by T. S. Joyce
Grim was so massive, he would’ve totaled her Jeep if she’d run into him. He still could if he had a mind to get inside of it, but he backed away from the headlights, and she could see it. His eyes were green, not gold. Just pure, bright green, like rain-bloated moss. Hello, The Good.
Grim hunched in on himself and groaned in pain as he Changed back to his big, muscular, tattooed human form. Looked so painful she couldn’t rip her gaze off him if she tried. He was letting her see it, so she should be brave enough to stay in it with him. Sometimes she didn’t like Changing alone either.
On hands and knees, Grim shivered in the road, his head down as though ashamed. He wouldn’t look at her.
She should pull around him and speed away. That’s what smart girls would do, but she wasn’t one of the smart ones.
“Are you sick?” she asked as she shoved open the door.
With a soft grunt of pain, Grim rocked back and rested on his bent legs, rolling his head backward so he looked down his nose at her. His skin from neck to shoulder was badly burned.
“Ooooh no,” she murmured, echoing his position and kneeling down with him.
When she reached out and touched his neck lightly, he winced, but his eyes never left hers. They were muddying to a brown color instead of green. Brown and green and gold. Grim had problems.
“Would The Bad have hurt me?”
“The Reaper,” he rumbled. “His name’s the Reaper. And I don’t know. I don’t have much control over that one.”
“But the green-eyed good one?”
Grim frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The lion with the green eyes. The Green-Eyed Good.”
His frown deepened, causing wrinkles on his forehead. “You saw green in my eyes?”
She nodded once and tugged at his arm so she could see how far back around his neck the burn went. “Stupid lion. Whatcha gonna do? Kill the Red Dragon?” She shoved him in his good shoulder. “Don’t do that anymore.”
Grim’s breath was steady as he studied her. Her attention dipped to his thighs. Or more specifically to his long, thick dick. She tried to stop looking but couldn’t.
“It happens every time I Change,” he murmured, looking down at himself.
“What does?”
“I get hard. I don’t freaking know why. Changing doesn’t exactly feel good. It’s the adrenaline maybe.”
“It’s…”
“It’s what?” he asked. He was so direct when he asked questions, it made her want to answer instead of chickening out.
“It’s real pretty.”
“My dick is pretty?”
She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “If you’re looking for a girl with good words…that’s not me.”
“You talk clear enough to me. Okay. My dick is pretty.” When he shrugged, she smiled.
“I’m a shrugger, too.” She pulled her shoulders up to her ears to demonstrate.
He shrugged.
And then she shrugged faster.
And then they both started wiggling their shoulders double time and she couldn’t keep a straight face anymore. She cracked up.
And there it was, that stunning smile of his. It was right at the very corner of the left side of his lips. It made his face go all crooked. She liked crooked things. And Grim? He was a very crooked type of thing.
“The hot springs are far away from here,” she said apologetically. “They would help the burns, though.”
“I’ll be healed by morning,” he assured her. Huh. Tough man. Dominance sometimes made a shifter heal even faster. He must be very dominant.
“Are you the Alpha? Of Rogue Pride? Of Remi and Juno?”
“Not on purpose.” He stood and held out a hand to her.
She looked at it and then him. Brown eyes. Pretty human brown eyes. She slipped her palm against his and allowed him to pull her up. He was very strong. She was surprised how easy he did. She wasn’t some teeny girl. “Why are you here?”
Grim took a couple steps back and rested his hands on his hips, stared off into the woods, then shook his head. “I don’t know. I just…wanted to come here.”
“You mean the Green-Eyed Good did. He wanted to come here.”
“Smells like you,” he murmured. “The whole forest smells like you. Like your bear.”
Ash wrung her hands nervously. “You smell my bear?”
“Yes. She’s…she smells pretty.” Crooked smile, there it was, and now there was a spark of life in his eyes to match.
Ash giggled and kicked at a clump of snow with the toe of her shoe. “No one’s ever said that before.”
“Well…” Grim looked around. “Okay. I should go.”
“Go where?”
“Back to the bar. All my damn clothes are back there. And my Crew. And my cell phone. I need to figure out when we’re leaving in the morning.”
“Oh. Well I saved your boots and wallet and cell phone. They’re in my Jeep. But if you want to go back to the bar, it’s ten miles thataway.” She pointed down the mountain helpfully. “Your pretty dick’ll freeze off, though, if you hike it.”
“I’ll be all right,” he murmured with such confidence that she utterly believed he would be just fine. Strong man.
“I made meat?”
Grim turned and cupped himself. His skin was looking paler, and he had gooseflesh. He must’ve been very cold out here. “What?”
“I have food I made last night. It’s nothin’ five star. Pot roast and mashed potatoes and gravy and carrots and stuff.”
Grim shifted his weight. “Well, hell, that sounds five star enough for me.”
“I can share. With you.”
Grim scratched his jaw and studied her with a canted head, as if she was some sort of bug that needed figuring out. It was a quiet few seconds before he murmured, “I won’t Change again tonight. The Reaper is sleeping now. I can take a couch or the floor or something. I swear I won’t come onto you.”
“Well, that’s a little tragic. It’s okay if you don’t want to come onto me. Everything’s okay,” she said, making her way to the Jeep. “I got heated seats so your ass doesn’t freeze.”
“You mean so I don’t freeze my ass off?” he asked.
Ash giggled. That was the saying. She’d forgotten it. He made good jokes.
When he got into the passenger’s seat, he admitted, “I don’t want to see my Crew again tonight.” His voice was so quiet.
“Why?”
He rested his elbow on the edge of the window and stared out if it, away from her, biting his thumbnail. He wouldn’t answer, but that was okay. Sometimes she didn’t like to talk either, so she put the Jeep in gear.
But then he spoke up. “I don’t like the Reaper. I don’t like that part of me. I don’t really like being around people after I’m him.” Grim looked over at her, but she didn’t understand what he was trying to say with his pretty eyes.
“Why?” she asked again.
“Because I’m ashamed.” He reached forward and turned up the radio dial, and that was that. Conversation over. He was ashamed of the Reaper, and she bet he hadn’t admitted that to many people.
That made her feel special, and she wanted him to feel special, too, so she gave him a present. She reached over, rested her hand on his thigh, and squeezed it gently. Shifters loved touch. It was a comfort. It was her way of saying, ‘It’s okay with me that you are how you are,’ without her messing it up with actual words.
He didn’t even tense up, just sat there staring at her hand on his bare leg. She left it there as she drove with her free hand until she reached the little cabin she rented from her landlord, Mr. Perkins.
“You aren’t scared of me,” he rumbled as she opened her door.
“Well, you feel very big, and part of you is scary, but the other part is nice. Plus, Vyr looked like he wanted to burn you and eat your ashes tonight when the Reaper came out. He’ll probably avenge me if you kill me.”
Grim huffed a surprised-sounding laugh. “Y
eah, he burned the Reaper right out of me.”
But she didn’t understand what that meant so she said, “You can get out, and we can go inside and eat. Or eat out here if you like the wild. Sometimes I like eating in the wild.”
“What do you mean in the wild?”
“Outside. A picnic.” She got out and closed the door behind her, then crunched her way through the snow to the little cabin she’d called home for three years.
“That actually sounds nice. I just don’t have any…you know…”
Ash turned around to see what was wrong, and he was standing barefoot in the snow, boots in one hand, and the other hand still covering his man-bits.
“Oh! Clothes! Don’t worry. I have an idea for that.”
Chapter Five
A bull.
Grim cocked an eyebrow at himself in the full-length mirror in the spare bedroom. Ash had handed him a Halloween costume in the form of a thick adult onesie that had hooves on the feet, a fuzzy belly, and a hood with horns.
It barely fit him and was tight in the dick area. The sleeves were too short, and he couldn’t get it zipped up past his belly button, but it was warm. So…there was that.
He would’ve cursed Rhett for begging him to come to Damon’s Mountains except he actually didn’t mind tonight. Ash sure did have his interest.
And…well…bull onesie and all, he was kind of…sort of…having fun.
He made his way out of the bedroom into the living room. God, this place smelled so good. Ash was in the small kitchen heating up the food, and he couldn’t remember a single time in his life anything smelled better.
The best part of it all? When he saw Ash, she was wearing a black and white spotted cow onesie, complete with horns and udders.
She turned around with the brightest, prettiest, most genuine smile he’d ever seen on another person. Like she was really happy to see him.
“Moo.” Ash giggled as she clutched a bowl of mashed potatoes in her hand. Her nose scrunched up with her laugh, and the psychotic part of him wanted to touch it just to feel the cute little wrinkles there.
Biting back a smile, he murmured low, “Moooo.”
Now Ash was cracking up, her blue hair falling out of the cow hood in little wavy wisps as she moved. He wanted to touch that, too.
“I thought if I dressed up, too, you would be happier.”
“It worked. You look…” Beautiful. He cleared his throat. Careful now, Grim. She isn’t yours. “You look like a cow.” Shit. That was rude, and not at all what he meant.
But Ash didn’t seem to mind him calling her a cow. She just stifled her giggles and said, “Me and Remi wore these a long time ago to a Halloween party, and Juno was a bucket of milk.”
Okay, now he was really having to fight a smile because he could just imagine the three of them. “Here, let me help.” He took the potatoes from her and piled spoonful’s onto the two ceramic plates she’d set out. She’d already dished up pot roast and carrots and some type of bread cut in a triangle.
When he pointed to it, she said, “Yorkshire pudding. My mom makes it better.”
Well, then, her momma must’ve been a chef or something because it looked and smelled delicious.
“Do you like to cook?” Grim asked.
“I like to cook when I’m confused.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, searching the cupboard for glasses so he could make them drinks.
“Beer,” she murmured, pointing to the fridge.
Even better.
“I get confused when people are mean, or sometimes when they are nice, and cooking helps me think about it.”
“It’s your therapy.”
Ash shrugged up a shoulder. She hadn’t zipped up her cow costume all the way, and she had a tight little tank top underneath where he could see her cleavage. When she looked up at him, her clear blue eyes looked so bright, and her dark eyelashes touched her cheeks when she blinked. He’d never thought a blink could be sexy before but, holy shit, she was so fuckin’ beautiful. Total showstopper.
If he was the old Grim, the enforcer Grim, the Grim that was in charge of fighting for the Tarian Pride, he would’ve dragged her rank near the top no matter how submissive she was. He would’ve brought her closer to him and burned anyone who said a single thing against it. He would’ve started a war in the Pride for Ash. And that right there was one of the many reasons he wasn’t at the top of the ranks in the Tarian Pride anymore. Dominants bred with dominants, and submissives were treated like shit. But he didn’t think like the others. He didn’t believe only dominants should be important. Good God, he didn’t even like dominants. What had the Reaper ever done for him? Made his entire life a nightmare, that’s what.
Grim reached for the handle to the fridge and winced as the movement tugged on the burn across his neck and shoulder. It was bad. He was healing, but the material of the onesie was rubbing on it and irritating it worse.
“Here,” Ash said, yanking open the freezer. She pulled out a package of frozen peas and slid it through the opening of his costume. He tensed a little at the shock of the cold, but after a few seconds, he sighed in relief as the burning eased.
When her phone dinged on the counter, she frowned at it but ignored the glowing screen and went back to heating up one of the plates. It dinged again.
It was two a.m., so when the third notification lit up her screen, Grim gave into his curiosity. “Is it Juno and Remi?” he asked innocently.
“No, much worse.”
He frowned. Something long buried inside of him didn’t like that. He wanted to snuff out whatever made her pretty, dark eyebrows frown and that full bottom lip pout.
“Are you okay?”
“I am on a match site.”
“A match site,” he repeated.
She shrugged up her shoulders. “To find a mate.”
Nope, did not like that at all. Zero stars, did not fuckin’ recommend. He nearly choked on his snarl. “You deserve better than a blind-date mate.”
“I don’t deserve anything,” she said lightly. “Here.” She handed him a plate and picked up her own. “Wild dinner?”
“Uh, you mean do I want to eat outside?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “That’s what I mean.”
She was changing the subject, but she was about to learn something about him. He was a relentless hunter. “Yes, dinner outside sounds good.” He grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch as he passed because something inside of him wanted to protect her from the wind. And he had a feeling that something had green eyes and didn’t see the light of day much. The Good, as Ash called his steady lion, was pushing the Reaper to the edges. He could feel a little war going on inside of him for headspace. Both lions were watching her, The Good with interest, The Bad as prey. Ash wasn’t safe with half of him.
Grim hated himself.
She led him down the porch stairs to a fire pit out in the yard with a couple of white plastic lounge chairs. Her sexy ass swayed left and right, her little black and white spotted heifer tail pulling another smile from a face that hadn’t smiled in a while. She didn’t even realize how fuckin’ cute she was.
She set her plate down and picked up a lighter off a stump table by her chair, but Grim stopped her. “Go on, sit down. I’ll tuck you in and start the fire. Eat before it gets cold.”
Ash froze like a sexy little moocow popsicle. Her cheeks turned the same pretty pink of the roses his grandma loved. So pretty.
The Reaper growled.
Fuck off, Reaper. Let me have one night with someone who makes me feel okay.
“Th-thank you,” she murmured as she relaxed onto the chair with her food in her lap. She lifted the plate for him to put the blanket over her legs, and then she watched him pull logs off a low pile next to the iron ring fire pit. The peas almost fell out of his costume, so he had to zip it up better before he could light the crackling, dry newspaper underneath the logs.
“You look pretty again.” She whispered it so softly
he almost missed it over the growling in his throat. Fuckin’ Reaper was going to make him miss her weird compliments.
“What’s the match site you’re on?”
Ash was taking a sip of her beer and sputtered and coughed. Recovering quickly, she said, “It’s silly.”
“It’s just me and you here. We can say whatever we want.”
“But…”
“But what?”
“I want to keep you. For tonight.”
She was worried he would leave? “You have me. For tonight.” He wanted her for longer, but he was going to leave her alone and let her have a good life. Not poison her with the Reaper.
“There’s a site that got started a long time ago in Damon’s Mountains. ’S called bangaboarlander dot com.”
Grim purposefully kept his face as composed as he could. “Okay.” He adjusted the burning logs with a rusted iron poker he found on the ground. “I can’t imagine you needing help to find a mate.”
Ash kept her gaze on her plate as she moved her food around with the tip of her fork. She went quiet, and he could almost, almost smell some emotion coming from her—sadness?
He sat on the chair next to hers and took a long swig of his beer, studying her, waiting for her to talk to him.
When she didn’t, he finally pushed. “You okay?”
“I don’t like being teased.”
“Who teased you?”
“You’re doing it. I know it’s a joke, you saying I shouldn’t have trouble finding a mate. I don’t like it.”
Aw crap, he didn’t mean to make her feel like he was making fun of her. “Look at me,” he murmured.
When she shook her head, she looked so sad it punched him in the gut. Fuck. He wasn’t good with people. He hurt everyone. This is why he was king of the Last Chance Crew.
He should leave. He should get up, set his plate down, walk into the woods, and never come back. The Reaper inside of him gave a slow smile. He couldn’t stop snarling. He wanted to hurt the thing that had hurt her, but that was him. He was the hurter. Always the hurter.
