Khaki wet her lips. “I know you don’t like me very much, but—”
He frowned, his brows drawing together. “What makes you think I don’t like you?”
Had he seriously just asked her that? She let out a snort. “I might be new to this werewolf thing, but my ears work just fine. I heard what you told Sergeant Dixon the first day I arrived about not wanting me on your squad. Since then you’ve made your feelings pretty obvious.”
Xander had the good grace to look ashamed. He leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees. “Um…about that—”
She held up her hand. “Let’s just agree to not get into that right now, okay? I didn’t come here to talk about why you hate women cops or whatever your issue is with me. I came because I need your help.”
His eyes clouded in confusion. “Help with what?”
Khaki knew it would be easier to just come out and say that she needed him to teach her how to be a werewolf, but instead she found herself telling Xander about Jeremy and the argument they’d had in front of her apartment.
“Did he hurt you?” Xander interrupted before she could get to the part about her nails bleeding.
Khaki did a double take at the vehemence in Xander’s voice. He looked so furious, he probably would have snapped Jeremy’s neck if her ex had been there.
“No,” she said. “And Jeremy isn’t why I’m here anyway.”
When Xander gave her another confused look, she explained about her bleeding fingernails and that Mac had told her it sounded like an uncontrolled shift brought on by her anger.
“Has it ever happened before?” he asked.
She shook her head, then gave him a sheepish smile. “I’ve never shifted before.”
His eyes went wide. “Never? You’ve been a werewolf for over three months and in all that time, you’ve never shifted, not even by accident?”
“No.” She shrugged. “Since I couldn’t do it and you and the rest of the team could, I thought that maybe female werewolves didn’t shift.”
Xander shook his head. “I’m not the authority on female werewolves, but from what Gage has told me, you can do anything a male werewolf can.”
She didn’t know about that. “I can’t even see in the dark, much less cut loose with all the claws and stuff like you and the other guys can.”
He stared at her. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
Khaki lifted a brow.
He flushed under his tan. “Okay, stupid question. Sorry. But if you can’t see in the dark, how were you able to get through the training in the House of Doors today?”
She cringed. She didn’t want to admit she’d been breaking the rules, but he’d asked.
“I used my nose to mentally map out the walls and doors. It took a while though, which is why I was so slow moving from room to room.”
Xander regarded her thoughtfully. “You can actually pinpoint a person’s precise location in a room purely by sense of smell—enough to shoot them, I mean?”
She gave him an embarrassed look. “Obviously not very well. I did hit Becker.”
“Barely, and it doesn’t really matter anyway. At least not when you’re using a paintball gun,” he said. “We all have good noses, but none of us can smell our way through a dark room. It’s frigging incredible.”
If Khaki didn’t know better, she’d think Xander had just complimented her. She would have thanked him, but he continued.
“Are there any other special things your sense of smell allows you to do?”
It should have been a simple question, but it wasn’t. How did she know what special things she could do with her nose when she didn’t know how the guys used theirs?
“Well, I can pick up every scent around me and remember it,” she said slowly. “Forever.”
“Seriously?” When she nodded, Xander let out a low whistle. “That’s even more in-freaking-credible than sniffing your way through a dark room.”
