The dark-haired man, with that same half-gloomy, half-amused look, sighs. “Finally, a sensible question.” He pauses, glancing at the sea before he speaks again. “I’m…passing through.” His eyes drop to the ground, and the man runs a hand down his face. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I was going to leave the house before you noticed I was here after I got a couple hours of sleep. Swear on my life, I didn’t mean to shift, but my body just does it when I’m injured—”
“—and I hit you with the tea kettle,” Clara fills in, gaining some amount of understanding. She should feel more panicked about this than she is. Probably her brain has gone so far past panic that all that’s left is blank curiosity and a desire for answers.
Relief washes over the man’s face, and he starts to speak, but she cuts him off. “What’s your name, where are you from, and why are you still here? If you didn’t mean to hurt me, why am I not at a hospital or a doctor’s office?”
He opens his mouth and then snaps it closed. Irritation washes over his face. “I’m not required to answer all that. I’m still here because I hurt you and I have an EMT certification and it’s a danger to me to take you to a hospital right now.”
“I could call the cops, like you said,” Clara points out, but the man shakes his head.
“Sorry, I didn’t actually take that risk. I hid your phone for now.” He sighs, running his fingers through dark locks.
Clara furrows her eyebrows, imagining the shift she saw last night. It looked painful. Is it always that painful?
Clara shrugs. “Your funeral.”
The man looks confused. “What?”
“My mom calls regularly to check up on me. She’s convinced I’m going to get killed out here on my. If I don’t answer the phone, she’s sure to call the cops and send them here.” Clara gives the man an ugly smirk. “So you holding me hostage here won’t work.”
Anger flares in the man’s eyes, and he steps toward her, grabbing her chin and staring down at her. “I am not,” he spits, “holding you hostage. I’d be gone already and on my way somewhere else if I hadn’t hurt you.”
She smacks his hand away. “And you can’t just take me to a hospital like a normal person?”
“No,” he says, “It’s complicated. I’m sorry.”
Clara grits her teeth, using one hand to roll herself back a few feet, into the kitchen island. “I asked for your name. I want your name, if you won’t give me anything else.”
A shadow passes over the man’s expression, and for a moment Clara thinks he’s about to shift, or strike out, or just flat out refuse again. When he finally opens his mouth, his hard expression softens. “Nathanael.” Then he corrects. “Nathan.”
“Thank you,” she says, slumping into her wheelchair.
Nathan looks like he’s waiting for something. When she doesn’t give it, he speaks. His voice is low and gravelly and quiet. “What about your name?”
“Oh. Clara,” she answers. She brings her eyes to meet Nathan’s. “Why did you break into my house? Why not go to a hotel if you just needed a place to stay?”
He shakes his head. “Not possible. It’s complicated.”
“What’s not complicated?” She snaps, and the man jolts. “What can you explain to me?”
The shifter’s mouth gapes. “Look, I can’t tell you everything. I’m being followed, and staying in a hotel would leave a trace.”
Clara’s heart lurches as her mind travels back to the news of the Charlottetown murder. She gnaws on her lip, unsure how to respond to him. Her attempts to be headstrong would work better if she wasn’t afraid below the surface. “Is that why you’re all covered in bruises? Were you in a fight?”
The man furrows his eyebrows as if confused and then blinks in realization. “No, that’s…” He grits his teeth. “That’s something else. It happens when I shift.”
Nathan stares at her and steps forward and kneels in front of her. She tries not to pull away as he clasps his hands around her free right hand.
“There’s too much to explain. I can’t tell you. If you go to a hospital, my scent will be on you and in your skin and other shifters will find you and use that to find me. Please. I’m begging you. Let me stay here and take care of your injuries just for a few days, and then I’ll be gone.” He looks desperate. “I wasn’t here to steal. There’s no cover outside, and the wind would carry too much of my scent if I slept there.”
His eyes, dark green and pulling her in, soften as he practically begs on his knees. Skeptical, Clara turns her head to the side. She shouldn’t accept this. His mouth twitches a little, and she watches as he bites his lip in the same nervous habit she has.
That does it. The similarity makes her give in. The excitement is too strong, or maybe it’s just…maybe it’s just his eyes? Unfortunately, definitely the eyes.
Her heart skips. Don’t do that, Clara.
“You can stay,” she says. “Just for a few days. Until I’m more patched up.” Clara drops her gaze.
Nathan lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ll help with chores. I’ll cook. I’ll do whatever you need—”
“Can you start by watering my plants?” Clara asks, raising an eyebrow. He looks at her, eyes widening. He looks softer like that. He’s young, close to her age.
Nathan glances at the patio. “Yes. I’ll do that.” He stands and starts to go and turns back. “I can help you back to your room—”
“Maybe just the couch in here?” Clara forces a tiny smile, although the situation is still tense and uncomfortable. Clara, you idiot, why aren’t you asking him to leave?
He pushes the wheelchair to the couch. She’s about to stand, but he’s too fast. Nathan picks her up in his arms. Head pressed against his chest, she feels her heart flip. His arms are muscular, and his chest seems broader. She breathes in, closing her eyes as he sets her down.
Looking up at him, she opens her mouth and thinks about telling him that she could have stood on her. Something makes her hold back, though. She’s not sure if it’s a desire to keep that fact a secret in case she ever needs it to escape or just a desperate, underlying desire for him to pick her up again.
Exhaustion hits her again, even though she’s done almost nothing but sleep for most of the last twenty-four hours. She closes her eyes as Nathan steps into the other room. When he comes back, she opens her eyes just enough to see he’s holding her phone.
Nathan deliberates for a moment, eventually setting it on the TV stand—far enough that she can’t reach it easily, but not so far that he’s making a deliberate decision to stop her. He’s probably keeping it there so that he can hand the phone to Clara if her mom calls.
Unsure what she should even do in this situation, she pulls into herself, keeping her arms close. Clara closes her eyes once she hears him go outside, but she doesn’t intend to sleep.
Unfortunately, her body has other plans. When she finally wakes up again, someone is gently shaking her arm. She snaps her eyes open, gasping and sitting up. Immediately, pain speaks through her stomach and arm, and she cries out. Nathan’s hands steady her.
“Calm. It’s just me.”
“You talk like you’re an old friend of mine,” she murmurs, heart racing. He helps her lie back down, and she tries to breathe slowly. It’s long past dark now. He has two bowls of pasta and hands her one.
Clara stares at it for a moment. Laughing under his breath a little, Nathan takes a bite of his. “It’s not poisoned.”
“I didn’t think it was,” Clara quips. “If you wanted me dead or drugged, you’d have done that already.”
Nathan’s face pales. “Why would I want you drugged?”
“You know, sometimes men…” Clara trails off, feeling put off by his horrified expression. “I know you wouldn’t do anything like that—”
“You don’t know anything about me,” the dark-haired man snaps, standing and plopping down in the chair next to her. He takes a few bites of his pasta and sets it down, leaning
his elbows on his knees.
“And whose fault is that?” Clara says after a moment. This gets Nathan’s attention, and he opens and closes his mouth like she’s put him in the spotlight.
She takes the initiative. “My name is Clara Summers. I’m a music critic. I have muscular sclerosis and cannot walk most of the time, as you may have noticed. Before you ask— no, I haven’t been in a wheelchair my whole life. The disease usually develops in people in their late teens and early twenties. It became symptomatic when I was eighteen, and at twenty-three it progressed to the point that I use a wheelchair as a mobility aid most the time.”
Smiling, she takes a bite of the pasta and continues. “I was born in Vancouver. I enjoy gardening and staring at the beach, given that it’s not very wheelchair accessible. What about you?”
He stares at her. “My name is Nathan.” He pauses, furrowing his brow. She looks at his clenched jaw and wishes it didn’t elicit the heart-flipping reaction it does. “I was born in Yukon, but I’ve always moved around a lot.”
“Yeah? Do you have family?” she pries, half out of curiosity and half because she wants to deduce his identity.
Nathan nods. “Yeah.” He pauses, running one hand through his messy, pitch-black locks. Clara can’t help but stare. “I have an older sister, Naomi.”
“Do you two get along?”
“Sometimes,” Nathan says with a tiny smile. He glances out the windows. “I figure she’s probably coming for me.”
Clara’s eyes open wider. “Is she a shifter, too?”
Sighing into his palm, Nathan nods again. “She’s something they call the ‘guardian of the blood clan.’ She’s stronger. She can erase memory and do other things. She and a friend of mine are both guardians.” He narrows his eyes at Clara with a sly smile that makes her shiver. “I wouldn’t surprise if both came to drag my ass back, really.”
“You’re running away from them? Why?”
Nathanael shakes his head, standing and taking her empty food bowl as well as his to the kitchen a few steps away. “A misunderstanding.”
“What kind?”
This time, he stays silent. Irritated, Clara lies down. Pain tingles her torso where she knows she’s cut. Eventually, Nathan comes back with more Ibuprofen and some of the Ambien prescribed to help her sleep. Ready to not be conscious anymore, she takes it and quickly falls asleep.
The next few days pass uneventfully. Nathan, who is mostly distant and gloomy, cooks and gardens and does chores. He brings Clara her laptop so she can work, and Clara tells people she’s fine, despite knowing she should probably call the police.
Still, something draws her to Nathan in a way she can’t ignore. She’s caught him staring, too—usually through the window when he gardens. His eyes are so dark but they glint moss green in the light. The bruises on his golden skin, along with the lacerations she saw before, quickly disappear.
Eventually, her body catches up and she stops sleeping so much. One day, she wakes before he can change her bandages while she sleeps. Clara is reading when he comes inside and kneels by the couch. “I’m going to change all the gauze. OK, Clara?”
Those dark eyes look up at her. “OK,” she breathes.
Nathan is careful when he takes her left arm. Tired and intrigued, she watches the man work.
He unwraps the bandages, holding her wrist in place. She’s glad he does—as soon as she sees the skin, the damage becomes clear. Her wrist feels weak, and the thought of bending it makes her feel faint. The skin is dappled with ugly green and black bruising.
“You broke my wrist,” she says, more observation than question.
Avoiding her gaze, Nathan nods. “Yeah. Sorry.” Once the bandages are off, he releases her arm. Picking up a damp, warm towel, he wipes the skin. “Dislocated your elbow, too.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” she says sarcastically, and he looks up to see the tiny smile on her face.
He keeps cleaning and then starts rewrapping her arm with the splint. “Why are you so calm about this? Me being here and all of it, I mean.”
Clara bites her lip, shifting uncomfortably. “I don’t know. It seems unavoidable, doesn’t it?” She pauses “I know it’s foolish, but you don’t…you don’t scare me much, really.”
Something dark flashes in Nathan’s eyes. “That is foolish. I injured you. Don’t forget it.”
After a moment, it’s Clara’s turn to ask questions. As much as the media has hyped up the reality of shifters in the last ten years, she still knows so little. “Can’t you…I mean, aren’t shifters supposed to be able to control themselves?”
“Yes, but I’m—” Nathan clenches his hand around her wrist, making her cry out. When she does, he stops his train of thought entirely. “God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
She snatches her wrist away, hurting herself more and resting the damaged arm across her torso. “No. I want answers. Why did you attack me if shifters are all civilized and whatever the media says?”
He pauses, looking hurt. “I’m…a little different. It’s complicated.”
“You haven’t given me a single answer in the last few days,” she snaps, “I have a right to know. You broke into my house. I haven’t told anyone you’re here. It’s the least you can do.”
Nathan seems cornered. The expression slowly drops to something glowering and bitter. “I just can’t control myself as easily as everyone else, OK? It’s a genetic thing. I can’t change it.” He sighs. “No one works on shifter medication because people don’t like shifters, so there’s nothing I can do about it. It just makes it painful to shift, and when I do shift, I’m usually more animal than human. That’s why there were bruises when you first saw me.”
“Oh,” she says, “I didn’t know that shifter-only disorders existed.”
“They do. They’re not well researched and unfortunately for me, there’s no good treatment plan for them.” Nathan avoids her gaze, securing the last bit of bandaging on her neck and arm. Pausing, his irritated expression melts to something hesitant.
Clara rests a hand on his arm. “What?”
“I need to— “he starts, “I need to change the bandages on your stomach and legs.”
This makes Clara pause. The thought of him touching her body like that, even just to tend to her wounds, makes something inside her stir. The realization hits her a moment later, however, that it’s already happened. “Wait, you’ve been tending to my bandages while I’ve been asleep. You’ve already done that, so why is it an issue now?”
“Because you’re awake,” Nathan explains, making direct eye contact. His expression is more serious than awkward now, and something about the way he looks at her makes Clara feel vulnerable in a predator-prey way.
“Oh,” she murmurs out, still not breaking eye contact.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “Oh.” Nathan rests his hand on the couch cushion. “So, are you comfortable with that or not? If not, you’ll have to do it yourself, and I don’t think that will go over well. It has to be done, though. An infection is the worst thing that could happen right now.”
Clara deliberates for a moment. The truth is that it isn’t really a decision—if anything, she wants him to touch her. “OK,” she breathes. “OK. You can do it.”
Nodding, Nathan reaches for her shirt. Focused, he unbuttons the blue pajama top before slipping it down to pool around her elbows. Carefully he peels away the gauze secured with adhesive tape to her chest.
Clara breathes shallowly, staring as he works. The wounds aren’t as deep as she had thought. Nathan soon validates this. “You’re healing up well. Is there much pain?”
Clara thinks, then shakes her head. “Not where the cuts are, no.”
“Good.” Nathan smiles before getting up and getting a fresh cloth.
When he returns, he gently wipes her torso. He reaches where the lacerations cut between her breasts, and he gently lifts her bra at the middle and smooths the cloth. Clara breathes shakily, finely attuned to
the touch of his left hand as he cleans her injuries with the cloth in his right. With that area done, he replaces her bra and slides the cloth, and his touch, up to her shoulder. The cuts end near her collarbone.
Nathan doesn’t look at her as he works. Breathing through her nose, she opens her mouth and asks the question on her mind. “How do you keep so serious doing this?”
“What do you mean? I have some medical training, I told you that.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Clara shakes her head. “Doesn’t this feel…I mean, isn’t it—” She pauses, biting her lip. Slowly, on impulse, she grabs his hand and pulls it to her face so she’s breathing on Nathan’s fingers. “Isn’t it intimate or embarrassing?”
Nathan’s eyes open wide and then soften into the sleepy, self-assured expression that she’s grown to look forward to. “It wasn’t before,” he says, curling his fingers and brushing them against Clara’s cheek. “But maybe now it is.”
Nathan tucks a chunk of hazelnut-colored locks behind her ear, staring at her with an expression can’t read. “Your hair is soft,” he murmurs. He starts to pull his hand away.
He’s not fast enough. Clara grabs his wrist before he can stand and leave. He frowns. “Let me go, Clara.”
“Why are you so distant?” she demands. “You feel something. Why are you running? Is there someone else. Is that why the other shifters are following you?”
Nathan snatches his hand away, wincing. Something pained flashes in his eyes, and Clara realizes that she’s said something hurtful. “No,” he answers quickly, dropping his hand to his side. “There’s no one else.”
Loved by The Alpha Bear (Primal Bear Protectors Book 1) Page 3
