“Uh, water would be good. I want to take some pills to help with the coming cramps.” She shuffles slightly.
Pain.My wolf deduces from the movement.How much pain? Ask,he demands.
“I’m out of my depth. Wolves don’t have periods. I’m kinda at a loss as to what is happening. So I’m just going to hover and be like one hundred percent the most overthinking best friend in the entire world until I’m satisfied you’re being cared for the way you need to be.” I warn her instead of asking invasive questions.
“Oh, best friend?” Leticia cants her head and follows me to the cupboard where Valor keeps the drinking glasses. “When did you get a promotion?”
“Self-appointed.” I grin at her with a full smile.
“Oh, well, in that case, I want to be the Grand Poobah of friends.” She smiles back, and my heart flutters.
This could have gone so much worse. So much worse.
“Uh, Royal?”Leticia murmurs while looking at her phone in the passenger seat.
She’s quiet and tense, much like when she saw me in wolf form.
“Uh, Leticia?” I parrot back. “Everything okay?”
“My dad just texted me. It’s the middle of the night in Italy, but he wants to know what information I learned today from hanging out with you.” She tilts the phone toward me, but I only spare it a glance before continuing down Valor’s driveway.
Her breathing picks up, and I focus, trying to listen for her heartbeat, but I can’t hear over the road noise and through her thick coat. But she’s practically hyperventilating.
“The truth is obviously out of the question.”
“Tell him you found out that Valor and Antonella are honeymooning for a little bit this week and that you fed Kerrianne’s pet tortoise.” I give honest facts mixed with just a dash of fiction. Make it easier for her to lie to her dad.
“Okay.” Leticia nods and starts typing on her phone, her fingers shaking. “Shit,” she mumbles.
“Just take it easy.” I try to coax her off the ledge she seems to be standing on. “Don’t worry about it too much.”
“He’ll know I’m lying. He’s going to push for more information. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to lie that well.” Her voice holds a whine of discomfort that pulls at my soul, and I want to soothe her worries for her.
Help her. My wolf whines.
“He’s not going to know you’re lying. When he pushes for information, you’ll tell him that all we did was talk about boring stuff — the tortoise, Valor’s mansion, and the original builder from the eighteen hundreds and that it looks like it needs a gargoyle on the roof.”
Leticia huffs a laugh. “I definitely expected gargoyles when Ifirst saw the place.” She tries to draw a steadying breath. “Okay. He might buy that.” But it doesn’t work because she’s back on the verge of hyperventilating.
Rather than continuing to drive down the road, I pull over, leaving a little room for someone else if they want to pass to get to the house.
“Will you look at this before I send it? I don’t want anyone to worry that I’m doing something wrong.”
“Yeah, I can look. My phone is going to ask to approve the message sent out anyway.” I feel a little guilty about that. Like I shouldn’t be monitoring her this way, not when she’s being so forthcoming with wanting to keep our secret.
But I didn’t think of Neil as a threat, and look what happened.
I trust Leticia not to say anything under normal circumstances. I’m not one-hundred-percent sure that I can trust her under pressure. Not yet.
Our mate will prove herself. You’ll see.My wolf is still swooning over her actually being with us.
“You’re a wolf shifter,” Leticia breathes out. “A wolf. You turned into a wolf.”
“Yeah, I did.” It feels like she’s having a whole other revelation about what happened. “I can do it again if you want to see it one more time to be sure it’s real.”
“No. I believe it happened.” Leticia tries to explain as she runs her fingers through her hair. “I don’t believe it happened, but I don’t need to see it again.”
I let her work through the emotions, but what I wouldn’t give to actually be knowledgeable enough about her to fix this, to help her.
