Chapter 4
Knox
The wrench slips for the third time in ten minutes.
I growl at it, which doesn't help but makes me feel marginally better.
The bike I'm working on doesn't need fixing—it's a routine tune-up at best—but I needed something to do with my hands.
Something to focus on that isn't the memory of warm brown eyes blinking up at me through rain-spotted glasses.
Your eyes are pretty when they're gold.
I tighten my grip on the wrench and try again.
The bolt turns smoothly this time, but I barely notice.
I keep thinking about the way he looked wrapped in my blanket.
The way he smelled—rain and exhaustion and that warm-sweet undertone that's been stuck in my head for hours.
The way he just accepted us, like finding out he'd stumbled into a den of lion shifters was mildly inconvenient rather than terrifying.
The way he felt pressed against my back on the ride home, arms tight around my waist, thighs bracketing my hips. The way he swayed on the sidewalk outside his building, half-asleep and mumbling about drag queens and rainbow cupcakes.
The way he said pretty.
"—and did you see his hands?"
Jason's voice cuts through my thoughts. I don't know how long he's been talking. Could be seconds, could be an hour.
"He had ink on his fingers. From actual pens. When's the last time you saw someone with ink stains? That's so cute. He probably writes notes in the margins of books. Little annotations. Thoughts. Maybe he underlines his favorite passages—"
"Jason." I don't look up from the engine. "Shut up."
"I'm just saying, he was really pretty. Even soaking wet.
Actually, especially soaking wet." Jason is lounging against the workbench like he doesn't have a care in the world, long legs crossed at the ankle, completely unbothered by the warning in my voice.
"His shirt was kind of see-through under that cardigan.
Did you notice? Very nice chest. Compact but—"
The wrench goes flying before I consciously decide to throw it. It clangs against the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the drywall.
Jason doesn't even flinch.
"Did you notice his neck?" he continues, as if I hadn't just hurled a metal object in his general direction. "When he took off his glasses to clean them? He has this really elegant throat. Long. Pale. Bet it would look amazing with—"
"Jason."
"What? I'm just observing. Objectively." He examines his fingernails with theatrical casualness.
"He has that librarian thing going on, you know?
Buttoned up and proper on the outside, but you just know there's something else underneath.
Like, I bet under those awful khakis he was wearing, he's got—"
"If you finish that sentence, I'm putting you on inventory for a month."
Jason grins, sharp and delighted. He knows exactly what he's doing. He's been poking at me since I got back last night and he was up getting some water, watching for cracks, waiting for me to break.
"Bet he'd look incredible spread out on your desk," he says quickly, then ducks.
The shift happens before I can stop it.
One second I'm human, irritated and trying to hold it together.
The next I'm four hundred pounds of pissed-off lion, muscles bunching and releasing as I pounce.
The world goes sharper, brighter—colors muted but movement crystal clear.
I can smell everything: motor oil, metal, Jason's gleeful lack of fear, the lingering trace of Toby's scent still clinging to my skin even after a shower.
Jason goes down laughing, hitting the concrete floor with a thud that would have knocked the wind out of a human.
I'm on top of him instantly, teeth at his throat, not breaking skin but making my point very, very clear.
The position is pure dominance—alpha to pack member, a reminder of exactly who's in charge here.
He bares his neck, submitting, but he's still fucking laughing. His whole body is shaking with it, completely unafraid despite the fact that I could rip his throat out with one twitch of my jaw.
"Vaughn!" he calls out, not even trying to get away. "You owe me fifty!"
Vaughn appears in the doorway, takes one look at me in shifted form pinning Jason to the garage floor, and pulls out his wallet without a word. His expression is somewhere between amused and resigned.
"Two hours," he says, counting out bills. "I thought you'd last at least until lunch."
I shift back, which leaves me naked and irritated on the cold concrete floor. Jason is still laughing. I resist the urge to kick him.
"You bet on me?"
"Everyone bet." Vaughn hands Jason the cash, utterly unrepentant. "Silas had three hours. Ezra thought you'd make it to tonight. Jason said you wouldn't last past ten AM."
"It's 9:47," Jason adds helpfully from the floor, checking his phone. "I know you so well, boss."
"You're all assholes."
I push myself up, looking around for something to wear.
My clothes are shredded—shifting while dressed will do that—scattered across the garage in torn pieces.
I grab someone's shirt from the workbench.
It's too big, which means it's Silas's, but I pull it on anyway.
It falls past my thighs, which is enough for basic dignity.
"Did you have fun last night?"
Ezra's voice comes from the doorway. He's leaning against the frame with a mug of coffee, watching me with those sharp, assessing eyes. Of all my pack, Ezra's the one who sees too much.
"Your bike was gone for an hour," he continues. "Maybe more."
"I took him home."
"And?" Jason sits up, eyes bright with interest. "Did you go up? Meet the roommate? Get his number?"
"No."
"Did you at least get his last name?"
I pause. Open my mouth. Close it.
Fuck.
"You don't even know his full name!" Jason crows, scrambling to his feet. "Oh my god. Our fearless leader is pining after a human and doesn't even know—"
"I'm not pining."
"You threw a wrench at the wall because I mentioned his throat."
"That was about you being annoying."
"That was about you imagining marking his throat," Vaughn corrects mildly. "We can smell the arousal, Knox. Every time someone mentions him, you spike."
I grab a pair of jeans from the emergency stash we keep in the back—there's always spare clothes around when you live with shifters—and pull them on with as much dignity as I can muster.
"Don't you all have work to do?"
"Nope," Ezra says cheerfully. "It's a slow day. And we're taking bets on how long before you cave and go to the library."
"I'm not going to the library."
"Sure." Jason doesn't even pretend to believe me. "Hey, do you think he only wears cardigans? Like, is that his whole thing? What does he sleep in? Probably something adorable. Pajamas with little dinosaurs or rubber ducks or—"
I throw a socket wrench at him. He dodges, cackling, and retreats to the other side of the garage where he proceeds to not do any actual work while continuing to speculate about Toby's wardrobe.
The morning continues like this.
I try to work on the bike. Every twenty minutes, someone mentions Toby.
His glasses. His obvious exhaustion. The way he just accepted us being shifters like it was mildly interesting information rather than a life-altering revelation.
The dark circles under his eyes. The way his scent changed when he looked at me—fear spiking and then settling into something warmer, more curious.
"He didn't even flinch when you flashed your eyes," Silas observes around eleven, wandering through with a sandwich. "Most humans would have run."
"He was too tired to run," I mutter.
"He was too interested to run," Silas corrects. "There's a difference."
I break a ratchet.
At noon, Jason starts wondering aloud what Toby's doing right now. "Probably at work, right? Reading to kids? Do you think he does voices? I bet he does voices. Different voices for different characters. That's so—"
I throw a screwdriver at him. He catches it and keeps talking.
"Probably hasn't been properly fucked in years," Vaughn muses around two PM, apropos of nothing. He's leaning in the doorway, eating one of the sandwiches Silas made. "That date definitely wasn't going to do it for him. What kind of asshole leaves someone on the side of the road?"
I break a torque wrench. It snaps clean in half in my grip.
"Boss, that's the third tool today," Silas observes mildly from somewhere behind me.
"Bill me."
At 3:17, Ezra's head snaps up from where he's doing paperwork at the desk in the corner. His whole body goes alert, predator-still.
"Car," he says.
We all freeze, ears straining. Then I hear it too—an engine, smooth and expensive, purring into our lot. Not the rumble of a truck or the rattle of an older sedan. Something high-end.
"That's an Audi," Vaughn says, moving to the window. He lets out a low whistle. "RS5. Jesus, that's a seventy-thousand-dollar car."
Jason shoves him aside to look, pressing his face against the glass like a kid at a pet store window. "Someone's getting out of the driver's side—holy shit."
"What?"
"He's gorgeous."
That gets my attention. I abandon the bike and move toward the window, looking over Jason's shoulder.
The driver is sliding out of the car with the easy grace of someone who knows exactly how good he looks.
Tall, lean, dressed in fitted jeans and a black henley.
Artfully tousled dark hair, the kind of cheekbones that belong on magazine covers.
He moves like a dancer or a model—all fluid confidence and casual elegance.
Then the passenger door opens, and Toby climbs out.
He's wearing a mint green cardigan covered in rubber ducks wearing pirate hats. His hair is sticking up on one side like he slept on it wrong. He looks exhausted, dark circles visible even from here, but he's smiling at something the pretty boy is saying.