being a wolf so much before that moment.

The pack must have moved farther away, because the howls became softer and were spaced farther apart.

Finally, sleep overtook her troubled mind.

___

Christina dreamed of her reluctant mate. Of those full lips on her skin. Of his hands on her feminine swells. Legs entwined, sharing a bed and—ultimately, their bodies. She’d never been the forward type before—had never initiated affection, knowing she wasn’t likely to get any—but how else was she going to get any in return from him? Maybe if she touched him, he’d understand. She had to get him to touch her, like the wolf in her dreams. The one who held her so gently but so firmly while he pressed into her, sating his desire and filling her up. At the moment, she might even be content with just holding hands. At least that would be
something
.

She lay awake in the dark. Something had pulled her out of her sleep, so she listened.

Grumbling. Then swearing, coming from the front room. She pushed up onto her forearms and canted her head.

“Fucking rain,” came Anton’s mutter.

Yes. Rain. She heard the patters against the window now. Winter rain in the desert.
Is that an unusual thing?
It wouldn’t have been back at home. Might even have been snowing. Had felt like it was going to when she’d left.

She scooted to the side of the bed and turned herself out of it. She squinted through the window and saw the rain bouncing off the stones in the empty flowerbed next to the walkway. Probably wouldn’t rain for long, but it was a nice sound to sleep to. Rain had always made her yearn for the bed. Sleep could wait a moment, though.

She headed toward the sliver of light beneath the bedroom door and pulled the knob. From the adjacent bathroom, she could hear Anton’s grumbles. She padded closer, enough to catch his reflection in the mirror he stood in front of. His injured eye was closest to the door, so he couldn’t see her yet.

He was covered in mud. It was packed into his hair, stuck to every crevice and bulging muscle. He closed his eyelids and rubbed a washcloth across them. The lid of the left eye, though badly scarred, along with his forehead and cheek on that side, did actually move, though not as much. When his eyes were open, his left eye’s lid was always at half-mast, as if mourning its own loss. It was a loss. If both of his eyes were the same deep, dark brown of the right one, she probably wouldn’t be able to look him in the face. He’d be too intense. So handsome—beautiful, even—but hard to look at for long.

Letting the cloth fall away, he blinked several times, and his head turned in her direction. “I wouldn’t have seen you if you’d backed away,” he said. “But you sighed. I heard you.”

“I did?”

He grunted and turned his face away from the mirror. “Can’t see worth a shit, but I can still hear.”

“If I sighed, it probably wasn’t for the reason you think.”

“Humor me and tell me why, then.”

“I—” Christina stepped closer and nudged the door open a bit more. Why was she hiding in the dark? “If I sighed, it was because you’re naked.”

“Happens a lot with shifters.”

“Maybe, but I’m only concerned with one particular shifter, and he’s naked and muddy and maybe it’s not such a bad sight.” If his nose was as good as his ears, he already knew what she thought of his body.

He turned, slowly, and leaned against the counter. Somehow, she managed to keep her gaze above his waist, which was a feat indeed, considering he was making no effort to conceal himself, other than the scarred half of his face.

“How’d you get so muddy?”

“Had to yank my cousin’s mate away from a flashflood. She wasn’t doing a very good job of looking around. She was flailing a lot when I forced her back. That’s most of the mud. I guess the rest is from the run back to the house. The rest of them are still out there. Frolicking, I guess.” He rolled his eyes—rather, one of them. The blind one didn’t make it all the way around.

“What’s so bad about frolicking?”

“Nothing, when you don’t have to get up early to go to work. We’re spread thin as it is at Norseton, with there being only the five of us. We’re in charge of fleshing out the security staff, but given our constraints, we don’t have a hell of a lot of options. Hard to be picky when so few people are qualified for the job.”

“So you’ll be gone all day tomorrow?”

“Most of it. My shift’s between ten and ten, monitoring traffic at the gate and keeping an eye on all the video feeds.”

“Sounds busy.”

“It can be. It’s why I’m always so behind on chores. I was going to hire someone. Never got around to it for the same reason why we have trouble finding qualified guards.”

“Gotta find people who can keep secrets.”

“Yep.” He pushed away from the sink, walked to the tub, and turned the water on. He stepped into the shower and pulled the curtain closed without another word, but she wasn’t done. Was she just supposed to go back to sleep, right when she’d finally gotten him to talk a little?

She swallowed down her nerves and moved farther into the little room. “Um. You said there were jobs to be had in Norseton.”

“Yeah. Typical domestic stuff is easy to come by. There’s always a lot of that to go around. Just look at the bulletin board in the square. Folks are looking for nannies and housekeepers. A few of the stores are hiring clerks, too.”

“I don’t think I want to be a nanny. I’d like a break from that. Housekeeping would be okay, but it would be like having my own little business. I don’t think I’d like that.”

“Don’t want to have to chase down folks to get your paycheck, huh?”

“I sure don’t. I’ll consider it, though.”

“What about a clerk job?”

“Maybe. I guess it depends on what they’re selling and whether I know anything about it.”

“I think you’ll pick it up, whatever it is, quickly. Shouldn’t be a problem for a woman who knows how to put machines together.”

“That’s hardly the same thing.”

“Did you have any schooling at all?”

“I finished twelfth grade, but that’s it.”

“Well, I think that’s enough for most folks. All the guys in the pack have GEDs. I wonder what you could have gotten into if you’d gone to college, though. Had some formal education in engineering.”

“I’d probably end up back at home, with a fancy diploma and a bunch of someone else’s little boys to tend to. When the mate call comes, no one cares how smart or educated you are. You pack up and go, because you might not have another chance.”

“Is that what you all believe?”

“It’s the truth. I’ve seen it time and time again.”

“You don’t have to take a mate. You know that, don’t you? There’s no good reason to, unless you just want to let your wolf out. You could take a—a
human
lover.”

Was that a note of hesitancy in his voice?

“I’ve considered that,” she said. “In spite of how much I dislike the culture sometimes, I want to be a wolf. I like to think that I could be a
better
wolf than most.”

“I think you already are,” he said softly. He nudged the shower curtain aside a bit and put his head out. His wet hair clung to his face and over his eyes, making him look even more winsome, if such a thing was possible. “I hate to ask, but since you’re here—”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Can you scrub the mud off the middle of my back? I’m sure there’s some there that I can’t reach.”

“Oh.” She nodded eagerly and took the cloth he held out, pleased to do something—
anything
—for him. All he had to do was ask.

He pushed the curtain a bit more to the side, nudged the shower head to spray away from the curtain, and moved a bit more toward the tiled wall. “We can try not to flood the bathroom.”

His movement away from the tub side meant she had to put her shins right up to it to reach him, and even that was a strain. He was so tall, she had to grab hold of his waist to leverage herself as she scrubbed.

She started at his shoulders and worked down his tanned flesh, pausing every so often to finger bruises and scars and ponder how he’d earned them. At one wide, jagged scar just over his ass, she just had to ask. “Did you get that as man or wolf?”

His buttocks clenched as she traced along its ragged outline. “Uh, man. I rarely get injured in wolf form.”

“What happened?”

“Got pushed off a roof during a fight. Hit my back on the side of a garbage skip when I fell.”

She cringed.

“Par for the course, given what I do for a living. But don’t worry, I’m pretty resilient.”

“I guess you are.” She scrubbed across the base of his back and swiped a trail of soap across the top of his ass.

“I thought I got all the mud there.”

“Uh, just a little spot.” She thrust the cloth toward him and reached for a hand towel.

He laced his hands beneath his hair and lifted it off his neck, then turned in a slow circle. “See any more?”

As she dried between her fingers, her gaze fell down the length of his body, focusing on the thick, heavy shaft between his legs when he paused.

“I don’t think I’m muddy there, little wolf.” He pressed his hand to his balls, shifting left and right as if to check the crevices.

“Uh.”

“You seeing something I don’t? I’m relying on you to be my eyes right now.”

“Uh.”

He was growing right before her eyes. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and raised her gaze to his face.

He wasn’t hiding from her now, but why would he? Everything else about him was bare and exposed. Why not his face? His scars?

“You like looking at me, Christina?”

“I thought I told you that already.”

He reached past the spray of water and turned off the shower’s flow. “Some parts of me more than others, huh?”

She grabbed a towel off of the linen closet’s shelf and tossed it to him.

He dried his face before stepping out, and wrung the water out of his hair. Shoulders next, followed by arms, belly. His thighs and calves in turn. He shook out the towel and dried his back, watching her all the while. “You didn’t answer me.”

“I didn’t think you really wanted an answer.”

“I wouldn’t waste the words if I didn’t want some in return.” He pressed the wadded terrycloth between his legs and rubbed it along his lengthening erection.

“
Umm
.” She dragged her tongue across her dry lips and ground her palms against her eyes. “Stop doing that, and maybe I’d be able to answer you.”

“Doing what? Drying off?”

“No. Teasing me.”

“How am I teasing you? I’m sure you’ve seen dozens of naked wolves in your time.”

“I have, but none of them were you.”
And none of them could ever hope to be anything remotely as fine.

“One dick’s more or less the same as another.” He eased past her, his hard shaft brushing against her arm briefly as he crossed into the hallway.

He was all the way in the bedroom before her brain defogged enough for her to come up with a retort. “It’s not just your—your
dick
.” She flicked the light switch off and followed him into the bedroom.

He stood in front of the dresser, adjusting the cord of his eye patch around his wet hair. His erection was still at half-mast in the mirror. He opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of sweatpants.

“Why won’t you take a chance?” she asked.

“On what?”

“On
me
. Give me a try.”

“You’re not something to sample and play with. Not a candy in a chocolate box to be bitten into and put back if the filling’s not to my liking.”

“You’re my mate. I was picked for you. That shouldn’t be an issue.”

He stepped into the pants and bumped the drawer shut. “You ever wonder if he picked wrong?”

“Not even for a minute.” She cringed at her hasty response, and shoved her hands into the pockets of her dress, pondering. “Well, maybe a minute.”

“See, you
do
have doubts.”

“Not for the reasons you’re thinking. From the way you looked at me at first, I thought maybe Adam might have picked wrong. You were thinking about sending me back before you even talked to me.”

“Any wolf with half a scruple would have done the same.”

“Why?”

“Come on, Christina. You didn’t come all the way out here thinking you were going to be saddled with defective goods. I know that for certain.”

Defective goods?
“You mean your eye? For heaven’s sake. I came out here hoping to be useful to some wolf—appreciated—and if he liked me a little on top of that, it would have just been icing on the cake.”

“You sell yourself short.”

“Looks like that makes two of us, then. You don’t think you deserve someone?”

“Deserve? No. Hoped there might be someone for me someday? Well, maybe a tiny little part of me wanted that. But deserve? I wouldn’t put that word and you in the same sentence,
ever
.”

She let out a long groan through clenched teeth and fixed her gaze on the ceiling. Contractor white.
It needs paint
. Something soft and mellow to soothe her uptight wolf. “Isn’t it my choice, too, Anton? Don’t I have a say?”

“I’m not going to let you throw your life away.”

“Why do you think I’d be so miserable, huh? You think I’m so completely petty and vain that I’d allow myself to be distracted by what amounts to a very minor imperfection, so much so that I’d outright refuse a match? A
good
match?”