Tristan’s bashful expression broke long enough to let a frown through. “Nice?”
I groaned. I forgot about hell’s limited vocabulary for a second. “Dude, why are you opening my doors, pulling out my chairs, and gouging the eyeballs of anyone who gives me a dirty look? Is this all because you found out I’m a girl?”
“Yes,” Tristan dropped. “Obviously. It’s not like I’d be doing all this for a guy.”
“I— Well—” My jaw worked trying to get something out. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting him to fess up to it so easy. “Why?!” I burst out. “I’ve got boobs, not glass bones! Why are you being so weird with me?”
“Weird?” Tristan cocked his head, looking at me like I was the strange one. “I’m not being weird. I’m treating you how I’m supposed to. Everyone knows that you treat a woman like a queen on your best days, a goddess on your worst days, and a person every day.”
My brain came to a sputtering, jerking halt... and then died. “Huh...”
“And the person you are is mortal,” he went on. “Meaning that your glamour only makes you look like a demon. You don’t have the strength or the magic of one. Which isn’t great since you’ve made an enemy of the fairy boys, and you’ve pissed off everyone who thinks you’re cheating your way through the academy.
“All of them are wanting to challenge you. I’m making sure they know it’s not worth the violent death they’ve got coming if they even think about it,” he explained calmly. “I don’t know if this is what... nice... is, but I do know that a real man doesn’t stand by doing nothing when a woman’s in danger.”
If one could have tumbleweeds in their brain, they’d be blowing through my empty skull right about then. What I was supposed to say to all of that, I had no idea.
“I... Is this some kind of alpha-wolf thing?” I finally got out. “All that queen and goddess stuff. Do you treat every woman you know like this?”
He shrugged. “I would, if I knew any other women.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Tristan looked at me steadily, then cracked the barest grin. “You really aren’t from around here, are you?” He chuckled. “Werewolf men and women live apart from each other. Female werewolves can’t shift in the late stages of pregnancy. They’re also slower and can’t fight at full strength.
“Which makes them the perfect target for vampires.”
I almost threw up right there on the carpet. “Holy hell! Are you serious? They actually attack pregnant women!?”
“Without mercy.” Tristan turned away, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his loose, ripped jeans. As always, he wore beat-up pants and the simplest of simplest tight black tees. And as always, he looked like a freaking supermodel. “In the first few decades after my people were banished to hell, we were driven to the brink of extinction. Women killed. The next generation of wolves killed.
“To save our people, the elders had no choice but to hide the women and children in a location so secret and guarded, I wasn’t allowed to know it until two years ago when I became the alpha of my pack. It was then I met my mother again for the first time since I was ten, and my sister for the first time at all.”
I could only gape at him as my heart broke in two.
“The only other women I’ve been around since I was separated from my mother are vampire women.” He brushed the back of his neck, and I knew he was touching the scar of the vampire bite. “And they were trying to kill me at the time,” he said drily.
“When it’s my time to mate, I will be allowed to visit the women again, and one will grant me the honor of mating with me and allowing me to father the next generation of wolves—assuming she finds me worthy of doing so.” Tristan closed the distance and took my hands in his, tearing a squeak from my lips. “That is why women must be respected and cherished like the beautiful treasure they are. We men are nothing and canbe nothing without you. I’d be the lowest form of trash if I didn’t follow you, serve you, and protect you with every ounce of strength in my body.
“But you know this,” he breezed. “Mortal men must worship and protect mortal women even more strongly, considering how”—I burst into giggles when his poked my ribs—“breakable you are.”
“Uhh, no, actually,” I admitted, blushing down at our clasped hands. “Mortal men opt for a different approach with women. Negging being one of their preferred methods.”
“What the hell is negging?”
“It’s when you beat a women’s self-esteem down with backhanded compliments, veiled insults, and comparisons to all the other women she supposedly doesn’t measure up to. The goal is to make her feel so insecure, she seeks validation from the person making her feel worthless.”
“What?!” I swear Tristan’s golden eyes straight caught on fire. “That’s fucking disgusting!”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“Bastards! Why would they—!” An expression so terrible darkened Tristan’s face, it made me take a step back. “No man has treated you that way, have they? Those fuckers,” he growled, maw elongating, “I’ll rip out their throats!”
“No, no,” I cried, waving my hands. “No fuckers need their throats ripped out. Trust me, I’d never mess with a guy who negged me. You and I are in definite agreement about women deserving to be treated like a person when they’re not being treated like a queen.”
“Still,” he gritted. “That those shitheads would even think it—let alone treat a woman like that. Fucking worthless cunts.”
Ah, and this is how I got Tristan to hate a whole species of men he’d never met.
