by Chant, Zoe
She was trying to say something, either to him or to herself, before she lost the nerve.
“For a long time, I thought that was it. That Mike had been one my real chance at having what my parents have. I’ve never felt exactly... desirable. Men don’t think about me that way. I’ve had more camp-outs than spa days and I own more hiking boots than high heels. When I put on a lot of makeup, I like how I look, but I never feel like me. So I thought: maybe the kind of love that’s really just friendship is the only kind of love I’m going to get, and I should be happy with that. It’s fine to have a relationship where the fire dies out. A lot of people do, right?”
This he couldn’t listen to in silence. “Aria—”
“But then,” she said, “I met you.”
She knows, Colby’s wolf said. In her heart, she already knows what we are to her. Don’t wait any longer to tell her.
Every now and then, Colby thought, you give some good advice.
“Aria, the way I feel about you isn’t going to change. Not ever. Except I’ll probably fall even more in love with you.”
“You’re in love with me?”
She said the words like they were something impossibly delicate, like she was in a dream that would fall apart if she handled it too roughly.
He wanted to tear to pieces every guy she’d ever met who had convinced her that she was somehow uniquely unworthy of being cherished.
What had they been thinking? How had they looked at her and seen anything other than a woman as hot as fire, full of artistic passion and love of the outdoors, warmly lit from within by how much she cared about her family and the people and animals around her, and fully inhabiting her own gorgeous, involved life?
Even if he was going to be completely shallow, how could they have missed that her legs looked terrific in those hiking boots?
“I’m in love with you,” he said. “I’ve been in love with you from the second we met.”
“I love you too,” Aria said. She still sounded stunned. “But I thought it was just me. I thought—this kind of thing didn’t really happen.”
“It happens to shifters,” Colby said.
He wanted to dispel any doubts whatsoever that she might have about whether or not his love—and desire—for her would stay true forever.
Never mind his initial plan to take things slow and be considerate of the fact that she was having a hard day. It was because she was having a hard day that she needed him. She needed the security that a fated mate could bring.
She needed a pack. Why had he ever thought humans couldn’t feel like that?
Why had he convinced himself that he was somehow uniquely unworthy of having people in his life?
After his dad’s death, he’d felt adrift, like he was the wrong kind of shifter and the wrong kind of human. But he wasn’t. There was nothing wrong with the pack he wanted—the pack he had—and there was nothing wrong with him.
Which was good, because he wanted to give her his whole life. He wanted it to be as good of a gift as possible.
Now he just had to figure out how to explain mates.
“When shifters meet the person who’s right for them, they know. And as soon as my eyes met yours, I knew. I asked you if you wanted to be my girlfriend, but—basically, I was trying to play it cool. You’ve already seen me in reindeer pants, though, so that’s a lost cause. What I really wanted to say was that you’re my mate, Aria. You’re the person I’m going to be in love with for as long as I live. When shifters bond, it’s forever. I love you. You’re perfect for me, and I’ll happily spend my whole life trying to be perfect for you, if you’ll let me.”
She was silent for a moment, and worry stabbed through him like a shard of ice.
Had he been wrong about what she needed? Had he said too much too soon, and rushed her?
He wanted to explain that he knew it might not be the same for her, that he’d be totally happy to wait while she sorted out her feelings...
But Aria was pulling off to the side of the road.
“Aria?”
She put the car into park.
And suddenly she was kissing him, her mouth even sweeter, her kiss even fuller, than it had been when their lips had met in the kitchen. She seemed to be trying to breathe him in, like she thought she could live off just him and didn’t need oxygen at all.
Colby felt the same way. He didn’t care about the pressure this was putting on his sore ribs or the fact that the seatbelt was getting in the way. He just kissed her, savoring the taste of her—the taste of his mate.
He wanted to taste her everywhere else, too. What had he been thinking about being perfectly happy to wait? He wasn’t even sure he could wait until they got to the safe house. He wanted to touch her, taste her, everywhere, right here in the car.
Her lips had the faint flavor of blackberries now, like she’d stolen a few off the top of the salad bowl before they’d left the house. The sweetness of her was as rich and intoxicating as some kind of priceless liqueur.
Something he could never afford, but had been amazingly, astonishingly lucky enough to have been given.
No wonder he was willing to give her everything he had in return.
Only the fact that he knew she was in danger if they stayed here too long made him break away.
Any tracking Eli did over the highways would be slow and faulty, sure, but that didn’t make it a good idea to linger out here where they were completely exposed. They were just making their scent stronger in this spot, and that wasn’t good. The farther they got from where he’d last seen them, the safer Aria would be.
Waiting for Eli to come to them would only work if Colby was healed up enough to take him down. The sooner he could get to Aria’s first aid attentions, the better.
“I’m sorry,” Colby said.
He traced the shell of her ear and the soft, silky border between her skin and her curls, almost unable to fully believe that she had accepted him and that he was allowed to touch her like this. Totally unable to believe how she leaned into that touch, her long eyelashes falling down as she sighed in pleasure at the way his fingers moved over her.
That sigh made a wave of desire sweep over him so strongly that he doubled down on the apology.
“I’m really sorry. Unbelievably sorry. But we’re sitting ducks right here. I’d be seriously surprised if he could get it together to come after us again tonight, after what happened with his brother, but I don’t want to risk it. Not by staying around this close. And I don’t want to build up our scent here.”
She tucked her face against his neck for a second, and he felt the warm exhalation of her breath.
“I know,” Aria said finally. “And believe me, I don’t want another werewolf attack any more than you do. But you just turned my whole life upside-down, and I felt like it had to be acknowledged.”
“I can relate,” Colby said solemnly. “Trust me. But it’s my job—and my privilege—to protect you.”
That put a small smile on her face.
As she pulled back onto the road, Aria said, “Wolves mate for life. That’s always been one of my favorite things about them. I guess even before you told me that all shifters were like that, I was hoping maybe you were.”
“I am,” Colby said quietly. “I think I would be even if I weren’t a shifter.”
“Then no matter how scared I’ve been of Eli Hebbert, all of it’s worth it. Because I got to meet you.”
He squeezed her hand again, imagining that he could feel every unique whorl of her fingerprints; he felt like he would know her touch anywhere.
Then he said, “I know I don’t know much about classical music, but isn’t this...”
Aria’s lips pursed out, like she was fighting to hold back a laugh.
“Yep,” she said. “This is a funeral dirge.”
Then she relaxed into a full, easy smile and reached over to take his hand once more.
“You know something?” she added. “I didn’t even hear it.”
/> *
They didn’t use Safe House Thirteen very often. For reasons Colby could understand just fine, most federal witnesses who had put their lives on the line were leery of attracting bad luck.
Gretchen had argued before that they should just do what hotels did with their thirteenth floors—skip it. Go directly from Safe House Twelve to Safe House Fourteen.
But Martin had never caved, always saying that if Thirteen meant bad luck to witnesses, it was good luck to him, because it was a place he’d almost always have open in an emergency.
Colby thought it was good luck for him and Aria, too.
Besides, it was, despite its ominous name, mostly a perfectly nice house: a small, red-brick ranch with friendly green shutters.
Its big problem—which had let the Marshals Office pick it up fairly cheaply—was an asset in their case: whoever had built it had seriously skimped on the windows. It was as dark as a cave inside.
But as far as he was concerned, the more cover, the better.
“There’s a lawn flamingo,” Aria said.
“Gretchen’s idea,” Colby said.
He made a valiant attempt to hoist his bag up over his shoulder before Aria came around the car and took it from him with a look that he could only describe as a loving glare.
Apparently the most helpful thing he could do was explain the flamingo.
“She thinks these places never look lived-in enough to really blend with their neighborhoods, so she goes around and does garden upkeep on all the unoccupied ones and gives them lawn ornaments. Theo and I do Christmas and Halloween decorations for them every year.”
That was actually one of his favorite parts of the job—definitely his favorite part that didn’t directly involve hunting down trouble to help keep people safe.
He had always been a sucker for holiday decorations, but he’d lived in an apartment for the last few years, since his dad’s death, and so he hadn’t had the space to do much.
It was just nice, every year, to take a couple of days and go around with Theo, hanging icicle lights from eaves and carving spooky-faced pumpkins.
“Mattie loves decorating the house for Halloween,” Aria said. “Last year she made about a dozen Styrofoam tombstones for the front yard.”
“Sounds like my kind of kid.”
Just as it had been strange to him that they were now close enough for him to easily, naturally touch her, it was still strange—and wonderful—to him that he could actually imagine helping Mattie with this year’s tombstones and jack o’ lanterns.
He had a family.
They climbed the stairs to the porch and Aria tried the front door. When it didn’t open, she looked around.
“Is there a hide-a-key, or... no, that would be pretty dumb for this kind of thing, wouldn’t it? Do you just carry around a giant janitor-style ring of keys for all these places?”
“Close, but not quite.”
He produced his keys and picked through them until he found the one with the base snug and slip-proof in its little blue hood.
“They all work off the same key?” Aria said.
“Yep.”
“Well, that’s obviously cheating.”
He smiled, but as he put the key in the lock, he could already feel his attention sharpening and honing in on the world around him. His awareness of his own pain fell away, and his wolf came to the fore. He breathed in, letting his shifter senses have full control.
Not everyone was lucky enough to have some of their animal’s traits still present in their human form, but werewolves almost always kept their heightened sense of smell. Colby was no exception.
And right now he couldn’t smell anything out of the ordinary: grass (freshly sprayed with pest control), warm brick, clean carpet, and slightly stale air.
No human or wolf had been in the immediate vicinity for at least a few days.
“Safe,” Colby said.
He unlocked the door and led Aria inside.
“First things first,” Aria said, the moment the door was shut—and securely double-locked—behind them. “We need to take a look at where you’re hurt. I packed the first aid kit from home. If there’s anything we can’t handle with that, we’ll have to take you to the ER, no matter what it does for our cover.”
He couldn’t help but smile at how determined she was to make sure he was okay.
“Hospitals are a no-go,” he said. “And not just because we’re trying to lie low. Like I said, I heal too quickly to go in for most injuries. The last thing a doctor wants is a guy in their exam room whose wounds are more or less healing up right in front of her.”
“But you can’t just always count on not getting hurt.”
“No, it’s a dangerous job. But we have a couple of shifter doctors we can use.”
“Then if there’s anything I can’t handle, we’ll get you to a shifter doctor,” Aria said authoritatively. “Now come into the bathroom.”
Colby grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
As with the car, he was happy enough to let her take the lead for a while.
Most of the injuries were on his upper body, which was good—he didn’t want Aria’s main association with him taking his pants off to be disinfecting a werewolf bite on his thigh. He stripped his shirt off and sat on the edge of the tub, letting her poke at him.
“You weren’t kidding. You do heal fast.”
She traced the unmarked skin to one side of a long set of slash-marks on his shoulder, where Weston Hebbert’s teeth had raked against him. An hour ago, they’d been fresh and bloody. By now, while they still throbbed, they had at least closed. They were ugly, but they weren’t life-threatening.
And when she was touching him, he couldn’t concentrate on the pain at all.
“It’s an asset,” he said.
“You were biting the hell out of each other.”
He winced as she started delicately applying hydrogen peroxide to the bullet graze on his stomach. He didn’t want to be melodramatic about getting fixed up, but why was it that the disinfecting always hurt worse than the actual injury?
“Yeah. Sorry about that. It’s really the only way wolves have to fight, and I’d already tried firing on him. It didn’t even slow him down.”
“I didn’t really have silver bullets,” she said. “I meant to tell you that before. I mean, it’s not like I’m a secret werewolf-killer who was trying to lure you out here. This hasn’t all been an elaborate ruse.”
“That’s good to know.”
She looked ruefully at the brown hydrogen peroxide bottle.
“Even if it probably feels like I’m trying to kill you right now. I know this stuff stings.”
“It does, but you’re distracting me.”
A distraction he had to double down on when she started taping up his ribs.
“Silver bullets are a myth, anyway. You did the right thing by pulling the trigger even without one.”
“They won’t do anything?” She sounded cutely disappointed. “I feel lied to.”
“They’ll do something,” Colby assured her. “I couldn’t touch them without breaking out a little. But fatality-wise, they just won’t do anything more than a regular bullet.”
“Which doesn’t seem to be much.”
“We’re stronger than your typical wolves,” he admitted. “And the fur’s thick enough that it can slow the bullet way down before it even hits the body. But mostly, it’s just that when you’re shifted, you’re keyed up on adrenaline and animal instincts. If you’re a predator, and this is your time to attack, nothing’s going to slow you down. You’ve already bet your life on this going in your favor. Wolves don’t lose many fights that they walk away from afterwards. For the most part, it’s victory or death.”
Aria was less troubled by that than almost anyone else would have been.
But then, Colby remembered, she’d seen wolves fight before. There was a photo of hers that showed a pack of wolves taking on an enormous elk, and he remembered from the caption t
hat that battle had gone in the elk’s favor. The wolves may have had the numbers and the teeth, but the elk had its massive rack of antlers, and it had used them well.
She was a nature photographer, and very few things in nature were clear-cut. And none of them were easy.
She finished wrapping up his ribs—at this point, Colby thought, he looked like a mummy, his chest mostly made out of gauze and surgical tape—and then sat back on her heels.
She said, “What are we going to do, Colby?”
The look in her eyes was one of absolute trust, and it made Colby even more determined than ever not to let her down.
“We spend the night here. We get some dinner,” he added, since they’d been cheated out of it. “I should be healed up in the morning. And then I’ll have a go at sniffing out Eli, now that I’ve been close enough to him to really get a noseful of his scent. I want advanced notice of when he’s going to make his next pounce. He shouldn’t have the upper hand over me.”
“Shouldn’t have the upper hand over us.”
She put her hand on his chest, carefully placing her palm between the bruises and scratches. He could feel the warmth of her all the way to his heart. Her face was completely, utterly serious.
“You said this was for life, Colby. I’m not going to let you deal with any of this on your own.”
He hated to play this card, but he had to.
“What about Mattie? You can’t risk leaving her all alone, either.”
But Aria was stubborn, and the expression on her face didn’t change at all.
“Eli Hebbert isn’t going to stop coming after me. We both know that. If I leave you to face him alone, and things don’t work out, he’s just going to keep coming, only then I won’t have you to protect me. I’m sure dragons and US Marshals are all great, but I’d rather have you. Don’t tell me anyone else would do a better job.”
He couldn’t.
It was true, technically, that Theo could hover above Eli Hebbert and roast him from the sky, but that could only happen if Hebbert was dumb enough to fight a dragon in a place where Theo would have enough room to transform, let alone transform and have the advantage of striking from the air.
And there was no way, unfortunately, that Hebbert was that stupid. Any wolf could sniff out a dragon a mile away—they all had that same distinctive smoky scent to them, like nothing else Colby had ever encountered.
