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I wasn’t alone for long. By the time I fought my way to the top of the bank, a car idled there. Emerging from behind the wheel was the male werewolf I’d met yesterday, the one whose ugliness scared teenagers and whose refusal to leave me alone raised my blood pressure...and woke other long-sleeping parts of my limbic system.
To my combined relief and disappointment, he was dressed now. Because werewolves tended to keep spare clothes in their vehicle. The contrast to my nakedness made his power even more intimidating when his hand clamped down on my right elbow.
“Where to?” he asked, his words quiet. He hadn’t intended to intimidate me, I gathered as he half lifted and half guided me toward the passenger seat. There, he pulled out baggy sweats and steadied me as I wriggled into them. He even knelt to assist my injured ankle through the door.
He stayed down there, too, eyebrows raised while waiting for my answer.
Or at least, I thought his eyebrows were raised during the fleeting glimpse he granted me. After that, something Tank saw on my face must have reminded him of his supposed ugliness, of the brightness here beneath a street light. Because he curved his neck away from me, twisting so far tendons bulged out of his skin.
That wasn’t why I agreed to go with him, of course. I was just reacting to the sure knowledge that my throbbing ankle wouldn’t have been able to press the gas and brake pedals of my own vehicle. Urgency pulsed through me, the need to ensure my sister’s safety.
That was the only reason I didn’t shoot Tank down.
“Head for the highway,” I said against my better judgment. “I’ll tell you where to turn next.”
Directions were our only conversation for the next hour. As if Tank didn’t want to scare me out of the decision to trust him. Still, I regretted my choice the instant the tree-lined curve at the furthest corner of Highlands’ grounds opened out before us. There was the culvert, an easy hiding place for a misused cell phone. And there was a human shape standing next to it, arms crossed and feet spread hip-width apart.
The car slowed as Tank took in the same view. “You didn’t say you were meeting someone.”
“I didn’t think I was.” After all, I’d given Harper strict instructions to ditch the cell phone and go back to bed. Not stand shivering in the cold, dark forest waiting for me.
But that shape was my kid sister. I could tell by the way she swiped hair off her face, the way she shielded her eyes against our headlights. She wasn’t sure this was me. Perhaps recognized that the shape of the car was wrong the same way I’d recognized the shape of her body was right.
Tank slammed on the brakes a good long trek from the culvert. “Stay here. I’ll deal with it.”
The car stank of aggression. He thought Harper was, what, a cop? A backstabbing co-conspirator? I guessed I couldn’t blame him since I’d turned up the radio and ignored his one attempt at questions during the commute.
But—“No. You stay here. That’s my....” Sister. I snapped my teeth closed around the word. Couldn’t imagine why it had almost come out in front of this near stranger in the first place.
After all, the purpose of this trip was to protect Harper from repercussions. Not to throw her under the bus.
Tank waited for me to finish the sentence. When I didn’t, he reached behind the seat and came up with yet more spare clothing.
“I’m already wearing more than I need,” I reminded him. The clothes he’d lent me didn’t fit, but they were functional. Only my feet remained bare.
Tank apparently disagreed. Shaking his head, he continued rolling the sweatshirt up into a bundle. “Padding. For your stick,” he rumbled while pressing the fabric down over the jagged wooden end of the object in question.
As if he’d noticed the scratches on my armpit from using the found crutch to pull myself up the stream bank. My skin warmed, then I focused.
Tank’s padding meant he wasn’t going to raise a stink about me going to speak with my sister solo. This felt too easy.
I cocked my head. “You’ll stay here?”
“No.”
My fists clenched...then relaxed as he continued.
“I’ll drop you off and drive past. Park far enough away to be out of earshot. If you need me, just wave.”
It was impossible to be angry with him after that.
***
“DID IT WORK?”
Harper was bouncing with excitement at being part of something grownup and illicit. So I didn’t have the heart to chastise her for waiting out where anyone could see her. Didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d taken off her gloves too soon—the plastic bag she’d slipped the phone into would carry prints.
But I’d dispose of everything carefully enough so she wouldn’t be implicated. The phone, I noted, had both battery and SIM card removed and dropped into the bag separately. So I leaned in and planted a kiss on her forehead. “You done good, kid.”
“I know.” Harper was dancing around me now, oblivious to the fact I was leaning on a homemade crutch and barely managing to stay upright. But she was fully human. Unlike me, she couldn’t see in the dark. “That guy on the phone totally believed that I was a crazy dog lady. He recommended a trainer and a groomer. You could use a haircut, especially if you’re working with other ‘dogs’ now. Do I get to meet him? Is he cute?”
Harper pranced in closer as she spoke, arm extended as if she intended to grab my hair to illustrate her point. But her eyes weren’t good enough to see where she was going, and I was too tired to take evasive action. Whatever the reason, Harper’s heel came down on the unshod toe of my injured foot.
I hissed. I didn’t mean to, but breath escaped along with a word I tried not to say in Harper’s presence.
“Athena?” She froze. “What’s wrong?”
Then hands were on my shoulder. Big hands. Hot hands.
Tank. I blinked, trying to figure out how he’d materialized out of nowhere.
He hadn’t, obviously. Instead, he’d done exactly what he said he would—parked beyond the reach of wolf ears. Then he’d used the hum of the idling car engine to cover up the sound of his approach.
“Who are you?” Harper demanded. Her fists were clenched. She was going to punch him. This was why I kept my sister far away from werewolves, myself excluded.
I tensed when Tank stepped sideways, one arm slipping down to cradle my waist. The gesture felt far more intimate than I suspect he intended. As if he was doing more than holding me up.
But the important part was how he responded to my sister’s show of aggression. “Tank Morales,” he answered, extending his free arm for a handshake.
I exhaled, tension I hadn’t even realized existed flowing out of me. Tank was being a gentleman. Harper, after a moment of consideration, accepted the peace gesture. “Harper D’Argent,” she replied.
“Good grip,” Tank observed. Which likely meant my sister had tried to squeeze his fingers off.
“Ditto,” Harper answered. Her eyes, when they met mine, were full of questions.
Well, there was no point in pretending we weren’t sisters at this point. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at five,” I told Harper. “We can talk then.”
And, to my surprise, she accepted the brush off. “Okay,” she agreed. “Nice meeting you, Tank.”
She slid me a glance that was full of mischief. Her eyebrows wiggled. Then she took off, heading back to her simple human life.
Together, Tank and I stood watch until my kid sister made it safely back across the lawn and into her dormitory. My foot and ankle both throbbed, but my waist was warm where Tank’s arm encircled it.
The contact felt strangely right.
***
IT WAS SO LATE THAT even the highway was empty by the time we made it back to the exit closest to my apartment. Which meant no nosy neighbors noticed when Tank pulled into an empty parking space and helped me pry myself out of the car.
By this point, one of my toenails had turned purple from where Harper had stepped on it. My ankle had swollen to the size of a cantaloupe. My muscles felt like they’d been attached to lead weights.
For the first time, I sincerely regretted choosing an apartment on the seventh floor.
But even though stairs felt insurmountable at the present moment, I wasn’t about to lead Tank into my ramshackle building. Not that I was ashamed of the books spread across my couch and the dirty dishes in the sink...much. The real issue was who he was and who I was. No way I was inviting a strange werewolf into my den.
“Thanks for the ride,” I dismissed him.
Rather than leaving, Tank waited, head turned slightly away. Silent. Immovable.
I sighed and unlocked the downstairs door.
“Look, you don’t need to come up with me. I’ll be fine,” I told him at the bottom of the dark stairwell. It seemed to rise up into eternity, as if I lived at the top of a lighthouse rather than in an ordinary, if run-down, apartment building.
Tank’s response was diffident. “I don’t have anything better to do.”
I blinked and his arm was around my waist again. I was leaning into him...for no reason other than the fact that each stair loomed approximately ten feet tall. When had they expanded from their original size?
“Step up,” he murmured, and I did. Again and again and again. Time and space tunneled. I lost a few minutes to a strange combination of pleasure and pain.
Then we were on my landing. Tank’s hand rose in front of me, palm up. “Key?”
My growl was half-hearted. “I can open my own door.”
After I fumbled at the lock for ten long seconds, however, me swaying and Tank as solid as his namesake, it became apparent Tank had won that round. Who knew silence could be so effective? He turned the key in the lock, opened my door...and froze.
Adrenaline woke me out of my haze as I took a step forward. “What?”
My nose provided an answer. The air, which should have stunk of carpet that refused to release its dirt plus the musty hint of ceiling mold, was filled with the wildness of wolf. Someone had been in my apartment since I was here last. Had shifted and, if I wasn’t mistaken, had peed on the door jamb.
I’d hoped to have at least until morning before anyone heard about a pair of wolves robbing the local museum. But word, apparently, travelled fast.
“Keep an eye on the stairs,” Tank demanded before pushing me back out the door and closing it in my face.
I rattled the knob. Blinked. Had he seriously just locked me out of my own apartment?
Endless minutes later, the door I was leaning against opened. Tank’s grip on my arm was firm as he pulled me into the overwhelming brightness of my own living room. “There’s no one here. I tried calling Lupe, but my phone doesn’t have service.”
“The office building across the way blocks it.” I waved vaguely. “You’ll get three bars down on the corner.”
Tank lowered me onto the couch, propped my injured leg up on a pillow, then crouched down to my level. His head was averted as he spoke to the wall. “I’m going to lock the door behind me. Stay here. I’ll be back once I’ve made a call.”
The raised hairs on his arms and neck were too long to be human so I didn’t bother arguing with him. Tank was acting like an alpha werewolf, which meant he wouldn’t listen to reason. I’d learned that the hard way. Didn’t need to beat my head against that particular wall ever again.
Instead, I watched him leave. Waited as my own key turned in the lock to protect me from danger that wouldn’t come from that direction.
Then I wrestled my way back to my feet. Hunted down my wallet. Opened the sliding glass doors across from the metal one Tank had locked behind him....
The instant I stepped out onto the seemingly empty balcony, a werewolf dropped down from above.