“Do you smell that?” he asked. “Selena’s scent in the air?”
Rachel and Khaki tipped up their noses, testing the air. Rachel didn’t seem to be getting it yet, but from the way Khaki’s eyes suddenly widened, she’d picked it up. No surprise there. Khaki had the best nose in the Pack.
“I smell…something,” Khaki said, closing her eyes and opening her mouth a little to take short, panting breaths. “She almost smells like one of us, but it’s not quite right. The scent is…strange.”
Brooks’s heart began to beat faster. “It’s not just the scent that’s strange. When I rescued her yesterday, Selena didn’t smell like this. She smelled good—great even—but not like this.”
“That’s not possible,” Rachel said. “People don’t change the way they smell overnight.”
“Actually, they can,” a deep voice said from behind them.
Brooks turned to find Gage standing there. “What do you mean?”
“That extremely subtle but familiar scent you’re picking up is a woman going through the first day of her change.”
“Are you sure?” Brooks demanded. “I mean, she didn’t get shot or stabbed or anything like that. How could she become a werewolf?”
“You know as well as I do that she doesn’t have to go through a life-threatening event. Just a traumatic one,” Gage said. “Having one of her own students try to kill her is pretty damn traumatic.”
Brooks knew all of that, of course. He just wasn’t thinking straight. His head was swimming with the realization that Selena was turning into a werewolf. The beautiful woman he’d almost kissed a few minutes earlier, the same one who smelled so damn good, it was hard to even stand near her without wanting to bury his face in her hair and breathe her in, was going to be a werewolf like him.
He wanted to be thrilled but wasn’t. This was the absolute worst time to be a werewolf in Dallas. If hunters found out, she’d be marked for death.
But beyond the fear he felt at the prospect of Selena becoming a target for the hunters, there was something else that struck him even harder. Not ten minutes ago, he’d assumed her scent had his head spinning because she wasThe Onefor him. Now, he wasn’t sure. It was just as likely his reaction was simply an alpha werewolf taking notice of a woman about to go through her change. She probably smelled the same way to everyone in the Pack with a nose good enough to pick it up. That knowledge disappointed the hell out of him. Damn. It had only been for a few minutes, but he’d gone and let himself start thinking she could beThe One. But it seemed he was wrong.
None of this changed the fact that Selena was about to go through something that was going to rock her entire world and that it would be tough on her. It had been that way for him and every member of the Pack when it happened.
“How do we handle this?” he asked Gage. “I’m meeting her for dinner in a few hours. Should I tell her?”
“What, that she’s a werewolf?” Gage lifted a brow. “Somehow, I don’t see that going over very well.By the way, you’re a werewolf. Could you pass the butter?”
Brooks grimaced as Khaki and Rachel snorted in amusement. Okay, something else he should have known…if he wasn’t so frigging addled by all this.
“You’re the one who saved her life, Brooks, so you’re the best person to tell her,” Gage said. “Just remember, there’s no need to rush. Since there wasn’t a major injury involved, it will take at least a few weeks before Selena starts noticing the effects of the change. That gives you time to break it to her gently. You just need to find the right time—and the right way—to tell her.”
Chapter 6
“It’s not a complicated question, Selena,” Ernesto said. “All I asked is whether this is dinner with a friend or a date?”
“Oh, it’s definitely a date,” Becca murmured. “With a dress like that, it’s definitely a date.”
Ernesto and Becca had stopped by after work to make sure she was doing okay on her first full day of forced downtime, but the moment they’d figured out she had a date, their interest had been piqued. Since then, they’d been peppering her with all kinds of questions, trying to see where this thing with Jayden was going.
Selena glanced down at the little black dress she was wearing when Ernesto stepped closer, then leaned in and took a sniff.
“I think you’re right,” he said, glancing at Becca. “She’s wearing that expensive perfume you bought her for her birthday, the stuff that you promised would make men swoon over her.”
“Hey!” Selena pushed Ernesto away with a laugh. “I always wear nice perfume.”
Becca gave her a knowing look. “Honey, there’s perfume you wear to smell nice, and then there’s perfume you wear to smellnice. The stuff you have on now is definitely in the second category.”
Selena threw her hands up in defeat. “Okay, so I put on my best perfume and a fancy dress. What’s wrong with that?”
The words had come out sharper than she intended, and Selena immediately regretted them. Maybe she did need to talk to somebody about what had happened to her. Because she definitely wasn’t acting like herself. Fortunately, neither one of her friends took offense at her tone.
Ernesto smiled. “Nothing is wrong with it. I’m just not sure what I think of my girl going on a date with a cop. It feels like I should be against that idea.”
She laughed and thumped him on the shoulder. Even though he was out of the gangs now, he still liked to act like he was a badass from the streets. “Even if he’s a cop who saved my life?”
