Wrinkling my nose, I admitted, “As you know, I’m the youngest in the brood. After Nolan and Nash had their first shift, I got really jealous.” Darren’s fingers prodded the back of my head. “Let me preface this by saying that I was eight at the time and extremely gullible.” I licked my lips, because this was no less mortifying eleven years later. “Niall, who hadn’t shifted yet either but insisted he was close, convinced me that eating a pinecone would activate my shifter gene early.”
Darren chuckled.
“Yeah, yeah. Make fun of me, Doc.”
Liam grinned. A full-on grin that made me catch my breath. “Don’t tell me you fell for it?”
“Hook, line, and pinecone,” I admitted.
“Had to administer some pretty strong laxatives,” Darren chirped in.
I wanted to turn and scowl at him, but his fingers kept my head locked firmly in place. “You just had to share that last part? Whatever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?”
“Doesn’t extend to Alphas,” Darren explained. “Thankfully, Nicole gobbled down a particularly small one.”
All the blood converged inside my cheeks. “I’ve changed my mind. Let me bleed out.”
Liam clucked his tongue. “He’d be out of a packanda job if he did that.”
A slight frown touched my brow. Was Liam joking or was it an actual threat? I knew he had the power to divest Darren of both, but he wouldn’t . . . would he?
Chapter 31
“All done.” Darren snipped the thread on his cranial needlepoint, then squirted Liam’s arms with alcohol. After patting them clean, he put away his arsenal and rose from the arm of the couch. “Do either of you need a ride back to the compound?”
Liam swiped his palms over the hairline cuts that remained from Bea’s attack. “We’re good. My car’s parked not too far.”
Darren glanced my way, probably curious about my relationship with our Alpha who’d not only held my hands but also declared I was riding back with him without asking my opinion on the matter.
Not to mention . . . Darren’s gaze had strayed more than once toward Liam’s swollen lip.
I didn’t make a scene while Darren was still there, but as soon as he left, and Liam and I had exited the house, I said, “Maybe I didn’t want to ride back with you.” The sun was still so bright it stung my eyes.
Liam, who’d been shrugging on his leather jacket, paused with the round collar folded inside-out. Slowly, he popped it flat. “I thought I was no longer an alphahole?”
“You could’ve asked whatIwanted to do.”
“Would you like me to call Darren back?”
“No.”
“Would you have preferred to ride home with him?”
I side-eyed Liam. “Perhaps.”
His lips pinched. “Can you walk or do you want me to get the car?”
“I can walk.”
“May I suggest you hold on to me?”
“You may suggest it.”
His eyebrows dipped. “Will you?”
“No.”
He growled low, and it ricocheted off the frozen lake.
