CHAPTER EIGHT || HARRIS
“Harris?” The sound of Reed’s voice snapped me awake.
I lurched upright and immediately turned to glare at him, the couch creaking under my weight. “What are you doing? You shouldn’t be out of bed!”
It had been a rough night, but Reed had finally convinced me that he didn’t need a hospital. In return, I had made him promise to rest in bed until he was healed up.
“I’m fine,” he assured me. The expression he wore was more open than I had ever seen it before.
A faint smile tugged at his lips, as though my reaction had amused him.
He stood next to the couch, wearing an emerald-green T-shirt and a pair of dark jeans.
His hair was still damp, presumably from the shower I hadn’t heard him taking.
He even had shoes and socks on. “I’m all healed up. Thanks to you.”
When I narrowed my eyes at him in suspicion, he chuckled and stripped off his shirt.
His skin was perfectly unblemished—all lean muscle and a dusting of chest hair that shouldn’t have seemed so enticing.
I had the wild impulse to run my fingers through it, to see if it was as soft as it looked.
But there wasn’t even a scar from the injuries he had sustained last night. He was completely back to normal.
“Oh,” I said, staring at him in disbelief.
“Wolves heal quick,” he said, pulling his shirt back on. When he had finished tugging down the hem, he added, “There’s coffee. And hot water, if you want to shower.”
“Both sound good,” I replied warily. Was it my imagination, or was Reed noticeably warmer toward me now?
“I put out a towel for you. And a washcloth.”
“How civilized of you. Next, you’ll be telling me you cook with an apron and have matching sheets.”
He grinned at me, a mischievous sparkle in his eye. “I’m not an animal. Or, at least, not all of the time.”
I couldn’t help smiling back at him. Something relaxed in my chest right then—a tension I hadn’t even been aware I’d been holding on to. Because Reed was going to be okay. Better than okay. He was even joking. Last night seemed like a bad dream.
I got up and made my way into the bathroom. It was surprisingly nice. The navy-blue towels matched and there was even a little rug on the floor, a few shades lighter than the towels. Hell, he even had a scented candle.
After taking care of my morning needs, I got into Reed’s shower. I usually take short, no-nonsense showers. Get in, get clean, get out. But today I lingered, letting the hot water wash over me and relax my muscles.
My thoughts kept drifting back to Reed’s bare torso. Those flat, hard muscles, the dark chest hair, the hungry gleam in his eye when he met my gaze…
I began growing hard. Not uncomfortably so, but enough that I was tempted to relieve myself then and there. But that seemed like a bridge too far—besides, I didn’t really want to touch myself. I wanted him to touch me.
Idly, I wondered if he was a top or a bottom. Or if he had ever even been with a man. He might’ve been as inexperienced as me. I doubted it, given that he had implied otherwise. But there were some things I wasn’t sure I was ready to try yet.
Like, for instance, all of it.
Though kissing him had been nice. Really nice. But what was I prepared to do after that?
What if Reed wasn’t okay with waiting? What if he ended up expecting more from me than I was ready or able to give? What if he wasn’t inclined to be… patient?
I finished up the shower feeling vaguely unsettled but still aroused—a strange mix. But after I had toweled off and dressed, I opened the door to be greeted by the enticing smell of breakfast.
Reed was standing at the kitchen counter and turned to face me, holding a plate in each hand, both piled high with scrambled eggs and toast.
“Perfect timing,” he greeted me, setting the plates down on the wooden kitchen table. “I made breakfast.”
On cue, my stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten dinner last night. In fact, I hadn’t eaten lunch, either.
Reed obviously heard it because he chuckled. “Someone’s hungry. I figured.”
Wait—had he noticed that I hadn’t eaten? My needs should have been the furthest thing from his mind, given that he had almost died last night.
“It looks incredible,” I said, approaching the table.
Reed had poured us both steaming mugs of coffee and tall glasses of orange juice.
There was a carton of half-and-half and a bowl of sugar on the table as well.
It was… oddly domestic. Not at all what I might’ve expected from the alpha of a werewolf pack.
I added, “I didn’t know you could cook.”
“There’s a lot we don’t know about each other,” Reed said, taking a seat at the table. He nodded at my chair. “Dig in before it gets cold.”
I sat down across from him, and we ate in companionable silence. And maybe it was just because I was starving, but the food really was incredible. Reed was a pretty damn good cook.
“It was delicious,” I said, once I had cleared my plate.
“Thanks. Emma taught me how to make scrambled eggs. The toast, I figured out on my own.”
“And Emma is…?”
“The pack’s last remaining elder. She’s kind of a surrogate mom to a lot of us.”
“And your parents?”
Reed expression went darker. Thrumming through the bond, I felt the echoes of his grief. “I’ve been on my own a while now. This is dangerous work.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It is what it is.” Then he paused and added more hesitantly, “I want you to meet her. Emma, I mean.”
I blinked at him in surprise. It was sweet in a way I wouldn’t have expected—he wanted me to meet the woman who had helped raise him. But what the hell happened to convincing me to leave? The about-face in his attitude was hard to catch up with.
“Well, we both saw the monster,” Reed said. “And you might’ve seen something I missed.”
“You’re serious?”
“You’re in this now,” he replied, considering me. “Doesn’t mean I want you in harm’s way. I’ll fight you tooth and nail to keep you safe. But you’ve proven I can trust you. You deserve to be involved—from a safe distance.”
I consciously stopped myself from assuring him that if I knew he was in trouble, I’d rush right back into danger without a moment’s hesitation. I doubted it would have helped my cause any.
Instead, I said, “Yeah, let’s go talk to Emma.”
* * *
Emma’s cabin was only a few doors down and she opened the door on Reed’s second knock. “Took you long enough,” she said by way of greeting, her blue eyes narrowed at Reed. Then her gaze landed on me and she softened fractionally. “Well, hi there. Welcome. Come on in, both of you.”
She stepped back to give us space to enter, her gaze lingering on me as I walked past. She was short and thin, with deep red hair and bright blue eyes. Her age was impossible to place, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would have pegged her as being in her mid-sixties.
She wasn’t alone, either. In the corner, surrounded by a massive pile of books, was Daniel, sitting on a weathered armchair next to the window. He nodded to us but didn’t say anything.
And sitting at the kitchen table with an enormous mug of coffee was a redheaded woman in her twenties who had blue eyes the same shade as Emma’s.
She had a laptop open, was balancing a book on her lap, and simultaneously scrawling notes onto a yellow legal pad.
She had headphones on, but when she looked up and saw Reed and me, her eyes widened in alarm.
She pulled the headphones down, her shocked gaze fixed on me. “Who is he and what is he doing here?”
“His name is Harris. We can trust him,” Reed assured her.
Her wide-eyed gaze swept over me. “But he’s human.”
“Sarah, hush,” Emma admonished her. “Don’t be rude to our guest.” Then she fixed Reed with an appraising look. “Want some coffee? I just made a pot and there might even be some left.”
“Nah. If I have any more caffeine, I’ll start levitating.”
Her questioning gaze landed on me and I shook my head. “I had plenty.”
Emma sighed. “Well, if you’re here for an update, there isn’t one. Hattie is still working on her analysis, and until she figures out anything concrete, we don’t have much to go on.”
“We were attacked last night,” Reed said. “I’m pretty sure it was the same monster that killed the hiker.”
“Well, holy shit.” Then Emma paused, her brows drawing together in confusion. She fixed me with a strange look. “Wait, ‘we’? As in—”
“Both of us,” Reed said, nodding. He glanced at me before turning back to Emma. “Harris found me in the woods last night, right before the creature struck. And if not for him, I doubt I’d be standing here right now.”
“Wait a second.” Daniel shot to his feet, spilling a thick book onto the floor with a dull thud. He stared at me in total shock. “How did you get out of the cabin? I set a boundary spell. Nothing should have gotten in or out!”
“I was wondering that, too,” Reed said, flashing me an assessing look.
“If Daniel says he did it, that means he did it,” Sarah said flatly, immediately jumping to Daniel’s defense. She narrowed her gaze at Reed, as if expecting him to argue with her.
I hesitated.
If I told them about the amulet, they might confiscate it in the interest of keeping me safe. But it would also let Daniel off the hook. And maybe things had changed enough between Reed and me that he was now confident in my ability to keep myself safe.
Did I trust him not to try to control me?
“You can tell me later,” Reed said quietly, as though he had intuited the reasons for my hesitation.
“But I cast the spell,” Daniel said, his voice rising, a defensive note creeping in, even though no one had challenged him. He went paler than before, as though afraid to have Reed or anyone else doubt him. “I swear I did.”
I remembered what he had told me the day before—that he wasn’t really part of the pack. He was just kind of… here. Maybe he was insecure about his position among the wolves.
“He did,” I agreed, meeting Daniel’s gaze for a moment before turning my attention back to Reed. “I watched him do it. It wasn’t his fault.”