“Calm down before you hurt yourself. You’re in no condition to fight.” Brock gave me a look that said he knew he’d won this fight already.
My eyes closed and dreamed of wiping that smug look off his face with my fist. When my traitorous mind automatically went to memories of all his mouth could do to me, I whipped my eyes back open. I swear the bastard knew exactly what I’d been thinking. He blatantly adjusted himself, and I glared, mostly pissed off at myself for being this easy to rile. Everyone else pretended they didn’t notice what was going on between us, but you had to be blind not to see it.
“How about we call a truce?” Brock suggested. “While you recover only, of course.”
“Like a cease fire?” I chuckled darkly.
“Exactly like that.”
“I still don’t understand why I need to stay here when Gran’s cabin is just down the hill.” I looked to Cass and then Molly for support, but Cass was no help with the well of worry in his eyes, and Molly was geeked out by the fact that she was spending time in the alpha’s home.
“Sabine can answer your questions,” Brock bated me.
“All my questions?” My eyebrows inched upward. I had a whole lotta questions, that was for damn sure.
The doc offered me a beatific smile, but I remained wary after all her talk of testing. She took half a step forward to line up with the boss. “I’ll answer all the questions I can, and seek answers to all those I can’t.”
I wanted that, I really did.
“Take it or leave it.” Brock shrugged like he couldn’t care less whether I stayed, but I wasn’t buying it. If he was getting to me this much, surely I was getting to him too, at least a little bit. Hell, they didn’t call me Original Sin Eve for nothing. I could tempt men to do just about anything if I were properly motivated.
“You promise to leave that bulldozer at the end of the road?” I asked Brock.
“For the entirety of the time you’re here,” he agreed.
I rolled my eyes. “Nice fine print detail.”
“Thanks.” The asshole was all smiles today, when I’d nearly died and still could barely move.
“And Cass and Molly can stay with me all I want?” I added. I might as well add conditions of my own.
There was the jaw twitch again. “Of course.”
“And I’ll get my answers?”
“If you submit to Sabine’s tests.”
“Fine. I accept your terms. Now, I want to know what the hell made me turn into a fox shifter.”
“I, too, want to know that,” Brock said, and there wasn’t a hint of humor on his face. He exchanged a loaded look with Ray, who nodded and took off to do his boss’ bidding. “Get started right away,” he ordered the doc. “We don’t have time to wait.”
She nodded, and I prepared to be a pincushion. So long as it got me answers, because my life plan sure as hell hadn’t included becoming a shapeshifter. I hadn’t even managed to be a proper witch.
“Hang in there, Ev,” Cass encouraged. “Everything’s going to be right as rain.” Cass didn’t say bubbly shit like that, and that was just another sign that life was going to hell in the fast lane.
9Stuck In Alpha Hell
My short staywith the alpha turned into a week, seven full days, and it felt like forever. I hadn’t shifted again, which was fabulous news, but I did get furry when angry, something that happened a lot around Brock.
The most worrying thing wasn’t my furry outburst, but the fact that I was growing weaker and losing weight rapidly, which was disturbing everyone, especially the doc. Cass was a blubbering mess, and I was reduced to walking with crutches as my leg muscles wouldn’t support me. I’d lost ten pounds, a ton for someone so small. Sabine was convinced I must have cancer or something, but all the tests came back negative. Shifters didn’t get cancer anyway, so it was another mystery.
After getting an extension from Mack, Cass was out following up on a lead about our siren, while Molly “assisted” Croft. I was in the process of hobbling across Brock’s porch when I felt him. Before smell, before sound, I couldfeelhim. It was odd and comforting at the same time. I spun around, ready to get into a verbal spat about something stupid, but the look on his face stopped me. He looked… scared.
“You’re so thin,” he breathed, eyes wide. He hadn’t seen me in the past two days, while he’d been busy with pack business.
The air was knocked out of me when I realized he was scared because I was possibly dying, and that he cared if I died.
I shrugged. “Doc can’t figure it out.”
