“I, uh, thought we’d be hungry, so I caught these,” Nero said, lifting his catch. They were bigger fish than I’d ever hope to hunt on my own.
My appetite was always dampened by my heat, but the thought of turning down Nero’s kindness was appalling. I’d choke the fish down if I had to. I nodded stiffly.
How did he notknow? Or did he know and was simply ignoring it? Was that even possible? How could an alpha stand an arm’s length away from an omega in heat and act like nothing was different?
My shame turned into serious curiosity. The answer wasn’t that I wasthatundesirable, was it? There had to be a different reason.
Feeling extremely nosy now, I glanced below Nero’s waist, trying to be quick and subtle. Sure enough, despite the protection of his pants, I saw the bulge. That made me feel a little less insulted.
My attempt at subtlety failed. When I met Nero’s gaze again, he was blushing.
He cleared his throat. “Well. I’m gonna prepare these. In the kitchen. Bye.”
Okay, so not only was Nero turned on by my heat scent, but he still retained the capacity to do things with fine motor skills like prepare food in the next room? I was genuinely surprised. Most alphas would be humping a pillow by now.
I guess Nero really is special,I thought.
My burning shame had dissolved. I peeked around the corner to watch Nero working in the kitchen. He was struggling with the lack of utensils, cleanliness, and basically anything else that made a kitchen actually useable.
I thought I was being sneaky but apparently Nero knew I was there because he called out, “This kitchen sucks, so I guess sashimi’s off the table.”
It warmed my heart to know he was going to actually prepare a meal for me. My chest felt full and fluffy, like it was full of cotton balls.
“If you mean the nicely prepared slices, then sure,” I said. “But we’re predator shifters. We can still eat raw fish, you know.”
“Oh.” Nero shot me a shy smile. “Want to take these outside?”
We found a rock outside that substituted for a table and Nero awkwardly stacked the fish on it. He seemed to be at a loss for what to do—I didn’t know if that was because his dinner plans were thwarted, or because he still wasn’t over the awkwardness of the heat scent wafting off me.
I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable so I sat as far away from him as possible without being rude.
“So, I have a question,” Nero said as he took one of the fish in hand and frowned at it. “If I eat this whole thing in human form, will I get sick?”
“No, you won’t. Since you’ve awakened to your shark form, your body still recognizes it as proper food.”
“Then you eat raw meat in human form?”
“I can,” I said with a shrug. “I just prefer to eat it as a wolf. The teeth make it easier.”
Seriously, how was he having a normal conversation? It was blowing my mind. I noticed he was still blushing, though. Maybe he was aroused by my heat scent but managed to hold himself back from acting on it.
“It must be weird to you that I have no idea what I’m doing,” Nero said.
“No way,” I argued. “You’ve gone your whole life thinking you were a human. Well, youwerea human, I guess. You didn’t have anyone to teach you these things.”
Nero’s blush deepened. He avoided my eye and scratched the back of his head. “Thanks, Remmy.”
My heart fluttered rapidly. He hadn’t just said my name—he called me by my nickname. I was used to hearing it from my pack, but to hear it from him… It felt different. More special.
“Er, is it okay if I call you that?” Nero asked.
“Yes,” I said a bit too quickly.
Nero cleared his throat again. “Okay, cool. Well. Time to dig in.”
Since Nero couldn’t properly shift into his shark form on dry land, he attempted to take a bite the way he was. It surprised both of us—his teeth seemed to sharpen at the last second, like his shark was surfacing. He tore into the fish’s flesh easily then licked his lips.
“Huh,” he said. “That wasn’t as weird as I thought it’d be.”
