| |
The water felt twice as cold when I slipped back into it a second time. Meanwhile, my mind whirled with questions.
Would I be helping my team or hindering them if I followed Marina’s orders? Was Marina really just a Sleeper? Or did those flower petals point at something deeper and darker—a bona fide member of the fae?
Big-picture, those issues were important. Still, my primary concern was for Harper.
“Your sister will not be impacted by my actions,” Marina had told me. But her words were open to interpretation.
And Harper would trust her teacher implicitly. Marina could have gotten here by car much faster than my best swimming strokes carried me....
So I was annoyed rather than glad when the figure waiting for me at Lupe’s dock materialized into Tank. He held out a huge, fluffy towel as I splashed ashore. “You need a shower.”
Why did everyone think I stunk today?
“Your lips,” he continued, “are blue.”
Oh. Tank was responding to the chill that seemed to have sunk into my bones. I pulled the towel around me, basking in its warmth. “Thanks. But I’ve got to check on Harper....”
I turned away, but Tank was faster. “Is there a problem?” He was in front of me again, but not looking at me. Instead, he tapped at his cell phone for a few seconds before adding: “Kira says they’re together. Harper and Clara are both fine.”
“You’re sure?” Air finally filled my lungs. The lightness in my head receded.
Tank cocked his head. “Positive. Is there a problem?”
“Maybe. Where are they? I need to talk to her.”
“Hold on.” Tank’s hands came down on my shoulders when I started to step around him a second time. “I’ll ask Kira to keep her eyes open. But you need a hot shower. And to eat. Training starts back up in forty-five minutes.”
There was a grocery bag on the ground, I noted. One that smelled enticingly savory, like garlic and cheese and something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Tank hadn’t only brought me a towel. He’d collected a lunch for me also. That additional scent might have been joy.
Perhaps that’s why I pushed back the decision about Marina’s job to be made later. Chose to trust Kira with my sister’s safety, even though I’d never outsourced the critical task previously. Still, I had questions. “Do you think Kira could hold off a Sleeper? Salt worked for me last time....”
Tank’s eyebrows rose. “Is there something you want to tell me?” But he was already thumb typing. Glancing at the screen, I saw that he was passing on my instructions, along with a note not to scare the younger girls.
“Yeah,” I decided. My chest was tight, but I nodded. “There is something I want to tell you.”
Because, if I was taking this job, not for my own sake but for the sake of the Samhain Shifters, then someone else on the team ought to know about it. And I was ready, finally, to spill my guts.
Only, Tank apparently wasn’t ready. “Good. I’ll warm up your lunch while you shower.” He pushed me before him, away from the lake and toward my cabin. “Then we can talk.”
***
I DRIED MYSELF OFF in the bathroom while listening to the homey sounds of a man puttering around my cabin’s tiny kitchen. To my surprise, the noise didn’t impinge on my privacy. Not when the scent of hot soup filtered in through a crack in the door.
Still, I braced myself for chill when I slipped out of the steamy bathroom. Last night, I’d shivered beneath the comforter. Now, despite a hot shower, the lake’s chill still lingered in my bones.
But Tank had figured out how to turn on the heat, a feat I hadn’t been capable of. As I exited the bathroom, I found myself shedding a layer rather than hunting down another one.
“There’s no table, but I think we should eat inside anyway,” Tank rumbled, gaze meeting mine without any of the hesitation he’d shown previously. In fact, his eyes were hot now, as if I wasn’t the only one who’d been aware of my nakedness one thin wall away from his domestic activities. “You need more time to warm up.”
As Tank spoke, he motioned toward a colorful cloth spread across a patch of floor that had been filthy this morning but was now as pristine as it was going to get without mopping. Atop the cloth sat a bowl of soup and a sandwich garnished with something frilly and green.
“This is perfect.” And I was starving. So starving I managed to tear my eyes away from Tank’s broad shoulders long enough to focus on the lunch he’d made.
Still, it took only three mouthfuls before the issue of Marina bubbled back up inside me. Harper’s safety. The danger of a Sleeper so close to the Samhain Shifter’s home base.
And yet...when I set down my spoon and swiveled slightly to face my companion, something entirely different came out of my mouth. “Will you tell me why you cut your face?”
“If you eat, I’ll talk.” Tank’s eyes were smiling, even though his mouth was a straight line.
“Okay.” I took a big bite of the sandwich, which involved chicken and cheese and pesto, the whole thing just shy of too hot to handle. It was the most delicious morsel I’d ever eaten. I somehow knew Tank had assembled it himself.
The story he told, however, made me lose my appetite.
The tragedy started with pack drama far worse than what I’d lived through. An old alpha was replaced by his son, the latter weak and foolish. “I was strong enough that I could have overthrown him and seized the role of pack leader,” Tank rumbled. “But it would have been the wrong move.”
“So you messed up your own face?” The solution made no sense to me.
“Eat your soup,” Tank demanded. Only when I was once again filling my belly did he delve deeper into awfulness that thoroughly confirmed my distrust of packs. Three different alpha-leaning males had wanted Tank to mate with their daughters. They promised him support if he overthrew the new leader of the pack.
“It stank of civil war,” Tank explained in his deep rumble. “No matter which daughter I chose, the other fathers would have torn us down. Plus, that wasn’t the kind of mating I was prepared to take part in.” He paused, watching to make sure I sipped soup, before adding: “Then our alpha found out.”
The pack leader killed one of the traitorous fathers. Evicted the two others. “I was worth too much to evict,” Tank said, tone flat rather than prideful. “Doctoring skills are in short supply among werewolves. Lawyer skills too. But our alpha couldn’t risk me rising up against him. He gave me a choice.”
Tank had walked through door B, the door that let him stay with his pack. He’d shifted into wolf form and excised the charisma he’d been born with, scratching at his own face to do so. The external damage was just window dressing, the real changes within himself.
He hadn’t removed his power, the alpha side that Ryder had reacted to. But the enticing charm that drew pack females to him? When Tank was finished, every potential mate turned up her nose in disgust.
“But that doesn’t make sense.” Despite myself, my index finger rose to slide down across the bump on Tank’s nose. “This”—I traced the scar under his eye next—“and this are so minor. Small blemishes don’t change who you really are. I barely even see them.”
“Because you’re special.”
I shook my head. “No. You don’t understand your own appeal. You....”
I gave him no warning before my face inched forward to join my fingers. I was half in Tank’s lap by the time my lips met his lips.
***
IF I’D THOUGHT OUR first kiss was incendiary, this one was a supernova. Hands gliding over skin. My front pressed up against his hard muscles. My fingers found a zipper and pulled.
Then something started beeping. Loud and adamant.
I ignored it. Grabbed hold of his collar to draw myself closer. Our skin needed to touch. My body needed....
The beeping continued. “Shit.” Air pooled between us as Tank dragged a cell phone out of his pocket. I winced at how easily he’d pushed me aside.
But his pupils were dilated when his gaze met mine. One broad hand cupped my chin and he feathered my lips with a final kiss so soft it was almost intangible.
“We’re late. Lupe’s pissed.”
Oh. Oh. I glanced over his shoulder at the kitchen clock. It felt like mere minutes since we’d set foot in my cabin, but the elapsed time had actually been over an hour.
And I hadn’t managed to warn Tank about Marina or beg a favor for the sake of my sister. “I have to tell you things and ask you things.”
“We can walk and talk.”
We did, Tank slowing after the first moment to match my shorter stride. Our fingers curled together while I relayed the bare bones of my meeting with Marina. “She’s fae,” I asserted.
Because Marina had danced around the issue of whether or not she was a Sleeper. And my gut suggested human allies of fae wouldn’t have quite so many skills.
I expected denial. After all, Tank was a pack wolf and Lupe had said there were no fae present before Samhain.
Instead, Tank nodded. “You were there. I trust your judgment.”
My throat tightened, not with disappointment but with something sweeter and fiercer. “She’s Harper’s history teacher. I’m worried...”
“That she’ll do something to your sister.” Tank finished my sentence, making the leap that had been obvious to me.
I nodded. “Harper needs to be somewhere safe. Somewhere Marina won’t look for her. I was going to suggest your pack, but now that you’ve told me about your alpha....”
“The former alpha.” Tank’s body language radiated purpose. “I knew he wouldn’t last, and he didn’t. The new alpha is Kira’s brother-in-law. A good wolf. Honorable. Our pack is thriving.”
I could see the others waiting for us through the trees now. I needed to stick to the point. Still, my hand rose to feather across Tank’s face a second time. “Was it worth it?”
His answer was immediate. “One hundred percent.”
Then, before I could ask, he offered. “My pack will be glad to keep an eye on Harper and Clara for the rest of their vacation. Kira’s brought humans home before. It won’t be a problem hiding lupine natures.” His voice dropped to a growl. “No one would dare invade our land.”
I swallowed down fear of pack and accepted that this was the exact solution I’d hoped for. “Thank you. I owe you.”
He shook his head, curt and adamant. “You owe me nothing. We’ll talk to Lupe, explain the situation, then the two of us will....”
Now I was the one shaking my head so hard that Tank fell silent. The heat of Lupe’s gaze bored into us. We weren’t just late, we were dawdling within plain sight.
Still, Tank focused on me alone. “Problem?”
Memories of Lupe’s gun made me wince away from Tank’s game plan. I barely knew the woman. Tank was the only one I trusted. “I’m not ready to share this with anyone other than you.”
Tank’s cheek twitched as if he disagreed with me. But he didn’t argue. “Okay. Then we’ll make an excuse for the two of us to be gone....”
“No.” I shut him down again, knowing I was driving a wedge into this utterly sweet but oh-so-fragile thing germinating between us. “Marina might be spooked if you come with me. This is something I need to do alone.”
I held my breath, expecting an explosion. Men, especially werewolf men, didn’t deal well with disagreement. They hated being told that a mere woman was going to solve a problem on her lonesome.
But Tank only closed his eyes for one split second, exhaling slowly. And when he met my gaze again he nodded. “If that’s what you need, I’ll help make it happen. But call me. Please. If you need any help.”