12. Val #2
Harley pushes at me, trying to peer around my shoulder.
When I don’t move fast enough for him, the little asshole pinches my hip hard.
It hurts enough that I nearly yelp. Instead I growl and I’m tempted to put him over my knee for it, but I had said I’d never hurt him physically and I won’t. Plus, now is really not the time.
The sound rumbles out of me low and instinctive before I can stop it. Harley freezes for half a second, eyes widening, and I realize too late how that must have sounded to him.
“Stop it,” I snap, softer immediately afterward. “There may be danger.”
Then the shape moves fully enough that moonlight catches it. Yellow eyes. Broad shoulders.
“Shit,” I breathe.
“What’s—”
Harley slips out from behind me before I can stop him. He only makes it to my side before going rigid. His gaze locks onto the alley instantly.
“Oh fuck,” he whispers. “Oh fuck no. They said they—” He cuts himself off so abruptly his teeth click together.
My attention snaps to him.
Said they what?
But there are too many people nearby to ask. The sidewalk outside the club is crowded now, smokers clustered near the entrance, people laughing too loudly, music spilling every time the door opens. Whatever Harley almost admitted, he catches himself before saying too much.
A taxi pulls to the curb before I can question him further, and relief punches through me so hard my knees almost weaken. I yank open the back door immediately.
“Get in.”
Harley hesitates just long enough to look back toward the alley.
“Harley.”
That gets him moving. He slides into the cab quickly, scrambling across the seat while I lean down toward the driver.
“Take him straight home,” I say, rattling off the apartment address. “Don’t stop for anybody.”
I pull a fifty from my wallet and shove it toward the driver. His eyes widen slightly before he nods.
“Sure thing.”
“Come on,” Harley urges from inside the cab. “Let’s get out of here.”
He pats the seat beside him. The sight nearly breaks something in me.
Because for one terrible, selfish second, I want to get in beside him.
I want to pretend none of this exists. Pretend I’m just another guy Harley picked up at a club.
Go upstairs. Put him in my bed. Hold him through the nightmares he’s clearly not telling me about. Pretend I’m not about to destroy this.
But the wolf across the street is still watching and Harley deserves the truth before this gets any worse. I wait until he looks directly at me. Then I say the one thing that ruins everything.
“I’m not coming, Harley.”
His expression empties.
“What?” He shifts toward the door immediately. “No.”
“You need to go home.”
“You can’t stay here.” Panic sharpens his voice. “You don’t know, you have no idea—”
I lift one hand quickly in a gesture that says stop.
Please don’t make this harder.
“But I do know,” I say quietly. “Nathan trusts me with you.”
The words land like a gunshot and I watch with sick resignation as realization spread across Harley’s face in awful slow motion. Confusion first. Then disbelief. Then horror.
Actual horror.
Sweat breaks across his forehead instantly. His breathing changes. He recoils from me so hard he hits the opposite door of the cab, pressing himself against it like distance alone might protect him.
“No,” he whispers.
My stomach turns violently.
“Harley—”
“Go.” His voice cracks apart completely. “Get me the fuck outta here.”
The cab driver looks between us nervously so I shut the door before Harley can say anything else. Because I can already see it in his face.
Hatred.
Betrayal.
And worse than either of those, shame.
The realization of what happened in the alley is catching up with him now. Not just that he let someone touch him. That he let a shifter touch him. Trusted one. Wanted one. Came apart in my hands while I hid what I was.
God.
I feel sick.
I stand and shut the door before Harley can say anything else.
I don’t want to hear him curse me and tell me what a vile thing I am.
I already know. Harley willhate me, does hate me, in fact.
He’ll certainly never forgive me for what I am, which I can do nothing about, and he’ll truly hate me for what happened in the alley, even though he enjoyed it.
The fact that a shifter had given him pleasure will probably cement Harley’s hatred of us.
The cab pulls away, and Harley never looks back at me.
I hear the snarl from the beast waiting for me, know it for the taunt it is, and know myself to be no match for the shifter.
Not without some sort of weapon. How Marcus thought I could fight off and kill other shifters, damaged as I am, I don’t know.
But what happens to Harley if I don’t? He could be murdered.
Maybe even tonight. He’ll never be safe.
I won’t fail. That’s all there is to it.
I’m not going to walk blindly into a trap, though.
I need time, and something to use as a weapon.
I send the shifter a cocky grin and flip him off.
If anyone else is watching me, they probably think I’m nuts, but that’s not my concern.
I turn and start toward the diner, mostly confident the wolf won’t come charging down a public street where there are witnesses.
Arizona is an open-carry state. It’s not improbable that somebody would be carrying a gun and decide to shoot at a vicious wolf.
I feel the other watching me as I enter the diner. Keeping my expression impassive, I slide onto a stool at the counter. A waitress who looks surprisingly fresh-faced comes up and smiles.
“You need a menu, or you want coffee and pie like most folks do? Our peach pie is famous around here.”
I don’t really want anything except a few minutes to think and try not to dwell on Harley’s rejection. That doesn’t seem prudent to mention.
“Yeah, that’d be great. Black, no sugar or anything, please.”
“Gotcha.”
The young woman winks and dashes off. I swivel on the stool enough to keep the street outside in sight. A few minutes later I have a steaming cup of coffee in front of me, a huge slice of peach pie beside it—and a clothed man standing outside staring right at me.
Goose bumps ripple down my spine.
It’s the shifter. I’m sure of it.
Power seems to roll off him, nothing as strong as Marcus’, but still obvious to someone who knows what it is. Other people might only feel a prickling sense of unease, depending on how sensitive they are to the supernatural. I’ve lived with it all my life, so I know exactly what I’m experiencing.
Whoever the wolf is, he’s an alpha. I don’t know any alphas in the area except the ones leading packs, and none of them look like my stalker.
My plan to snatch a butter knife is suddenly looking a lot less intelligent.
The man watching me is fucking huge, and since I’m pretty tall myself, that says something.
Maybe it isn’t his height so much as his bulk.
Even in my best shape I’ve never carried that much muscle.
Stringy brownish hair hangs in clumps around his face, and a heavy beard covers most of his jaw and neck.
His eyes seem dark green, and they carry enough anger that I know I’ll almost certainly fall under his hand.
That won’t stop me from trying, but my life is looking a hell of a lot shorter than it did fifteen minutes ago.
I nod my understanding. When I leave the diner, there’ll be a confrontation.
Likely a violent one that ends in my death, or at least with me in a great deal of pain.
Turning back to my pie, I eat it while barely tasting a bite, though I still tell the waitress that yes, it is indeed the best peach pie ever.
Outside, the night air feels hotter than before, thick with exhaust fumes and the lingering scent of rain that never actually reached the ground.
The wolf waits exactly where I left him, standing beneath a flickering streetlight on the corner like some half-rotted guardian out of a nightmare.
Up close, he looks even rougher than he did through the diner window.
Dirt has worked itself deep into the creases of his skin, and his clothes hang awkwardly from his broad frame, torn in places and stained with old grease and dust. The smell coming off him is enough to make my nose wrinkle despite my dulled senses, not merely body odour but the deeper embedded stench of someone who has gone too long without a real place to live.
My hand stays in my pocket around the butter knife as I approach, fingers curled tightly around the useless little weapon.
The ridiculousness of it isn’t lost on me.
Before the accident, I’d have laughed at the idea of carrying a diner knife into a confrontation with another alpha-level shifter.
Before the accident, I would have trusted my own body to be the deadliest thing in any alley.
Now I trust nothing about myself except one thing: I am not letting this bastard near Harley.
“What do you want?” I ask once I’m close enough that we don’t have to raise our voices.
The other shifter studies me silently for several seconds before answering. His eyes are an unusual dark green, not unlike Harley’s, though there’s nothing warm in them. Suspicion coils there instead, sharp and ugly, along with exhaustion so deep it seems carved into his bones.
“Who are you?” he finally rasps.
His voice sounds damaged, rough enough that I wonder if he smoked for years or screamed his throat raw somewhere nobody would hear him.
I keep my posture steady despite the pain beginning to pulse through my thigh again.
Fear crawls steadily along my spine, but I refuse to let him smell it if I can help it.