by Lola Glass
“You don’t have to knock. Henley’s so hungover the noise probably sent her running.” Jamie spoke quietly. I guess she was back. Oliver must’ve been home.
Slowly and reluctantly, I walked back out to the living room.
“Hey, Hen.” His hands were in his pockets. For the first time since I’d known him, the man actually looked uncertain.
“Hey.” I glanced over at Jamie. “I thought you needed your own space for a bit.” I’d already guessed the reasoning behind it but didn’t want to talk to Roman.
“I did, but Oliver’s there. He was scolding me like a little kid rather than a grown woman.” She grimaced and clutched her head. “As if the hangover isn’t punishment enough.”
Jamie shuffled to the Netflix nest that we’d somehow managed to keep free of vomit.
“You have a second?” Roman asked.
I wanted to say no. Without the time to recover from my bender and catch up on sleep, nothing good could come from a conversation. But when Roman looked at me with those damn dark blues of his, I didn’t have the heart to say no.
“Sure.” I gestured him toward my bedroom. It wasn’t really intimate in there without a bed, so I figured we’d be safe.
My definition of safe, not his.
“What’s up?” I pulled my hair over my neck.
“I heard you’ve spent the last few days drinking with Jamie.” He shut the door behind us.
“The mattress on the floor of my living room gave me away, didn’t it?” I said dryly. The corner of his lips quirked upward.
“You said before that you don’t drink often, so I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
Dude, stop being so sweet.
“Is that a question?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Because I feel like this is turning into one of those games neither of us is interested in playing.”
Roman grimaced and stuck his hands back in his pockets. That sweatshirt he had on looked ridiculously comfortable and if I hadn’t told him I wasn’t interested, I totally would’ve snagged it when the opportunity arose.
“Why were you drinking?” He spit out the real question. “What happened?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” My shoulders lifted.
“That’s not enough to make you drink for four days straight. I know you well enough to know that.”
I looked up at the ceiling for a minute before deciding just to tell him.
“I’m surprised no one told you, but Lilac and Arla chased me down at the nightclub. Spent a couple minutes each telling me all the reasons I’m a terrible person who deserves to rot in hell. It was really pleasant, so I drank in celebration.”
Roman whirled to the door and I grabbed his arm before he could go pummel the chick who was madly in love with him. Not that he’d really punch a woman.
“It was a combination of everything, Roman. Ledger, the kidnapping, the triggers, the lack of sleep, you… Lilac and Arla just sort of pushed me over the edge. But I’m fine, you can go.” I gestured to the door.
“Fine.” Roman’s voice was clipped. He stalked toward the elevator, more pissed than disappointed. I sensed that he was learning to see through my lies. That wouldn’t bode well for me.
Someone stepped out of the elevator as Roman approached it, a blonde chick I didn’t recognize. The short shorts she’d paired with a crop top were clearly expensive, as were the perfect thick, blonde waist-length curls that couldn’t have possibly been real.
“I heard you might be here. I need to talk to you.” She said, placing her hand on his arm and stepping up close to him. Her giant boobs pressed into his chest and I saw red.
Jealousy exploded within me, and my beast side went with it. Strawberry fur burst through my skin as my body morphed into that of a wolf.
A wolf who launched herself down the hallway, snarling at the woman who’d dared touch what was mine. Human Henley and every bit of common sense she possessed had left the building. Between the jealousy and hangover, my monstrous side was in complete and total control.
Roman heard my snarl and reacted, stepping between me and the other woman.
That was the wrong thing to do.
I threw myself over him, teeth aimed for the girl’s fragile neck. Her scream tore through the air and she was ripped out of my view just as I would’ve bitten down on her jugular and torn her head from her body.
The animal side of me didn’t have the same hang-ups about being with Roman that the human side did.
When I leaped toward the girl again, Roman launched toward me. He wrestled me as I shook him off to no avail; this wasn’t his first rodeo. Still, I fought, my eyes burning into the terrified girl as she stood up against the wall.
What kind of wimpy werewolf chick wouldn’t shift when another wolf was trying to kill her?
“Shift back, Henley.” Roman snarled.
I guess the girl didn’t shift because she knew she had the Alpha to fight her battles for her.
Pussy.
My body shifted back to human instantly, but my mind was much slower. I growled at the girl and lunged for her on wobbly human legs. Roman yanked my back into him, one giant arm under my boobs and another around my waist. He held me up off the ground until I stopped fighting. “Carly, Arla’s in her office. She’ll help with whatever you need.” He told the girl, spinning and hauling me down the hallway.
Something told me he would’ve thrown me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes if I wasn’t naked.
“I’m in control now. You can put me down.” I bit the words out, still trembling with fury. Whether the fury was toward the flirty chick or myself for losing it to my beast was undecided.
“You’re naked in the hallway. Not happening.” His words tickled my ear and my trembling suddenly had an entirely new cause. Roman caught a whiff of my desire and stiffened, swearing under his breath.
He stomped us past Jamie and into my spare room without a word, tossing me onto the perfectly-made bed and folding his arms over that delicious chest of his.
Why wasn’t he naked too?
“What was that?” Roman demanded. “Scratch that—what is any of this? You say you want to be alone and then spend four days drunk with Jamie? You tell me you can’t handle what we have and then attack another girl for being interested in me? What the hell is going on?
I grimaced, unable to come up with a lie I’d be able to pull off. So, I went with a partial-truth.
“I lost control.”
“That’s a lie.”
Shit, he was learning my tells.
“Sometimes a lie is better than the truth.” I rolled off the bed, distracting him with my curves before heading to my room and into my closet. He followed me.
Dude totally wanted to watch me get dressed.
I grabbed one of the bras I’d picked out with London and pulled it on. That sucker made my boobs look fantastic.
Not that I was dressing for Roman.
“I’d rather have a difficult truth than an easy lie.” Roman’s eyes traced my movements as I buckled the bra and grabbed a pair of cheeky black panties. I tugged the underwear on and he growled under his breath, ripping his gaze back to my eyes.
“You want the truth? Fine. I want you. More than I’ve ever wanted anything. I want to mate with you, to spend my life with you, all that romantic shit. I want you to be mine. But I also haven’t known you that long, and I’m terrified that you’re going to change as soon as I’m yours. Or that you’re going to get challenged and lose next week, or next month, or next year. The longer I have with you, the more it’ll hurt when I inevitably lose you.”
I yanked a pair of yoga pants on and pulled my hair out from where it was trapped under the straps of my bra, stepping out of the closet. Roman definitely watched my ass as he followed me out.
“I spend hours at the gym every day, Hen. I’m not going to lose a challenge. I’ve never even come close to that.”
“Your cockiness is going to get you killed.”
My eyes flicked to
his joggers. The thin material put his raging boner on display, and desire surged within me. Roman’s nostrils flared and his eyes slammed shut.
“You’re the one killing me, woman.” He muttered, fists clenching at his sides.
My stomach chose that moment to growl loudly. Roman grabbed me around the waist and threw me over his shoulder, hauling me into the kitchen.
“I heard none of your conversation.” Jamie informed me as Roman sat me down on the countertop. She made her way to the kitchen and claimed one of the stools. “Absolutely none.”
Rolling my eyes, I finger-combed my hair over my shoulder. It was all tangled from the shifting, and somehow I’d lost my hair-tie in the process of attacking that girl. Which reminded me…
“Who’s Carly?” it came out as a bit of a growl. “And why was she coming to talk to you?”
“You attacked Carly?” Jamie snorted and then covered her mouth, eyes wide as she looked to Roman. “She attacked Carly?”
“She touched him.” I defended myself.
“She did.” Roman opened my fridge. There wasn’t much inside and I figured he’d complain about that, but he just pulled out a carton of eggs and some lunch meat and then grabbed a bowl from the cupboard. He cracked eggs into the bowl; all of them.
“This might be the best day of my life.” Jamie pressed her hand to her heart.
“Wait, why? I thought you were mad about this.” My gaze jumped between Roman and Jamie. She snorted again, only wincing a little at her own hangover pain.
“No male wolf would be mad his woman attacked someone else out of possessiveness, they’re all violent assholes. And Carly Tate was the biggest jerk in high school. She treated us like dirt until Roman became Alpha. Then she was all over him, trying to convince him to mate with her.”
“She’s never stopped.” Roman added.
“Why didn’t you let me rip her head off, then?” I grabbed a piece of lunch meat from the container and popped it in my mouth. Jamie laughed.
“Because the guys that have been challenging Roman for you are almost equally interested in her. If you killed her, they’d all be focused on you.”
“Wait, what?” I paused with another piece of lunch meat in my hand, headed toward my mouth.
“Hadn’t mentioned that bit.” Roman muttered.
“How many guys have challenged you for me?” I spun to face Roman, who was whipping the eggs in the bowl vigorously, and winced at the pain in my head. Roman avoided making eye contact with me. I whirled toward Jamie, who studied the countertop like it was a million-dollar painting. “Jamie.” I growled at her.
“Fifty-two.” She blurted. “That was before we spent four days drunk out of our minds, though.”
Roman’s shoulders tensed when I turned back to him, my face flaming red.
“Fifty freaking two?!” I shouted and saw stars as a result. “You didn’t think I deserved to know this?”
“I thought it would upset you. Looks like I was right.” Roman met my gaze. “I’ll fight as many more as I have to.”
I huffed and jumped off the countertop, pacing the kitchen with fisted hands. Nausea was rising within me and I blamed it on the lunchmeat and hangover. The pacing wasn’t helping with that but my animal side had me feeling like I needed to be moving.
“What reason did they give for challenging you? They can’t all want me for my scent. They don’t even know me.” I chewed my lip, trying to come up with some way to stop all the warring. The throb of my headache made it difficult to brainstorm much of anything. Other than mating with Roman of course.
When Roman didn’t respond, I glared at Jamie. She sighed loudly.
“Most of them are only challenging him for the chance to meet you. You’re the Wolfsbane and every pack on the planet wants you. That makes you seem powerful, and what male werewolf doesn’t want power?”
I looked at Roman and he met my gaze.
“It wouldn’t hurt anything to let them meet me.” I said. His eyes shifted and his fingers sprouted claws.
“You’re mine.”
Well okay then.
I rolled my eyes at Jamie, who stifled a laugh.
Roman’s claws vanished and his eyes shifted back as he got out a pan and dumped the scrambled egg mixture inside, setting it on the stove. He seemed entirely relaxed as he began stirring it with a spatula so it didn’t cook in one big clump.
“I want the fighting to end.” I lifted myself slowly back up onto the counter in hopes my nausea would start to go away.
“Not happening.”
“Do you think I’m incapable of kicking a couple dozen guys to the curb, Romeo?”
“No. I think it’s my job.” He said.
I leaned toward him.
“Let me rephrase that; the fighting will stop. You can come up with something that will settle your wolf into accepting that I’ll be meeting other guys or I can spend the next few days going door to door introducing myself to every dude that lives here.”
Roman met my stare-down with his own.
“Mate with me.”
I choked on my spit. Not what I was expecting him to say. I’d assumed we were on the same page when it came to that considering I’d just ended things a few days ago.
“You asked what would settle my wolf. If you were my mate, I wouldn’t worry so much about other guys around you.” He said it so matter-of-factly.
“We’ve known each other what, a month and a half?” I folded my arms over my chest. “Be reasonable.”
“Still here.” Jamie waved. “I can leave if you want, but Oliver’s still home and I don’t feel like being ignored by my mate after watching all this sexual tension heat up.” She gestured between us.
“Stay.”
“Go.” Me and Roman barked at the same time.
“You don’t think that’s long enough to know you’ve met the right person? The first moment I scented you, I was yours.”
“Maybe that’s long enough for someone who has a family and a plethora of good memories, but I’m not that person. If you think that’s long enough for me, you definitely don’t know me well enough for us to be having this conversation.”
Roman sighed.
“You drive me crazy, Hen.”
“I had no idea.” I drawled.
Roman pulled his scrambled eggs off the pan and dumped them on one of my plates, handing it to me and grabbing a fork. He stabbed a piece of egg and lifted the fork to my lips.
I obediently took the bite, half-expecting him to coo, “good dog”.
That may have been the lack of sleep talking.
His lips quirked upward.
“Stop being so adorable when some of us are trapped in loveless matings.” Jamie complained.
“Feeling left out?” I teased. Jamie made a dramatic sad face.
“Yes.”
“She wants a bite.” I told Roman. He shook his head at me but stabbed another piece of egg and crossed the room. She opened her mouth and ate it.
“Now I’m force-feeding both of you.” Roman grumbled.
“I saw that smile when you fed Henley. You’re not fooling anyone.” Jamie reached over the island and grabbed the alcoholic-beverage cup she’d been using for days, filling it up with sink water.
“That reminds me, Oliver was actually showing interest when we were working the bar.” I pointed out, swiping the fork from Roman’s hand when he tried to feed me another bite. Eating eggs only required one person.
“I won’t survive getting my hopes up and then crushed again where he’s concerned. Let’s talk about something else.” She took a long drink of water.
“Bite me.” Roman said, out of nowhere.
I stopped chewing.
“Werewolves used to bite their mates to mark them as taken.” He added.
“Trading bites was like trading wedding rings.” I countered. “We’re not anywhere near married.”
Roman grabbed my face between his hands. Our eyes collided, and I wished we were kissing i
nstead of arguing.
“You touch me without permission way too often.” I informed him. Although, I hoped he wouldn’t stop.
“You’re mine. I don’t need permission to touch you.” He said. I rolled my eyes. “You sure as hell can touch me wherever you want whenever you want.”
“I’m leaving.” Jamie called out. Roman didn’t release my face.
“Think of it like a trial run for mating. We trade bites and we’ll smell a bit like each other for a while. It’d be something tangible connecting us so we’d both feel more secure and closer without doing anything irreversible.”
Screw him and his good arguments.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Me too.” Roman gave me a sly grin. I whacked him with the back of my hand and his chest rumbled.
“If you don’t quit it with the secrets, I’m not even considering it.” I warned him.
“I’ll tell you everything if you do the same.”
I opened my mouth to protest but closed it when I realized it was a fairly reasonable request.
“Fine. We’ll tell each other most things.”
My stomach took a turn for the worse and I jumped off the counter, running for the bathroom. It was going to be a long day.
TWENTY-ONE
Roman stayed another hour before he got a call that he was needed to go break up a fight between two unmated dicks—I mean males—fighting over a woman. He left me with a kiss on the forehead like we were an old mated couple. I wasn’t going to think too hard on it.
Jamie came back a bit later to nap in the Netflix nest and I headed for the guest bedroom. Sharing a bed was normal while we were drunk but felt a little weird while sober, especially after I’d spent a chunk of time with Roman.
Of course, the moment I closed my eyes the nightmares assaulted me.
Would I ever really be free from my past?
With a low groan, I climbed right out of bed and headed to the elevator. Maybe if I further exhausted myself by running around in wolf form, I’d shake the images from my head.
After a bit of running, I curled up on the wolf mattress—which was far more comfortable than dirt— and finally managed to fall asleep for more than five minutes. I slept dreamlessly until strong arms scooped my furry-self up off the dirt. I’d have flipped out if his smell wasn’t so damn relaxing.
