“Nobody will learn what hewas,” Ethan assured me, morbidly emphasizing that last word as we speedwalked toward his sleek ride.
“Why not?” I timidly inquired.
“When shifters die, Millie, we stay in the form we last took. If Garrett’s discovered before he rots, there’ll be no lengthy investigation. He’ll simply be incinerated at a local pet crematorium. They’ll assume he’s some random animal that was killed by another random animal in a bizarre turn of events, most likely brought on by human encroachment on their local habitat.”
That was convenient. Ethan and I would never have to explain what happened in that alleyway tonight. Not that anyone would believe us if we did.
Suddenly, I thought about Alice. The poor girl was never going to know what happened to the man she’d thoughtshe’d connected with on a deep level, maybe had even been intimate with. She didn’t deserve that kind of pain. That realization made me feel sick all over again.
Ethan’s midnight blue mustang came into view finally. Pulling me over to the passenger side door, he chivalrously opened it and helped me into the comfortable leather interior then hastily climbed behind the wheel.
The souped-up engine thundered to life and we sling-shotted onto the road. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Ethan expertly worked the gears. Every time his nimble fingers handled the shifter, I got a little more excited. And wet. Reflexively, my thighs squeezed together, trying to alleviate the tension building there, but it was little comfort. No matter how I tried to distract myself, sex was all I could think about.
Needing to get my mind out of the gutter, I interrupted the silence by clearing my throat and asked, “What’s going on, Ethan? I think I’ve earned the right to know.”
Ethan smoothly maneuvered into a lower gear as we turned around a particularly sharp corner. “After seeing what I did tonight, this isn’t going to come as much of a surprise to you, Millie, but I’m a shifter. A wolf-shifter, to be specific.”
Like he’d said, this information wasn’t news to me now, but a few minutes ago it was the most incredible, impossible thing I’d ever seen. Regardless, his announcement was no less shocking than when I’d seen him unexpectedly change before my very eyes.
“How is that possible?” I demanded, my hands gripping the sides of my thighs as we accelerated onto the highway.
“There’s so much you don’t know about this world, Millie,” Ethan began in a roundabout way. “Supernatural beings have always co-existed amongst humans. We just don’t advertise that fact, as we’re afraid of retribution from those who might misunderstand us and threaten our way of life.”
Digesting his words, I breathed slowly into a whole new reality and nodded. “Was my dad one of you? A wolf-shifter, I mean?” The name felt foreign and strange on my tongue as I said it.
“Yes,” he flatly answered. “Your father and I were once in the same pack, though that was a long time ago.”
“Pack?” I repeated. “Does that mean you lived together like a family or something?”
“Yeah, back in Alaska, where we were both born and raised,” Ethan divulged. “I know your father told you about him being raised in a group home. And he was,” he explained, “but it wasn’t a group home like you’d think. Not like one humans would live in. It was a shifter pack filled with orphaned boys. Boys who’d lost their families due to pack disputes and the like. As I’m sure you can tell, wares are pretty violent. They don’t settle personal scores with words. They settle them permanently in hand-to-hand combat.”
I shivered at his brutally honest reply. A bigger question formed in my head then. One that could change everything I’d thought I knew to be true.
My father had died saving me from a wild animal attack two years ago when we were visiting Alaska. We’d been walking some old trails he’d used as a boy when we’d been accosted by wild wolves. My father had fended off the animals before they could maul me and I’d managed to escape back to our cabin unharmed.
I’d called for help, but before that help arrived, my father, overrun by the seemingly rabid pack, had been killed. He’d died saving me. Knowing what I did now, there was zero chance that was a coincidence. No matter what Ethan had told me, it was obvious the man was killed by shifters and he’d rescued me from the same fate.
A slight tremble entered my voice then. “My father didn’t die from wild wolves, did he?”
Ethan shook his head and his full lips thinned as he pressed them together. “No, Millie. He didn’t. Your father was killed by a pack of shifters who were settling old scores. Calvin was collateral damage in a war that’s been going on for a long time.”
My brain felt like it was on fire with unanswered questions. “Why did these shifters hate my dad?”
Switching lanes, Ethan kept his eyes on the road when he answered, “That’s a more involved question than you realize, Princess.”
The old nickname caught me off guard. It wasn’t meant to be derogatory. Ethan had called me that the first day we’d met. I was dressed like Belle, my favorite Disney character, and had handed him a make-believe cup of tea from the set I’d gotten for my fifth birthday. He’d told me that I was my father’s greatest treasure. That I was loved more than any daughter had ever been. The reminder of the pet name now both stung and soothed me in equal measures.
“Give me the cliff notes version,” I returned, a little heat in my tone as I pushed for the explanation I deserved. “If my father was killed over this dispute, the least you can do is tell me why.”
“Calvin was eight years older than me, so we didn’t know each other before we became close in Montana,” Ethan carefully explained. “I wasn’t living at the group home when the feud started, but I heard about it years later when we reconnected.”
“Okay,” I slowly spoke. “Tell me what you know.”
“Your father fell in love with your mother, who was from another pack, one that didn’t get along so well with ours.” When Ethan saw I was about to ask why that was, he held up his hand to silence me. “Pack relationships are complicated, Millie. Because we’re so dominant, we often war over territory and, as you can see from tonight, women. The Tupilaq Pack, your mother’s pack, is especially territorial over both.”
I quietly swallowed the lump rising in my throat. The idea of Ethan fighting over me, the chance to keep me as his very own, was making my tummy flip-flop with excitement. Not to mention what it did to my naughty bits. My pussy fluttered at the thought of him winning the fight between him and Garrett. Of him roughly taking what belonged to him in the end. My virginity. Just the thought of his calloused hands tearing away my clothes and exploring all of me caused a shutter of ecstasy to course through my innocent, shivering body.
Ethan’s gaze momentarily kicked over in my direction. Their cool grey depths caused me to blush over my dirty thoughts like they were projecting right there between us in all their lewd, technicolor glory.
