The invitation to sleep at my house skittered to the tip of my tongue, staggered, then rocked . . . and rocked. Thankfully, I managed to gulp it back.
Storm grabbed a handful of Liam’s leather jacket, babbling, “Dadadada,” and the invitation tried to worm its way back up.Nope. Don’t even go there.I pulled out a STOP sign, then a U-turn.
“How’s Bea?” I blurted, desperate for a change of topic. “Anything new?”
“The coroner’s suicide took a toll on her morale.” He scratched the soft folds of Storm’s neck. “Your brother put boxing gloves on her and cuffed her forearms. He’s worried she might try to take her own life before tomorrow.”
Storm gnawed happily on the zipper of Liam’s jacket with his eight teeth and swollen gums.
“How was your day?”
“Productive. Quiet.”
Liam smoothed down the cowlick at the back of his son’s head, but it popped right back up. “I kept expecting a text message about an extra rule.”
I guessed we were okay, and it made me unclench the fingers strangling my bag straps. “This isn’t a rule, but I think my mom knows.”
“She does. And so does your father and Nash. I believe Nolan suspects. Nate’s been so out of it that I don’t think he’s caught on, and Niall . . . I’m guessing if he doesn’t know, he’ll find out soon enough.”
I stopped walking. “You’re kidding?”
A lock of hair fell into his eyes as he pivoted to face me. “Nash straight out threatened me. Told me it didn’t matter to him I was Alpha. That if I hurt you, he’d hurt me right back.”
My lips parted.
“Don’t worry. I won’t give him any reason to hurt me.”
“That wasn’t what I was worried about.” I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “Um. What exactly did you tell them we weredoing?”
“I let them draw their own conclusions.”
“Okay. Good.” I joggled my head. “I hope Mom and Dad won’t bring it up, but if they do . . . just change the subject, okay?”
“If it’s easier, Nikki, you can tell them we’re dating. I don’t much care what people assume.”
Well, geez. You really know how to make a girl feel special.
“That’s not a good idea. My parents have a tendency to get very attached. And considering how much they already like your son—” They’d be teaching him to say Grandpa and Grandma in no time. “I’d rather they don’t get their hopes up or anything. It’ll be easier on them when things end between us.”
Only his fingers smoothing his son’s hair moved. The rest of him had gone perfectly and terribly still.
This was going to get so messy. So, so messy. I snagged my lip and bit down so hard I drew blood. I was guessing my fangs had made an appearance. When the moon filled out, our lycanthropic nature steadily overtook our human one. For some shifters, the call of the wild was so potent they spent several days in fur around this time of month. Especially the males. Females were a tad more cautious, especially since the moon cycles influenced our menstrual cycles and our bodies became very receptive to mating.
I could already smell my own changing. Preparing. Thankfully, I’d probably be in heat after the full moon run because running with the pack in heat was uncomfortable, for ourselves and for the males surrounding us. Sometimes, the rivalry and covetousness got so violent that fights broke out, bloody ones, and females in heat were forced to fall back into clusters among other females to dull their scent.
Before our first shift, though, all of us were taught how to deal with it. If our scent was too strong, we had to sit out the run. If it was manageable, we could run, but only in what my pack referred to ascold pods—a group of older females whose scent tempered our young womb’s allure.
Shifting Storm to his side, Liam touched my chin, disengaging my sharp teeth from my lip, then leaned forward and licked off the blood.
As he pulled away, leaving my mouth agape, he said, “Before you tell me I broke any rules, that wasn’t a kiss. I was just helping clean up the mess you made of your pretty mouth.”
That gauzy-stomach feeling returned with a vengeance and buoyed away all thoughts of cold pods and receptive uteruses. I swiped my own tongue across my lip, then dabbed my sweater sleeve against the puncture wound before remembering the material was heather-gray and would stain.
Nearby voices rang out, giggling, and then a stretch of silence, probably at the realization our pack’s Alpha was in the vicinity. A small group spearheaded by Adalyn’s sister poured out of her house.
Gracey waved at me and called out a smiley, “Hi, Liam.”
Her four friends didn’t so much as flinch, either intimidated or entranced by the sight of my companion. Wasn’t sure which. My wolf bristled a tad possessively, making me angle my body closer to his until my bicep bumped the arm he’d curled around his son who’d started sucking his thumb as though it were his bottle’s teat.
