Chapter 10
The cabin was cozy and clean. Braided rag rugs littered the floor, and an old plaid couch with wooden legs rested against the side wall.
There was no TV, but where one might have sat, there was a shelf of dozens of worn paperbacks, the spines cracked and faded from hand after hand.
The kitchen was at the back of the cabin, and to the left, he saw two closed doors and a bathroom.
JJ had told him there were two bedrooms in the cabin. It had seemed like a strange detail. Surely Nadja would be heading back to World’s End. Why did it matter that there were two beds?
She was in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets.
“Score!” he heard her exclaim before the distinctive sound of ice cubes hitting the bottom of a glass filtered out into the living room.
When she returned, she had two glasses of ice water in her hands.
There were cork coasters on the table, and she placed the waters on top of them before sitting in a recliner that looked identical to the one his Papaw used in the 1990s.
And in the nineties, that chair was already more than twenty years old.
He sat on the couch and rested his elbows on his knees. He didn’t know Nadja, but he knew people. She was nervous. He could tell by the way her hands never stopped moving.
“So,” he said.
“So,” she repeated.
“You wanted to talk.”
She blew out a gust of breath. “Yeah.”
“Before we do, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
Robbie took a sip of water. “How did you convince them to let me stay?”
Nadja closed her eyes. “That’s what we need to talk about.”
He felt itchy all of a sudden. “Can you just tell me? I can’t really handle any more surprises today.”
“Robbie, I’m so sorry,” she said. “It’s only until you shift for the first time, which JJ promised could be any day now.”
He stared at her, waiting.
“I told them we were mates,” she blurted, the words running together in her race to spit them out of her mouth.
Surely he hadn’t heard her correctly. Mates? He’d worked with a few wolves over the years. Only one of them was mated, but it seemed like a forever sort of thing.
Nadja looked pale, like she might pass out.
“Hey,” he said. “You don’t look so good. Do you need to lie down?”
“No!” She closed her eyes again and took some deep breaths. “Didn’t you hear me? I told them we were mates, Robbie. Without your consent.”
“It’s a little lie. It’s not like we have to consummate this thing in front of the whole pack.”
Somehow, she looked even more ill.
“Hey, now. Don’t make yourself sick over this. Like you said, I’ll shift, and then we can go back to life as usual. No harm, no foul.”
“I’m fine. I’m just—I’m fine,” she said, dropping her head against the back of the chair. “This isn’t about me. But you were unconscious, and I panicked. It’s a violation of at least five ethics codes—probably more—but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You did the right thing,” he said, feeling the sudden urge to hold her hand, to rub his thumb over the bumps of her knuckles and feel the delicate skin that covered them.
She had long, graceful fingers, but her nails were torn to hell.
He wouldn’t have expected a therapist to be a nail biter.
Then again, he hadn’t expected to be a werewolf either, so apparently there were a lot of surprises still left in the world.
“Thank you, Nadja,” he continued. “This place… I don’t know. It feels… like it’s all gonna be okay. And I don’t want you to worry that I’ll push you or anything. This is a”—a sudden thought occurred to him, and he laughed—“this is just a fake mating of convenience.”
Nadja groaned. “I’ve read those books too, Robbie. I know what happens.”
Robbie waved his hand. “That’s fiction. This is real life. We’ll put on a good show, make it believable, I’ll shift, and then we’ll figure out what happens next.”
She rocked forward and buried her face in her hands. “There’s more.”
“Let me guess. You’re a bunny shifter.”
“Robbie, be serious. Wait. A bunny shifter?”
“Why the hell not?”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“I’m sorry. I use humor to lighten the mood,” he said.
“Or to deflect,” she snapped.
He looked up at the ceiling, at the high wood beams, the varnish turning slightly orange from age.
He’d always used humor to cope. Usually, the levity was appreciated, or at least received, by his friends.
But Nadja wasn’t his friend. She was his therapist. And she’d only met him that morning.
Had it really only been a handful of hours?
He felt like a new person, like he’d been reborn. He remembered the panic of the morning, the agony of the day, but now, as the light grew soft and hazy, as his body felt loose and easy, he struggled to accept that it had been less than twelve hours.
“You’re right. Sometimes I do use it to deflect. But it doesn’t mean I’m not taking this seriously. I know how serious this is. And I know how much you’ve put yourself on the line to help me. I appreciate all you’ve done.”
“Oh, Robbie,” she said. “You don’t even know the half of it. And that’s the problem. I don’t smell like you.”
He blinked, confused. Of course she didn’t smell like him.
She smelled like floral shampoo and lavender, of coffee and the faintest, faintest whiff of burning.
Right now, he smelled like wet dog. He needed a shower.
He needed to eat. And then he needed to sleep for a solid fourteen hours.
He looked at the clock on the stove. Nine o’clock. And he was starving.
“I don’t smell like you. Like… I don’t smell like we’ve touched each other. At all.”
Oh. Oh.
“They’re going to start to get suspicious. This is what I’m most sorry for. It’s more than just a little lie. It’s what we need to do to make it believable. And Robbie, I just… I can’t. I—”
“Mating” this woman would be no hardship.
She was beautiful, with the sort of dangerous grace that poisonous fish in the nature shows had.
But it was obvious as hell that she wanted nothing to do with mating him, even if she’d agreed to pretend to be his mate.
And Robbie only slept with people who were not only willing but enthusiastic about the prospect.
“I don’t want to have sex with you, Nadja,” he said, making sure she looked at him when he said it. “K?”
“But… but how else can—”
“We can sleep together.”
“But you just said—”
“Sleep, Nadja. We can sleep together. I swear I’ll be a complete gentleman. I won’t touch you at all. I’ll lay there like a corpse.”
“Jesus Christ, Robbie.”
He smirked and held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, I’m sorry. But I’ve got to believe that sleeping in the same bed would make us smell like each other, right? Enough to be believable.”
“I did tell them we were waiting to… ‘make it official,’” she said with air quotes.
“You’re a goddamn genius, Doc,” he said, snapping his finger and pointing at her. “Look at us. So pure. Waiting for mating.”
She blushed, a little color returning to her cheeks.
“Hey,” he said, reaching out a hand, palm up. She hesitated but eventually put her hand in his. Her skin was cool and soft. He squeezed her hand gently and smiled when she reciprocated. “You did good today. You saved me.”
“You needed help.”
“Yeah, but not everyone would have gone the distance like you did. Literally. I appreciate you.”
Her blush deepened. “You’re welcome.”
Robbie clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Now, shall we go and see what JJ meant by ‘unperishables’?”