Chapter 10
Hunter
Things have been slightly less strained after my talk with Tess on the deck a few days ago. At least…outwardly. I still think about the way she sounded and smelled in my arms at least fourteen times a day, but who’s counting?
She and her brothers have gotten quite a lot done in their first week; the carpet in the great room has all been ripped up, and they’ve even started working on the mantel over the fireplace.
I have to admit…the changes are already an improvement, and there’s still so much more to be done.
My few discussions with Tess prove that she’s doing her best to plan her updates without changing the heart of the place, and I can’t tell her what that means to me.
I probably should, but then again, I can barely speak to her for more than five seconds without remembering her touching herself in my bed.
It makes for an awkward working relationship, to be sure.
Which is why I’ve resorted to calling what I hope will be a more expert opinion.
It rings twice before he picks up; ever prompt, my cousin.
“Hello,” Noah greets.
“Hey,” I answer. “Busy?”
“Most days, yes,” he tells me in that dry tone that garners no nonsense. “Did you need something?”
“I needed to ask for…some medical advice.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, it’s not for me.”
A stretch of silence before: “Well, go on then.”
I remind myself that Noah is practically an android and that I shouldn’t be offended by his brusqueness.
“There’s a woman—”
“I’m the last person that you should be asking for advice on women.”
I scoff. “Says the happily mated man.”
“Yes, but”—his tone goes a fraction softer, as it often does when he speaks of his mate—“that was mostly Mackenzie’s doing.”
“Are you telling me I should call your mate?”
I smile at the prickliness in his tone when he answers, “No. You can ask me.”
“There’s a woman here working on the lodge, and—”
“What’s wrong with the lodge?”
“Are you going to let me finish a question or are you going to keep rudely interrupting?”
“You introduced a new topic into the conversation,” he says. “It’s not rude to ask for clarification.”
Literally an android.
“The lodge is fine,” I explain. “Jeannie—” I frown, not exactly wanting to put it out there that my aunt strong-armed me. “I mean I hired a team to do some renovations.”
“That’s nice,” Noah says. He’s quiet for a second before: “Even the corner bedroom upstairs?”
“Yes, I’m sorry to say we will be touching your unspoken heat room.”
I can practically hear him frowning; I don’t want to think about all the reasons that room is special to him—it took a week of uncomfortable boners to air out the scent of Mackenzie’s impromptu heat last year.
“I suppose if you have to,” he says petulantly. “What about this woman?”
“She’s heading up the team doing the renovations.”
“And?”
“And she’s experiencing some…strange symptoms.”
“What sort of symptoms?”
“Like, a-week-ago-she-was-a-beta symptoms.”
“Ah.”
I rear back. “ ‘Ah’? That’s all you have to say?”
“I’ve heard of this happening,” he tells me.
“You have?”
“Mm-hmm. This isn’t the first case I’ve been made aware of. What sort of symptoms is she experiencing?”
“Heat symptoms,” I tell him through gritted teeth, tensing from just the thought of Tess spiraling into another episode. “Ones that go as fast as they come.”
“How long do they last?”
“So far, it’s only happened one time, but it lasted at least a few hours. I don’t know. She was gone when I woke up.”
“You slept with her? Someone experiencing heat for the first time?”
“No,” I huff. “I’m not a fucking monster. I just gave her my scent and…talked her through it.”
“Talked her through it.”
“She needed something! She was suffering.”
“I suppose it would take considerable willpower to resist a shifter in full-blown heat. That was good of you.”
“Not just any shifter,” I say. “She’s a fucking omega.”
He’s silent again, and I hear the creak of his desk chair as he no doubt leans back into it. “That is a pickle.”
“I’d say it’s a whole damned jar of them.”
“And she’s…staying there?”
“That was part of the agreement when she took the job. I can’t kick her out. It would take her, minimum, thirty minutes to get here in the mornings from town. It’s not safe for her to be driving on those roads like that in her tiny little car.”
“Oh boy.”
“What?”
“You like her.”
I blanch. “What? No. I barely know her.”
“And yet you’re sitting here worried about her well-being to the point that you’re calling me for advice.”
“I just don’t know what to do if she has another episode.”
“Did you talk to her about it?”
“I…may have been a bit of a dick to her about it afterward.”
Noah makes a sound that accurately mirrors my own discomfort. “I guess that’s to be expected after Chloe.”
I wince at her name. I’ve done my best to think of her as little as possible in the years since I last saw her, but this week with Tess has definitely made it harder to brush the thought of her aside.
“I don’t know what came over me,” I admit. “I was just so angry that she could be so careless. Then she told me everything that was going on, and I couldn’t help but feel…”
“Feel what?”
“Responsible? Somehow? Like I needed to help her.”
“Alpha instincts,” Noah says with a hum. “They’ll only get worse the longer you stay in close proximity to her,” he warns. “Trust me.”
I run a hand through my hair, mussing it.
It’s no secret what Mackenzie and Noah went through last year when they started seeing more of each other only to have her accidentally go into an early heat, and while that worked out for them, I’m certainly not interested in playing their little mating game.
“Can’t you prescribe me some suppressants?”
“I can,” he says. “Although, if she’s experiencing heat symptoms, even they won’t be enough to ensure you won’t be affected by it.”
“So, what? I just ride it out? Hope that I don’t maul her next time?”
“If she doesn’t want your…help, then I suppose that, yes, that’s all you can do.”
“Great,” I groan. “Good talk.”
“I’m a cardiologist,” he says, “not a relationship guru.”
“There is no relationship,” I huff.
“Be that as it may.”
I scrub a hand down my face, realizing that this conversation is pointless. Noah is so wrapped up in his own mated bliss, he probably can’t even see the true gravity of the situation. It’s night and day how different he is after mating with Mackenzie.
Still an android though.
“Well, just…send a prescription to the pharmacy in town, would you? I need all the help I can get.”
“Does she smell that good?”
I think back to her soft scent of baked apples and cinnamon that makes my mouth water, knowing that I’m in danger of running into it around every corner, no escape to be had. I sigh, resigning myself to my fate.
“You have no idea,” I tell him.
His answering chuckle offers no comfort as he answers, “You’d be surprised.”
I run into Tess about an hour after I hang up with Noah, and immediately upon finding her, I can tell that something is…off. Her hair is mussed and her expression is pinched, and she sucks on her thumb while holding a hammer and cursing at the offending tool.
“You all right?”
She jolts at the sound of my voice, turning her big brown eyes on me as her lips part in surprise. I’m hit with her scent, exactly as I knew I would be, and I have to take small, shallow breaths just to try not to be overwhelmed by it.
“I’m fine,” she says. “Caught my thumb with the hammer.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, it’s not my best day.”
There are dark circles under her eyes, a paleness in her cheeks that makes the freckles I’m just now noticing look more prominent, and it makes my alpha stir, makes him perk up and take notice. “You look…tired.”
“Tired,” she scoffs. “Is that code for ‘like shit’?”
“No, just tired,” I chuckle.
“My fucking skin feels too tight. Is that normal? I keep getting these weird cramps in my legs, and I feel so…so restless. I can’t seem to shake it. It kept me up half the night.”
Uh-oh.
I try to keep my tone gentle because I imagine that coming into all this as an adult has to be scary. “Um…have you still not shifted yet?”
“What?” Her brows shoot up. “Of course not. I don’t even know how.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek for a moment while she studies the red tip of her thumb, telling myself to keep my mouth shut.
It’s not like the last time I offered her help went so well.
Still, I can already feel it, how I won’t be able to walk away from her without saying something.
It’s a fucking pain in my ass, truth be told.
“I could show you,” I tell her. “Or try, at least. I can’t say I’ve ever taught someone how to shift.”
“You don’t have to,” she argues hesitantly. “You’ve already done so much. I don’t want to be a burden.”
I frown. “It’s not a burden. And it’s okay to admit you need the help, Tess. Who else is going to show you?”
To my relief, she looks relieved. “Really?”
“If you want.”
“Actually, that would be…kind of great? I’ve been reading some of the pamphlets the doctor gave me, and it gives all these descriptions of what it feels like—but not how to actually do it.”
“Probably because most people do it for the first time as teenagers. It’s just an instinct, really.”
“Well, it sure as hell doesn’t feel like an instinct.”
“Tell you what,” I say. “Meet me out back when you’re done here, and we’ll go through it together.”
There’s gratitude in her eyes, and that has my alpha preening, practically puffed up with pride at the idea of coming to her rescue.
Down, boy.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to put you out.”
“It’s fine,” I assure her. “Someone has to do it, and I doubt your brothers will be much help.”
She winces. “Especially since they don’t know.”
“You haven’t told them?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I haven’t figured out how to broach the subject of me turning into a fucking wolf and begging strangers for sex yet.”
I can’t help it, I snort out a laugh. “Oh, is that all?”
“I know, right? No big deal.”