“And that’s exactly my point,” Nick finished. “You of all people should understand how letting someone in, just a little bit, can change their entire perspective on things.” He put a gentle hand on Tom’s shoulder, trying to keep him calm. “Just give Lucy a chance to explain and don’t immediately start trying to find holes in her story. Not everyone is out to get us.”
Dan agreed with every word. Leaving Tom to calm himself down, Nick and Dan made their way back to the kitchen table.
“Thank you, Nick,” Dan murmured. “I appreciate your trust. I’m sure Lucy does too.”
Nick grinned. “Not at all. Looks like you’re not going to be lonely for much longer!”
Desperately hoping that Lucy hadn’t overheard that, Dan gave her a smile as he sat down. “Smells delicious, as usual,” Nick grinned, sitting down next to Jo. “Thank you for getting this, Dan. After almost burning down the cabin, I don’t think I’ll be cooking again any time soon…”
Jo rolled her eyes. “Unless you did this on purpose so that I won’t make the same mistake of asking you again.”
Nick said nothing, making Lucy laugh. Digging into their food, Dan let his gaze move over Lucy as she spoke to Jo. She was still cautious since her eyes would occasionally dart around the room and her whole body remained tense, but she was slowly beginning to relax. He just hoped that, whatever her reasons were for being alone, Nick would let her stay.
Chapter Seven
“So,” Nick began, once they’d all finished eating. “Lucy, what do you think of Dan, not knowing you were a shifter?”
She grinned, seeing Dan's glowing red cheeks. She'd was confused by the comments he'd made as they walked up to the cabin, but it all made sense now. She'd known Dan was a shifter almost immediately, but apparently, he'd thought she was just another human. It was quite endearing, in one way, even though he was still obviously embarrassed. "I'd say he's been embarrassed enough," she replied, seeing the relief on Dan's face. "So I won't be sharing my opinion."
Laughter rang out around the table, before Nick’s face grew a little more serious. “We’re happy to let you stay, Lucy, but I hope you’ll understand that we need to know a bit more about you. For example, what’s brought you to these parts?”
Lucy bit her lip, wondering how much to give away. This pack wasn’t the Northern Wind pack, that was for sure, but she was beginning to think these were the shifters Lucas wanted to take out. That didn’t bode well for Dominic, or for them. Then again, if she wanted their help - and she needed it for sure - then she was going to have to be honest.
“My brother,” she replied, eventually. “Dom came here and I came with him.” Glancing at Dan, who gave her an encouraging smile, she carried on. “It wasn’t as though I had much of a choice. Dom hasn’t exactly given me a lot of freedom. He sold our house without telling me and told me we were coming here.” Looking around the group, she took in each of their expressions.
Jo and Savannah were both nodding while looking slightly appalled at what she'd told them about Dom. Tom, on the other hand, had a dark frown on his face, while Nick had an open expression, listening carefully to everything she had to say.
"I met Dominic," Dan interjected, pressing a hand to his temple and swollen eye. "He's not a particularly nice guy - no offense, Lucy."
Lucy shook her head. “No, he’s not. That’s okay to say. To be honest, that’s why I made up my mind not to go with him.”
“Go where?” Savannah asked, softly. “Why did he come here in the first place?”
Taking a deep breath, Lucy knew she was going to have to tell them the truth. The worst thing would be for them to find out later that she’d not told them everything. Besides, she didn’t have any loyalty to either Dominic or Lucas, so what was the point in hiding it? “Dominic got a call from our cousin, asking him to come and help with his pack.”
Nick’s eyes widened. “Wait, your cousin is Lucas?”
Nodding, Lucy winced as she saw the shock and horror on all their faces, including Dan’s. “Dominic is supposed to go up to help him work out a way to get another pack - which I presume is you guys - under his control.”
“I knew it!” Tom exclaimed, getting to his feet. “I knew this was a bad idea. She has to go!” His loud voice made Lucy jump, seeing how he glared at her with a face like thunder.
“Just a minute,” Dan interrupted, also standing. “I was right there, Tom and I saw Lucy tell Dominic to leave her alone. She refused to go with him. That should mean something.”
The air grew thick with tension as Tom glared angrily at Dan. His jaw was clenched, his hands balled into fists, but Dan remained completely calm.
Lucy got to her feet, spreading her hands. She didn’t like seeing them all fighting and certainly didn’t want to be the reason for it. “Listen, I don’t want to be the cause of any friction in your pack. If you want me to go, Tom, then I will but I promise you now that I’ve got nothing to do with Lucas and the Northern Wind pack. I’m not having anything to do with either of them. I swear it.” She looked back at Tom, unafraid of his dark expression. Lucy wasn’t about to let herself be lumped in with her brute of a brother and her stupid cousin.
“Everyone sit down," Nick interrupted, his voice quiet but authoritative. "This isn't going to turn into a fight. Tom, you need to listen to what both Lucy and Dan are saying and calm yourself down." Turning back to Lucy, he gave her a smile that told her he believed everything she was saying.
“So, what is Dominic planning?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy replied, a little uneasily. “Like I said, I didn’t want to listen. What I do know is that Dominic’s got something in mind. Something that’s going to be for his benefit, of course, and no-one else’s.” Remembering how Dominic had refused to tell her exactly what his plans were and how all her instincts had warned her away from him, Lucy shook her head. Dominic wasn’t going to be up to anything good.
Jo sat forward, her eyes filled with concern. “It sounds like you don’t trust him.”
Lucy pressed her lips together to quell a wave of emotion before answering. “No, I don’t. Dominic has been a bully practically since the day he was born. He’s fought his way through life and I only stayed because I had nowhere else to go and no-one else to turn to.” Her fingers plucked nervously at her sleeves as she looked at the rest of the group. Ultimately, it would be Nick’s decision whether she stayed or not, since he was the pack leader but Lucy knew he’d be influenced by what the rest of the pack thought.
“Your brother,” Nick said, thoughtfully. “Is he an alpha?”
“No.”
“But he may as well be,” Dan interrupted. “That guy is huge! I mean, in his human skin, he’s probably a least a head taller than you, Nick and certainly much broader.”
Lucy rolled her eyes, remembering just how often Dominic had spent working on his body. He’d wanted to be the strongest guy around and she was quite sure he’d achieved that. “He basically lived at the gym,” she muttered. “He wasn’t always like that.” She listened as Dan carried on describing her brother, feeling a growing pain in her chest.
It wasn't as though she regretted her decision not to go with Dominic, but he was her brother after all. In a way, she was sad for the relationship they could have had if he'd never turned into the guy he was now. She remembered happier times when they'd laughed and smiled. That had been before Dominic had decided to use his strength against other shifters. And before he'd started saying crazy things about humans and how they should basically be servants for shifters. She didn't tell them the worst he'd said about humans, thinking it was too awful even to repeat.
“So he’s not someone to mess with,” Nick murmured, breaking into her thoughts. “No wonder Lucas wants him.”
“That doesn’t answer the question about Lucy, though,” Tom growled, his hackles still rising. “Are you going to let her stay or not?”
Lucy held her breath as Nick looked at her, waiting for his judgment to fall. He o
bviously had his reservations, which she couldn't blame him for. But if Nick said no, then she had nowhere else to go. Literally.
“Jo?” Nick asked, softly. “What do you think?”
"Of course we should let her stay!" Jo exclaimed, as though shocked he would even think about not letting Lucy stay. "It's not her fault her brother's an idiot!"
“I agree,” Savannah interrupted, throwing Lucy a wide smile. “Dan will take care of her too, I’m sure.”
Lucy watched Dan's cheeks fill with color. "Of course I will," he replied, before ducking his head to hide his face. At least Dan trusted her. That meant something.
Nick nodded. “Then it’s settled. Lucy, you can stay. We have a spare room and Jo can get you everything you need.”
Lucy’s entire body filled with relief and, to her embarrassment, tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, Nick,” she managed to say. “I’m so grateful.” Blinking furiously, she braved a quick look at Dan, who was looking at her with a slight smile on his face. Lucy didn’t know what she would have done if she’d not met him. Her vision cleared as their eyes met, and Lucy felt her heart lift in her chest. She was safe.
“Thank you, Nick,” Dan said quietly. The women were talking among themselves, and Tom and Nick were getting ready to go out to the woods. “I know that must have been a difficult decision.”
Nick studied him. “No, not really,” he replied. “No-one turns their back on their family without it being really serious. I might not have believed her if she’d just told me herself, but since you witnessed the whole thing, I have no doubt that it’s all entirely true.” He grinned. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a girl after all.”
Dan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. Considering I managed to knock her flat on her back the first time we met, I’m not exactly making a great impression.”
Laughing, Nick glanced over to Jo, Savannah, and Lucy. "I don't know, seems like you've made a pretty good impression to me. She can barely take her eyes off you."
“Really?”
Laughing again, Nick slapped Dan on the back. "We're going out for a run, do you want to come?"
His bear roared at once and Dan nodded. “Definitely.”
“Savannah? Lucy?”
Their heads turned towards him.
“We’re going to go into the woods and let our bears run for a while,” Dan continued. “Would either of you like to come?”
“Sure,” Savannah said at once, getting to her feet. “Is Tom outside?”
Nodding, Dan turned back to Lucy. "What about you?" He was quite excited to get to see her bear. He wondered what it would be like - whether it would have dark fur the same color as her hair, and what color her eyes would be.
Lucy gave him a tight smile. “No, thank you,” she replied, shaking her head. “I don’t shift.”
Chapter Eight
Dan was grumpy the next morning, which was quite unusual for him. Nick and Tom both tried to bug him about it, but Dan wasn’t having any of it.
“Come on,” Nick grinned, elbowing him in the side. “What, now you’re the one who can’t take a joke? What’s the matter with you?”
Dan growled, shoving Nick away. “I didn’t get much sleep.”
“Oh, so that’s it!” Nick grinned. “Got her on your mind, have you?”
“No.”
“So what is it then?”
Dan let out another long breath, not knowing what to say. Nick had got it in one guess, but Dan just didn't want to admit it. Lucy had been on his mind most of the night, and he'd barely gotten a wink of sleep.
“I think I need to run.”
Tom lifted one eyebrow. “Sounds like a good idea.”
“Jo is bringing Lucy down in about half an hour, so you’ve got until then. You don’t want to come walking out of the woods completely naked just as they pull up in the truck!”
Laughing at the image, Nick turned around and walked back into the mechanics, the sound echoing around the room. Tom, watching Dan for another second or two, soon followed after.
Stomping towards the woods, Dan lifted his shirt over his head, balling it up in his fists. He couldn’t explain why he was so mad this morning, but something was obviously getting to him. His bear had been restless too, needing to get out and run and roar and fight until the frustration and anger melted away.
Making sure he was out of sight of the shop, Dan stripped off the rest of his clothes and left them in a pile, before letting the bear tear out of his skin. Throwing himself forwards, Dan let out a long shout which ended in a roar as his bear came out of his body, finally free.
Shaking his fur, Dan felt his body fill with energy, which practically throbbed through his veins. Roaring again, he pushed himself forward onto his four paws and began to run through the woods.
He didn’t know how long he’d run for, or even in which direction he was going. All he cared about was getting the anger and frustration out of his body.
Coming to the lake – the one that Tom and Savannah used regularly – he didn’t hesitate. Throwing himself in, he let the cool water rush over his fur, cooling him down almost immediately. His paws pulled through the water almost effortlessly, as he swam to the other side.
Climbing up onto the bank, Dan let himself slowly relax. Shaking the water from his fur a few times, he sat back in the grass, leaning heavily against a tree.
All of a sudden, he knew what it was that was making him angry. It was this. This part of his life, the part that Lucy was rejecting.
With a harrumph, Dan pushed himself back up onto his four paws and began to amble back through the woods, using the scent of the mechanics to guide him back towards them. He needed to think about this more carefully, once he was back in his human skin.
Finding where he'd left his clothes, Dan slowly pushed the bear back down and let his human form come out. Bones snapped in two, muscles tore and reformed, forcing a scream from his throat. The bear didn't want to go away, it wanted to stay out. It wanted to keep running through the forest, but Dan knew it was time to head back. Breathing heavily, he slumped forward as the bear finally went away. He could barely get his breath. That change had been pretty painful.
Grabbing his clothes, he pulled on his pants and his shoes, before sitting down on an overturned log. He knew now what it was that had been filling him with frustration. Lucy.
He’d barely been able to believe that a woman like that had practically fallen into his lap. Not to mention she was a shifter. That didn’t mean he assumed she was completely and utterly in love with him or anything like that, but he had hoped there might be something between them, in the future at least. But when Lucy had said she didn’t shift, his heart had shattered into a million pieces.
Dan had always wanted someone who understood him completely, someone he could share his life with. That meant, it had to be a shifter. He'd imagined them running through the woods together, in the way Tom and Savannah did. Nick and Jo were very different since Jo wasn't a shifter and Nick had known that from the beginning. But to meet someone who was a shifter, but who didn't use that part of them, was something Dan couldn't wrap his head around.
In a way, it was as though all his hopes and dreams had shattered in a moment. He'd hoped, even after his disastrous first impression, that he might be able to move things forward with Lucy but now he didn't think he'd ever be able to consider a future with her. Not when she wouldn't shift.
Dan thumped his knee with his fist. He couldn’t understand it. Why would a shifter turn their back on what they knew? On what was a huge part of them? He shook his head, imagining the struggle she must go through. Her bear would want to be out, want to be free, and she was having to force it back down over and over and over again.
The sound of a truck pulling up met his ears. At least his shifter senses were good for something, he thought to himself as he heard Jo’s laugh echo through the trees. He knew Lucy was with her, although he couldn’t hear her voice yet.
Sighing
heavily, Dan got to his feet and threw his shirt on over his head. Nick had told him repeatedly that he was now responsible for Lucy, and that meant he was to keep an eye on her throughout the day. It wasn’t something he particularly minded, given just how much he was attracted to her, but there was a sadness there now.
A sudden idea hit him. What if he was able to convince her that being a shifter wasn’t a bad thing?
A slow smile spread across his face. First of all, he’d have to find out her reasons for choosing not to shift, but he’d guess it had something to do with her lout of a brother. If all she’d ever known were shifters like Dominic, then he could understand why she didn’t want to shift. It would be up to him to show her that not all shifters were like that. It had been something he’d had to learn too. Coming from the Northern Wind pack to his one had shifted his entire way of thinking. Instead of seeing himself as a ruthless hunter, he’d learned that there were things like respect and consideration that were just as much a part of being a shifter.
His heart began to lift as he thought about Lucy. Nick would expect him to be spending a lot of time with her, and he would put that time to good use. Whether there was a future for him and Lucy or not, Dan vowed to try his best to show her that her bear side wasn't something she should just ignore. He would show her that it was a privilege, something that set them apart from the rest. Feeling much happier, and filled with a new sense of purpose, Dan walked towards the mechanic's shop, ready to start the day.
Chapter Nine
“Good morning!”
Lucy smiled at Dan, thinking he looked quite handsome this morning. He wasn't built anything like Dominic, but that was a good thing. She didn't like that look. Dan, on the other hand, was still quite strong but in a toned down way. It looked like he'd been out for a run or something. He was breathing quickly and his cheeks were bright red. "Were you outside?"
“Yup,” he grinned. “Nothing like a bear run first thing in the morning!”
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