by Dannika Dark
“You’re talking nonsense.”
“You have a smell! You do,” I said, looking up at him and smiling. “It’s indescribable. I guess everyone has a scent, but Shifters are different.” I drew in a deep and very obvious breath. I didn’t mean to release a moan right after, but it kind of slipped out when my hand rested on his firm abs.
When we reached the top of the stairs, I resisted. “Wait, I need to stop a second. The earth is spinning like a top.”
He chuckled softly. “You’re a lightweight. I thought all they did in England was drink.”
I stepped away and leaned against the wall, feeling a flush of heat skate across my skin. “That wasn’t my crowd.”
“Yeah? And what was your crowd?” he asked, stepping closer. “Did you date any men?”
“I went out with a few guys.”
Denver moved even closer until our bodies were almost touching. “Did you do anything with those men?”
He was going into his protective stance; I’d seen it before.
“I’m not a Shifter.” Simple words that required no further explanation. I was human, so I didn’t have to wait around for my first change to have sex.
His jaw clenched and then he moved so close I could feel the heat of his body pressed against mine. Denver’s right hand curved around my neck, and I thought I felt his other hand on my hip, but I was dizzy and that might have been my imagination.
Unexpected feelings were surfacing. A swell of desire raced through me as I looked at the intensity in his blue eyes. Eyes that, unlike mine, were a rich indigo with an almost violet hue. A person could get lost in them. He looked to be in his late twenties, but the truth was that Denver was closer to the age of a human senior citizen. The only visible wrinkles were the creases that formed in his cheeks when he laughed really hard. He did have a couple of lines on his forehead, but only because he loved raising his eyebrows at people. When he caught me in his rapturous gaze, I saw nothing boyish or trivial about him.
Denver parted his soft lips, tempting me to kiss them. He must have been feeling it. God knows I was feeling it. When I stood on my tiptoes, it created a friction between our bodies like lightning. Denver drew in a light gasp, his pupils dilating.
My lips brushed against his—so warm and pliant—but fell short of a kiss. He curled his fingers behind my neck, lightly scratching my skin as if coaxing me to go further. That single gesture sent a flood of tingles throughout my body, and my mind scrambled. His left hand moved up to my rib cage, and when he tilted his head to the side, I knew this was it. Denver was going to brand me with his kiss.
I pushed him back and bolted down the hall toward the bathroom. I slid onto the floor and threw my head over the toilet, retching. When the first wave passed, the humiliation slowly began to settle in. Not only had I almost kissed Denver, but I’d almost thrown up on him.
Could this night get any worse?
With my head hung over the toilet, I began to cry. Tears slipped down my nose and blurred my vision.
The door closed behind me and fingers threaded through my hair, pulling it back. I threw up again—nothing but alcohol. My stomach tightened, and there was no worse feeling in the world than being vulnerable in front of someone.
Especially when that someone was Denver, who was sitting behind me and holding my hair back.
“I’m so mortified,” I said. “This isn’t me. Please don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”
“Don’t worry. I won’t say a thing. If those dickwads ask, I’ll just tell them you got food poisoning.”
“Thanks.” I spit into the toilet, and another wave of embarrassment went through me.
Denver stood up and turned on the faucet. He found a green towel and ran it under the running water, then knelt back down and wiped my face with it. “Better? That sometimes helps.” He dried the remnants of a tear from beneath my lashes and his brows knitted. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. We’ve all hugged the bowl a time or two.”
The cool towel felt blissful as he patted it around my neck. “I guess we’ve outgrown each other. I thought when I came back that things would be like they used to be, but maybe that’s not the way it goes. It’s like everyone here is frozen in time, and I’m the only one who’s changed. Leaving was the best and worst thing I ever did.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks and he wiped them away with the towel. “You need to quit all that leaking or you’re going to get rusty.”
I made a failed attempt to laugh.
“You don’t need me anymore. You haven’t needed a watchdog in years. Well, I take that back. You fucking needed a watchdog, but you were thousands of miles away. I didn’t like seeing you sent off; you were just a kid. But that’s how some humans live. Look, I don’t want to give you shit for it. You had a shot at a better education, and you deserved it more than anyone.”
“Why can’t life just be simpler than it is? I thought coming home would change things, but now I’m going to have to get a job in the human world. Pay taxes, find insurance, grow old,” I grumbled.
Denver pulled the toilet lid down and flushed. He pressed a kiss against my forehead and wadded up the towel in his hand. “Why don’t you crash and sleep in tomorrow? You’re probably still jet-lagged, so maybe going out drinking wasn’t the best plan.” When he stood up, he glanced over his shoulder and threw the towel angrily into the hamper. “Dammit.”
“What?”
Denver reached out of sight and the water shut off. When he turned around, he was holding a scrawny black cat that was dripping with water. “This cat is a bag of nuts. I think Naya needs to buy him an aquarium for Christmas.”
I laughed when the cat’s tongue slid out the side of his mouth. “I don’t know. He’s kind of growing on me.”
“Like a wart.” Denver turned him around and studied his face. “He looks like Gollum.”
I pulled myself up and watched the way Spartacus just stared at Denver with his ears flat against his head. I suddenly felt a connection to him as an outcast trying to figure out his place in a pack of wolves. “I used to want a kitten when I was little.”
Denver set the cat on the floor and cracked open the door. “Skedaddle!” Spartacus scrambled out of the room and left a wet streak on the floor. “Change your mind on the kitten? Feel free to take him if you get an apartment.”
“Would you like that?”
“I know Wheeler would.” Denver laughed and wiped his wet hands on his jeans.
“No, I mean my moving out and getting an apartment.”
He pulled in his bottom lip and his teeth scraped across it.
I curled my fingers around his arm. “Someday I hope you’ll talk to me again. I know it’s not the same between us and we both have to figure out where we fit in each other’s lives, but I’m ready to start over if that’s what it takes. I’m sure you have mixed feelings—I get it. You still have a picture in your head of a young girl. I’m sorry for the way I acted tonight, and hopefully I didn’t ruin your date with my idiotic message. I miss us, and I don’t like this weirdness that’s going on. Whenever you’re ready to talk, I’m here. But please don’t keep giving me the cold shoulder for the rest of my life, because it’s breaking my heart. I feel like I’m being punished for growing up.”
His eyes were downcast, sullen.
Before leaving the room, I glanced over my shoulder. “And Denny?”
The back of his neck bloomed red. “Yeah?”
“I miss you calling me Peanut.”
Chapter 6
A firestorm of emotions assailed Denver when Maizy admitted she missed it when he called her Peanut. Just hearing her call him Denny had shredded his heart.
Denver closed the bathroom door and sat on the edge of the tub. He tried to keep his shit together, but hot, angry tears blurred his vision. He propped his elbows on his knees and covered his face. Why the hell am I such a dickhead?
Maizy was older and would keep getting older. It would break his fucking heart to watch her grow old a
nd die, and maybe that was the root of why he kept pushing her away. Reno was a brave man to love a human, but he didn’t know the pain of what it was like to lose someone he loved—to see a future erased by fate’s cruel hand.
Denver did. His brothers didn’t know about Cora.
Years ago when he lived on his own, Denver had met an amazing woman with short black hair and long lashes. She also had a child, but that didn’t matter to him. The father was an asshole who wasn’t ready to settle down with kids, so he’d given her an ultimatum to choose between the child and him. When Cora chose her son, he left and joined a pack in Canada.
Denver kept his growing feelings for Cora a secret. She was still raw from her past breakup and often spoke about how she didn’t think she could ever bring another man into her son’s life.
The first time he’d met her little boy, Nathan, was at a carnival. That kid loved to laugh, especially when he sat on Denver’s shoulders and matted cotton candy in his hair. Even though Denver was just a young wolf at the time, he began to imagine himself mated to Cora. Jesus, his brothers would have thought he’d lost his mind mating so young to a woman with a child, but that’s how deeply he felt about Cora and Nathan.
The bathroom door abruptly swung open and Trevor hurried toward the toilet.
“The fuck? I’m in here, bro,” Denver said from the edge of the bathtub.
Trevor jumped, but it was too late. He had already lowered the cannon and fired.
“Holy hell, you scared the bejesus out of me.” Tension melted away from Trevor’s voice. “We need another bathroom. Someone was in the downstairs guest. Plus I hate everyone hearing my business down there while they’re watching TV.”
Denver raked his fingers through his hair. “True that. If this keeps up, we’re going to have to start making reservations.”
The door opened to Denver’s right and William peered in. “Is this a party?”
Trevor’s eyes widened and he angled away. “Get the fuck out!”
“I heard voices; no need to get upset. I didn’t know you were doing something private in here,” William said, edging his way inside. He glanced down at Denver and winked, then folded his arms and lowered his chin. “Is that any way to speak to your third-in-command?”
After Trevor shook things off, he zipped up his pants and turned around. Poor wolf. They all had at least a decade on him, if not over a century. Despite his tan, his cheeks flamed as he washed his hands.
William rested his forearms on the sink and watched, his lips easing into a grin, which made Trevor even more uncomfortable. Especially when William reached over and pushed down on the soap dispenser. “Aren’t you going to flush?”
Denver laughed and stood up, patting William on the back. “I say we give him toothbrush duty for insubordination.”
Trevor turned off the water and a few droplets splashed on his white button-up shirt. “You two better be shitting me.”
Denver slipped out just as he heard William ask, “Does your wolf feel like going for a run? Mine needs to stretch his legs… if you want to join.”
Denver went to his bedroom and stripped out of his clothes, putting on his favorite sweatpants. He wandered into the game room, snatched a bag of cheese balls from behind the bar, and plopped down in the oversized beanbag chair. After snuggling his ass into a comfy position, he began tossing the balls up in the air and catching them in his mouth.
Jericho wandered in and lit up a cigarette. He sat on the barstool and twirled the silver lighter in a circle, watching Denver with a bored stare. “What’s wrong?”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?”
Another crunchy cheese ball bounced off Denver’s nose and rolled beneath the pool table.
“Because you suck at catching those when you’re pissed off. Something on your mind?” Jericho tucked the bear-claw necklace beneath his shirt and threaded his long hair away from his eyes, cigarette dangling from his mouth. Jericho always looked as if he was going to a gig because of his ripped jeans and tattered shirts. But without his signature leather cuffs, collar, chains, or eyeliner, it was just a regular day.
Denver licked the orange cheese dust off his fingers, his eyes transfixed on the ceiling. “What do you think of Maizy coming back home to stay?”
Jericho exhaled a long drag, and a concentrated cloud of smoke trailed to the ceiling. “I know where you’re going with this. Yeah, I dig. If she were a Shifter, she’d be leaving the pack after her first change. That’s the custom. Only in this case, Maizy doesn’t have to do all that.”
“Why not?” Denver crunched on a cheese ball and used his teeth to scrape the dusty cheese off his thumb.
“That rule was put in place a long time ago by the Councils to prevent fighting within the pack. Ideally they want young pups to move directly to another pack, but we all know that most of us like to take a few years off to figure out who we are before settling down. It’s better that way anyhow. They didn’t want Shifters staying in the pack they grew up in because… let’s just say a young girl caught more than one guy’s eye; that kind of competition and jealousy could tear the house apart.”
“So what makes Maizy so different?”
“She doesn’t pose a threat because she can’t have kids with one of us, and no one here is going to mate with her anyhow. I mean, she’s a knockout and all, but half of us are mated, Trevor’s gay… I don’t know about William. He’s more of a father figure to her, but they seem to get along.”
Denver shot him a nasty glare.
Jericho chuckled. “What? I’m just stating the obvious.”
Just the suggestion of William pursuing Maizy left Denver unsettled. Suddenly every guy was becoming a threat; maybe it was just that territorial wolf inside him still trying to act as her watchdog.
Every muscle in Denver’s body locked when Maizy suddenly entered the room. She dragged her feet across the floor, eyes half-closed, her blond hair messy and sexy as hell. He loved the way it didn’t fall straight but had this natural wave to it. Maizy used to have a dark tan, but it didn’t look as if the sun spent much time in England. When she walked past him wearing only a T-shirt, he couldn’t take his eyes off her milky-white legs.
“Sorry, I didn’t want to go downstairs,” she murmured, going behind the bar and reaching into the fridge. After pulling out a chilled bottle of water, she sucked it down and then pressed the bottle against her neck. A droplet of water hung on her lower lip, but her eyes were closed and she was already heading out of the room again.
Denver set the bag of snacks to the side, his eyes glazed over, still focused on the hall.
“Ah, shit. You dirty dog,” Jericho said.
“What?”
“You like her.”
Denver smeared his finger across his sweats and left an orange stain. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Going camping?” Jericho pointed at Denver’s sweats. “’Cause it looks like you pitched a tent.”
Denver looked down, a full-blown erection pressing against his sweats. A flush of heat stung his cheeks and he cursed under his breath.
Jericho patted out the butt of his smoke and laughed. “Don’t worry, dickhead. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Denver hurled the bag at him and it exploded, scattering orange balls all over the floor. “Why don’t you get out of here and go make some more babies, Jerko.”
His brow arched. “Think I just might do that. Isabelle’s going into her heat cycle soon, and my woman loves me good when she’s in heat.” Denver could hear Jericho laughing all the way down the hall.
Bastard.
Denver felt his blood warm when he thought about the way Maizy had held that bottle of water to her neck. He’d never felt anything so primal in his life, and the glimpse he’d gotten of her red panties…
“I’ve seen that look before,” Naya said, sauntering into the room and grabbing some juice from the short fridge. Living in a pack meant never having privacy.
&
nbsp; Still hard as granite, Denver turned over, lying on the beanbag in an incredibly awkward position.
When Naya spun around and held the juice to her lips, she spit some out with a quick laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
She wiped her chin and closed the fridge door. “Nothing, darling. I was suddenly reminded of when I first started seeing Wheeler. Literally,” she purred. “Maizy has become quite the popular girl in town. Several men at the bar were interested in getting to know her, and before you ask, they knew she was human.”
Which made Denver stir with jealousy. Some of the Breed thought humans were a curiosity—as if sleeping with one was a delicacy. Denver had never slept with a human before, but his curiosity had been piqued once or twice.
“Even Prince was taken by her.”
“That man has been nosing around in our shit for years. I don’t like it.”
“He’s helped us many times.”
Denver sat up. “It sure looked like he was trying to help himself earlier. She’s not a party favor, Naya. I don’t want you parading her around like shiny bait.”
She took a slow sip of her juice. “How did your date with Nadia go?”
He shifted on his side and propped his head in his hand. “She’s nice. Real classy.” He could hardly lie. Although assertive like most Shifter women were, Nadia was one of the most sophisticated women he’d ever gone out with.
“Nice.” Naya took another taste of her pineapple juice. “Nadia is independently wealthy, selective, and beautiful.”
“Then why is she still single?”
“People repeat history because they’re afraid to try something new. I hope you two give it a chance and see where things go.” Naya winked and left the room.
Denver got up and headed down the hall, stopping in front of Maizy’s room. His wolf was restless and wanted out, but not so he could run. He cracked the door open and saw her lying with her head at the foot of the bed. Her left arm was slung over the edge, and the water bottle had rolled out of her grip and across the floor. A dim night-light cast a soft glow in the room, creating shadows as he quietly crept inside and set the water within her reach. Maybe she wasn’t cold, but he still wrapped the purple blanket over her and covered her feet with a pillow.
