Loner (Norseton Wolves #2) Read online

  Fuck. She ground her palms against her gravely eyes and blew out a breath. “It was a logical conclusion.”

  “Based on what?”

  “Life experience.”

  “I—”

  Whatever he thought to say, he let fall off. Maybe he didn’t know what to say either, and for the moment, that suited her fine, because neither did she.

  She burrowed her face against the fluffy pillow. “Finish your show.”

  He didn’t move at first, but after a few seconds, turned the television back on, this time with the sound on low.

  She peeked out from under the pillow to watch his face as he stared at the screen. Now that she’d felt his frustration and tasted his lick of power, he was a bit easier to read. That undercurrent of anxiety she’d stoked in him was still there. He may have looked calm, but her new wolf sense of smell caught the remnants of his testosterone spike…and of her lingering hormones, as well. Unpracticed though she was, she pulled her energy in as tight as she could and watched his body gradually relax.

  He let out a slow, relieved exhalation and focused on the television screen.

  “Yes!” Darius whispered and gave his fist a pump in the air.

  That was the end of the show. The paining was a legitimate early work of a well-known artist, and had been a commissioned gift to some practically forgotten princess.

  Stephanie pushed up onto her elbows and looked over her shoulder to see the credits rolling. “I love a good mystery.”

  “Yeah.” His smoldering gaze flitted to her and quickly back to the screen. His anxiety had all but dissipated.

  He sucked at eye contact, at least with her. She’d never known a werewolf to have that problem, but again, it seemed there was very little about him that was typical.

  He turned off the television and slid the remote onto the nightstand. “Should I sleep on the sofa?”

  “Why?”

  “I just thought—”

  “It’s your bed, Darius. Get in. I don’t bite.”

  “Actually, you do.”

  She cringed and let her head hit the pillow. Her verbal “bites” had probably been worse than the ones with teeth. She was ashamed about them now. In the same way everyone in her father’s pack unfairly judged her, shed done the same to him. She hadn’t even given him a chance. She should have trusted the goddess. Her dreams had told her that things would get better, not worse. Stephanie was obviously self-sabotaging. It was almost as if she was afraid of happiness because it’d been so long since she’d felt it.

  Whether she was a ravening beast or not, he got in, and settled onto his belly.

  Fix this.

  She hoped Darius could forgive and forget, and that he wanted to go through with the next step. There was still a chance he was that wolf the goddess thought Stephanie needed. She forced a swallow down her tight throat. “What time’s the ceremony?”

  “Early. Maybe six or seven.”

  “Why so early? Are you all afraid we’ll change our minds and run off before we put our signatures on the marriage licenses?” She tried to put a bit of tease in her voice, but given the nervous break in it, likely didn’t quite manage to.

  He furrowed his brow again. “I didn’t set the time. Mrs. Carbone arranged it.”

  “That was a joke. A bad one, but still.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  He drew his energy in more tightly around him as if he feared it was in her way. The opposite was true. Her inner wolf was doing the psychic equivalent of rolling around in it—nesting in it as if it were a comfortable, familiar blanket.

  Give it back to me, wolf.

  She gave his hard bicep a little poke and settled back beneath the covers. “Where will the ceremony be?”

  He rubbed his arm and pulled the shyest grin, but his energy opened back up. It wasn’t the flood of power it had been before, but a casual sort of draping over the two of them that made her inner wolf feel quite at home. “Over at the Norseton mansion.”

  “And that’s what this community is called? I was asleep when we arrived, so I missed the drive through.”

  “Mm-hmm. You should go explore tomorrow. Can get most everything you need in town.”

  “And you work for them at the mansion?”

  He grunted. “We provide security services to the Afótama. That’s what they’re called.”

  She’d never heard of them and had no idea what they were, and her taciturn mate didn’t seem willing to elaborate. She was going to squeeze the words out of him anyway, though. She refused to be kept in the dark. If she was going to be a Pack member, she wasn’t going to be some wolf on the fringes who was ignored until some man saw fit to yell at her about what she was or wasn’t.

  She knew all that already, and she didn’t choose to be only half wolf. Why did they act like I did?

  Darius’s warm hand molded against her forehead and slipped down to her cheek. Her lungs tightened then, and her breath caught.

  She tilted her chin up for the stroke of his callused fingers. His touch was tender, but what made it all the more surprising was that it was voluntary. She hadn’t asked for it.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You smell…stressed, I guess. Like prey.”

  “I’m not stressed, just—” Just what? Pitiful? She shook her head and let out a long breath. Time for a subject change. “So, it’s just you five? You, Alpha, and?” What were the names?

  “Yeah. Me, Alpha, Anton, Vic, and Colt. That’s all for the moment. Working on hiring more for the security crew, but that’s hard. People have to have the right qualifications.”

  “Such as?”

  “Helps if they know about our world, and can be quiet about it.”

  “Oh.” Duh. Stephanie was used to holding her tongue in that regard. She’d known about shifters all her life, even if she hadn’t grown up with them. They were something she understood intrinsically not to discuss with outsiders, even when she so badly wanted to. There weren’t many people she could confide in besides her mother, and she tried to keep her mother’s head clear of Pack business. She didn’t want to traumatize the woman, telling her all about the world she was partitioned from. “How long have you been working for them?”

  “Not long. Since winter.”

  Six months or so, then. She waited on him to elaborate, but as usual, he didn’t.

  Maybe I should let him sleep.

  But she couldn’t, not until the glut of anxiety in her belly unfurled. It was of her own making, of course. She’d gotten herself indignant and self-righteous over a misconception, and now he probably thought she was a dingbat, though she wasn’t. She didn’t want him to think that, so she had to fix it. She had to keep talking and make her wolf talk, too. “So, what’s your job in the pack?”

  “They mostly let me work solo. Surveillance, and stuff like that. I’m good at it.”

  “Not used to working in teams?”

  “Never really had a chance to in my birthpack. Left so early.”

  She cringed. She’d heard it was common for packs to expel male wolves when the populations were too heavily dominant. It was less of a problem in her pack, because they were city dwellers, and their men exerted their compulsions to lead and rule at work, and not just at home. They probably felt less threatened by the young men in the pack and more secure in their stature. If they had people bowing down to them at work, they were less needy for submission from the pack. “How old were you?”

  “Nine.”

  She bolted upright. “Nine?”

  He opened his eyes and bobbed his shoulders. “Yeah.”

  “Your parents let you go at nine?”

  “Wasn’t really up to them. It was Alpha’s decision.”

  “That’s bullshit. Little kids aren’t threatening. You couldn’t have even hit puberty yet.”

  “They liked to get rid of boys before they were threatening.”

  “Like I said, that’s bullshit.”<
br />
  “You don’t think I’m threatening?”

  “I…” She let the words trail off, and looked at him as best she could in the dark. The ruggedly handsome face, with his long, solidly built body. She caught a mental flash of his wolf stalking her, backing her away from some chasm—warning her off with bared fangs and a forbidding growl.

  Had that happened?

  She couldn’t remember a thing about her run as a wolf, but the familiarity of his face and form settled into her. The pieces came together bit by bit the longer she stared at his unreadable expression.

  He’d followed her the whole time, but had given her space to run and explore. Sometimes, he’d run ahead to redirect her. More than once, he’d let her jump on him and nip annoyingly at his fur because she didn’t want to be stalked, and he’d just take it until she got bored and skittered on to the next thing.

  He was like his wolf. Calm, but powerful. Watchful.

  Those dark eyes had seen so much, and she’d seen them countless times before. Her dreams had been haunted by them. They’d belonged to the silent wolf who just watched…who waited to be rejected, just like her.

  How could I reject him?

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “You didn’t bite back. You didn’t fight me off when I was a wolf.”

  “You remember that?”

  “I do now. Any other wolf would have knocked me away and been frustrated with me.”

  His energy clung to her a bit more experimentally, it seemed, and she wanted to hold onto it. It said everything his words didn’t. It said he was trying, and that meant so much, because it was easier for wolves to cling to the status quo.

  “I’m not that kind of wolf,” he said.

  She was starting to see that.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Darius had been eight the last time he let a woman pick out his clothes, and had no particular desire to revert to that stage of dependence, but Stephanie insisted. With it being zero-dark-thirty in the morning, he didn’t have the fight in him to argue. Besides that, letting her dress him seemed to be an easy way to please her, and he needed all the easy he could get, because the hard shit kept knocking him on his stupid ass. He still wasn’t certain he’d made adequate amends for offending her yet.

  She pawed through the contents of his closet, held up this shirt to his chest and then that shirt, muttering all the while about the lack of options available.

  He didn’t need many options. He spent most of his time coated in a sheen of desert dust, and occasionally, someone else’s blood. Fancy clothes would have been a waste.

  Still wearing a towel tucked around her delectable body, and with her wet hair dripping over her shoulders, she notched her fists onto her hips and pouted at him.

  Oh, hell. What’d I fuck up this time? He gulped. “What?”

  “I don’t imagine there’ll be any stores open at this time of morning?”

  “Nope. Thank the gods.” Shopping was a kind of or else venture for him. He did it only when he had no choice, and as quickly as possible.

  She squinted at him.

  He’d probably said the wrong thing again. He was better off just saying nothing, but she didn’t seem to like it when he was quiet, either.

  “Can you pull some strings and get a shopkeeper to roll out of his bed?”

  “Me?” He pointed to himself for emphasis, just in case something was being lost in translation.

  “Yes, you. Can you?”

  Hell no. “Why?”

  “Because I’d like my mate to be in a suit on his wedding day, or at least a shirt that doesn’t have suspicious stains on it.” She held out a frayed button-up that had some motor oil splatter on one of the sleeves.

  “I doubt any of the other guys are going to be dressed up.”

  “I’m marrying you, not them. They can wear whatever they want and I’ll pay no attention.”

  “A suit, though? On a wolf?” He couldn’t tamp down the laugh, and he knew the guys in the pack were going to give him ever so much shit about it. The closest thing any of them had to a suit was matching leather vests and pants. The idea of getting dressed up and having so many people staring at him as if he were a rare zoo animal unsettled his stomach.

  “If it’s too much to ask, I’ll figure out something else.”

  “No, I’ll…I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t want to disappoint her. Shit. He raked his hand through his short hair and forced out a breath. A conversation first thing in the morning, and he hadn’t even had a pot of coffee yet. The scenario was definitely a first for him.

  He strode to the kitchen and found the Norseton community directory beneath a pile of flattened beer cases. He tossed it onto the counter and flipped through the retailer listings, then cross-referenced the merchant name with his personal number. Finally, he grabbed the cordless phone from the wall and pulled in a long inhalation. Shit.

  He hated making phone calls. They seemed even worse than speaking face-to-face with someone. In person, at least he could resort to using crude sign language to get his point across if necessary. On the phone, all he could do was sigh constantly and punctuate every sentence fragment with Um.

  As the phone rang on the other end, he pinched the bridge of his nose, tapped his right foot rapidly against the tile floor, and hoped that the man didn’t answer. At least then he could say that he tried.

  “Hello? There’d better be a fire,” Tim Gimbel said when he answered.

  “Uh, no—” Shit. Hang up and lie.

  Darius shifted his weight and found Stephanie at his elbow, waiting with hopefulness written all over her exquisite face.

  Her faith in him seemed misplaced.

  Fuck. She’s not asking for much. Just do it. Anyone else could do it.

  “S-sorry to call so early. I wouldn’t have, but my mate is, uh, and I—I’m sorry. This is Darius Lucas, one of the pack members.”

  “Huh?”

  Shit. Darius pinched his nose again and willed the knots in his brain that squeezed off the route between intelligence and speech to unravel. He knew what he needed to tell the man, generally speaking, but not necessarily the order that the words needed to come out in, or even which words to choose. There was a reason he didn’t do negotiations for the pack.

  “Give me the phone,” Stephanie whispered, and extended her hand. Reluctantly, he placed the phone into it.

  Damn. Wonderful performance, Einstein. If he were lucky, she wouldn’t be accessorizing his new suit with a dunce cap.

  “Hello. Good morning, sir. Sorry it’s so rudely early, but we hoped you’d take pity on us and open your shop up for a few minutes. We’re getting married in an hour, and Darius doesn’t own any clothing fit to be photographed.”

  Thanks to his superior wolf hearing, Darius could decipher every one of Tim’s words, even with the phone pressed to Stephanie’s ear. “Dear lord. I’d hoped to one day sell him something more than socks,” Tim said.

  Darius sighed. The guy had tried to corner him with a measuring tape more than once, insisting Darius wore his jeans far too loose, but Darius needed them loose. He wouldn’t be able to hide all his weapons if he wore them as tight as the trend seemed to call for.

  “I just need a two-piece suit, and”—she let her gaze track down his body—“I don’t imagine you’d have any Oxfords in his size? He’s got to be a twelve.”

  Twelve-and-a-half. Now she wanted him to break in new shoes at fucking dawn, too? No way. “Stephanie—”

  “I might,” Tim said. “I’m pulling on some pants and heading downstairs now. I live right over the shop.”

  “Yay! Thank you so much. We’ll be there in ten minutes. I promise, I’ll come back in the afternoon and make your broken sleep worth your while. I moved here with just four suitcases. Can you imagine?”

  “Honey, I don’t even want to. Come on down. My cash register awaits.”

  Stephanie hung up and beamed at him while adjusting the top of her towel. “You’re getting a suit, wolf
.”

  “Great.” He groaned at the slip of one of her breasts over the top of the towel. Instinctively, he reached for it, only to stop his hand at the last second.

  She was apparently oblivious to his distress, seeing as how she turned on her heel and hauled ass to the bedroom. “Brush your hair. We’re leaving in two minutes.”

  He had brushed his hair, so he just flopped onto the sofa and pulled on his boots. She came out a few minutes later wearing bright red lips and a lacy, cream-colored mini-dress that barely contained her delectable assets.

  She sighed. “Don’t like it?”

  “Huh?” He tried to discreetly adjust himself. He liked it a lot.

  The men in the pack were going to stare, and he might have to kill them a little.

  “I didn’t try it on before I packed it. It was one of the few things I didn’t give away or sell before I moved. I figured I’d use it for the ceremony. I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face wearing a long white gown.”

  “No, it’s okay.” He wanted to bend her over and hitch it up to her waist, just so he could look at it from another angle. If his dick ended up in her sometime during that inspection, so be it. No one could blame him.

  “Just okay? Ugh.” She shrugged. “It’ll have to do. I don’t imagine I’ll get much opportunity to wear it out here.” She grabbed a little handbag and tottered over in sky-high heels as red as her lips. “Ready?”

  “Sure.” He cringed, realizing a moment too late what he’d said. He imagined most women liked to think they looked a little better than okay. He felt around in his brain for some better words, but she was already out the door, tossing her still-damp hair over her shoulder as she went.

  He paused in the doorway long enough to bang his head against the frame a few times.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. He couldn’t even pretend to be civilized long enough to get past their honeymoon period. She was going to be one of those mates who never came home because her husband was such a loser, and he wasn’t the kind of wolf who’d go out and drag her home. He may have sounded unintelligent, but he was smart enough to keep his pride in check. Hubris was for flawless wolves, and he’d never be that.