Cole had lost the person she loved, was planning a life and family with, all for duty to Sandstorm.
“Hey, hey, don’t cry,” Darren said, fumbling with the napkins on the table and holding one out to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, embarrassed. “It’s just really fucking sad,” I said, accepting the napkins and drying my eyes, taking a deep breath to calm myself.
“You care about her?” he asked curiously.
I shrugged. I didn’t know how I felt about Cole.
“She confuses me,” I said truthfully.
There was no other way to describe it. Cole confused me. She sent my senses and pheromones wild. I felt chaotic like I was standing precariously in the eye of the storm when I was with her.
Darren laughed.
“Yeah, I get that. She cares about you,” he said.
“Why do you think that?” I asked.
“I was awoken yesterday morning to Cole tearing the blanket from my body and standing over my bed. Do you know how terrifying that was? She was pissed. I worried she was going to castrate me or something. I called for my Mum.” He laughed embarrassedly.
“She woke you up? What? Why?” I asked. Cole had been up and dressed and waiting in the kitchen on the morning of the full moon. I didn’t realise she had left the house and returned.
“Iona,” he said.
“Who?” I asked.
“The girl who tried to leave with you the other night,” he said.
“Oh, shit.”
I had completely forgotten about her.
“Yeah, oh shit. She blamed me. Kicked Josie out of my bed and the house too,” he said.
“Josie was in your bed when Cole woke you up?” I asked, both shocked and amused.
“Exactly. She hasn’t responded to any of my texts,” he said disheartenedly.
“I mean, can you blame her?” I laughed.
“Hey, it’s too soon to be funny,” he said.
“Okay, okay,” I said, calming myself. “What did she say?” I asked.
“Honestly, I was so frightened and shocked; I’m not sure I heard it all. But it was definitely threatening. Something about trusting me to keep you safe and instead I allowed you to be taken advantage of, and something about how if anything had happened to you she would take my balls. That’s when all masculinity left my body, and I started calling for my mummy.”
I was laughing again.
“It’s not funny,” he protested, but his lips curved, suppressing a laugh. “But she cares about you. Cole doesn’t act like that. I know she has a reputation. The Storm of Sandstorm—the title gives her too big an ego. But she’s old school. Her violence serves a purpose; it protects the Pack. She doesn’t just go around like some waking nightmare, scaring people awake when they're naked and in bed with a baddie for someone that she doesn’t care about,” he told me. “I’m so pissed with her. Josie was my first hook-up in over a year, and she’s chased out of the house by Cole.”
“I’m sorry you were blamed for my behaviour. I don’t know what I was thinking,” I told him.
“I know what you were thinking.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Anyway, am I just meant to ignore those bite marks and Cole’s scent all over you or…” he trailed off.
“It would be the polite thing to do,” I said and took a bite of food to give myself time to recover from being called out like that.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I wanted her scent on me. I didn’t shower for that very reason.
