Chapter 6
6
A large brown wolf comes out of nowhere.
I’d have seen where it came from if I hadn’t been busy trying to shove Nathan aside so he wouldn’t die protecting me.
I assume the brown wolf must be another enforcer that Adrian sent until this mystery wolf leaps on one of Nathan’s attackers and buries his teeth in his throat.
Blood sprays as an anguished growl rips through the quiet forest.
Sensing danger, the other wolves whip around. Which is when a small blond wolf—definitely female—darts in for a surprise claw attack.
Another attacking wolf howls in pain and stumbles away as the two remaining wolves back up, their stances wary.
The big new wolf isn’t wary.
He charges.
Our four attacking wolves scatter, darting into the forest, back toward the road.
My mouth is gaping open when our two new arrivals shift.
A blonde woman and a dark-haired man rise to their feet. Both are in their twenties, young and friendly looking.
“Are you okay?” the woman asks.
Nathan nudges my gaping mouth closed. Which is when I spot the blood sliding down his arm. That it hasn’t begun to heal yet means it's deep. “Your arm.”
He glances at it and shrugs. “It’ll heal.”
Rolling my eyes, I shove him against the nearest tree.
“Uh, Clara?” He blinks in surprise, but he doesn’t look like he has a problem with it. If anything, he seems a little interested in where things are headed.
“Don’t get excited,” I grumble. “This isn’t what you think.”
I tear my T-shirt sleeve off and wrap the thin cotton around his forearm. “You are an idiot, Nathan Blackshaw. Some people step aside from a claw attack. You step into it.”
What I’m doing isn’t even necessary, but the sooner I close the wound with something, the sooner it will heal.
I grumble as I finish my task, but I’m careful not to hurt him because he got this wound protecting me. When I lift my head, Nathan is studying me with a softness in his gaze.
I release his arm and take a step back. “But thank you, Blackshaw.”
He nods. “Anytime, peach.”
That ‘anytime’ scares me. This was yet another near-miss that could have been fatal if our new arrivals hadn’t turned up when they did.
“Who are you?” I ask the couple who chased away our attackers.
The man takes the blonde woman’s hand. We shifters spend most of our childhood getting used to nudity—ours and our packmates. Nudity matters as little to them as it does to me and Nathan.
“Matilda. And this is my mate, Simon,” she introduces herself.
“And you are?” Nathan shields me with his body.
I nudge him aside. “They just saved our lives. Quit being He-Man.”
Simon’s lips quirk in a half-smile. “Ah, mates?”
I stiffen my spine. “We are not?—”
“This is Clara,” Nathan interrupts, taking my hand the way Simon took Matilda’s. “And I’m Nathan. What are you doing out here?”
I try to pry my fingers free. It’s like Nathan super-glued our hands together. There’s no breaking free.
“It doesn’t look like there’s much around here. There is. Our home. We were out on a run when we heard growls and figured there was a problem.” Simon points his chin the way the two shifters disappeared. “I would have gone after them, but they’re headed back to the road.”
The distant sound of a car starting up drifts toward us, proving he was right not to follow. It might not matter if the shifters saw us, but we don’t need a human to see something they shouldn’t. Something like one of us shifting.
Our attackers have gone for now, but they won’t stay away forever. If they followed us from Rosenwood, I have no doubt they’ll re-group somewhere else and come back.
“You live here?” Nathan squeezes my hand in a way that feels far more reassuring than it should for a guy I don’t know all that well.
Simon nods. “We have a little cabin east of here. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like. It’s not much, but we don’t need much more than each other.” He wraps his arm around Matilda’s shoulder and smiles down at her.
It’s very sweet.
“We probably shouldn’t,” I say.
The last thing I want is for them to get caught up in my mess. Bad enough I’ve dragged Nathan into it. I wouldn’t want them hurt because of me.
Nathan tugs me against his side so suddenly I yelp. “ Hey !”
He peers down at me innocently. “Something wrong?”
What’s wrong is he has his arm slung around me the same way Simon is hugging Matilda to his side.
They are mates.
We are not mates.
So why does it feel so good tucked up against Nathan Blackshaw, and why is my wolf not filling my head with growls of complaint at being manhandled?
And why am I noticing how good he smells?
“Later,” he says.
I blink myself back into the present.
He’s peering down at me with a smile so smug I itch to smack it off his face. “What about later?”
His eyes dart to my mouth. “That kiss can happen later.”
I yank myself out from under his arm. “Or never.”
Simon grins at me. “So, how about it?”
I stop glaring at Nathan to focus on Simon. “How about what?”
“Our place for the night,” he explains in a tone of someone who might not be saying this for the first time.
Shit, Clara. How long were you mooning over Nathan?
“Are you sure?” I frown. “We’re driving.”
Matilda nods. “We’ve handled problems before. They were running toward the road. It’s better to leave your car there until tomorrow. That way, you won’t walk into any ambush they might’ve left behind.”
Good idea.
“And this trouble you had?” I ask, curious.
They seem nice, but for them to be living in the middle of nowhere might be because they have no choice. Like they’re hiding from something or someone.
Matilda’s expression briefly darkens. “My brother, Noah, and the guy who wanted to mate me. But that’s an old story. Come on, we have food.”
My wolf perks up at the mention of food.
Nathan manhandles me? Nada from my wolf.
Matilda mentions food? My wolf starts paying attention.
You need to work on your priorities. You know that, right? I tell my wolf.
An image of her licking her lips in front of a massive slab of steak fills my mind.
I breathe out a sigh.
My stomach rumbles. It’s been a while since I last ate, and steak sounds pretty good right about now.
I glance up at the sky, trying to gauge the time. It’s overcast now, with a light wind blowing through the trees.
“Do you think your car will be okay?” I ask Nathan.
He shrugs, not looking the least bit concerned. “If not, we’ll work something out.”
As we trail Matilda and Simon deeper into the forest, Nathan snags my hand. “You’re a glass half-full type of guy, aren’t you?”
“Haven’t given it much thought before. What about you? Half-full or half-empty?”
I consider my many reckless decisions over the years. “Half-full, I guess.”
He nods. “Where were you leading us before?”
“Before?” I frown at him.
“After you pushed me down the hill.”
“No need to keep bringing it up,” I mutter, embarrassed and guilty as hell.
“I’m okay, peach. You only bruised my ego.”
I consider his question. “I’m not sure where I was leading us. I figured we’d get somewhere safe unless we got ourselves eaten by a bear, but I wasn’t really worried about the bear. Until now.”
He grins down at me. “Yep. Definitely glass half-full.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
He draws me closer to his side. “Nope. Just something else we have in common.”
I open my mouth to disagree.
“Impulsive, prone to telling white lies, and glass half-full,” he says as we walk.
I close my mouth.
There are some things worth arguing about, and there are others where you know there’s no winning the argument.
This is the latter.
Simon and Matilda’s little cabin is cute. But it’s very small.
Other than a small wood shed just outside, and another slightly larger outbuilding made of the same red wood as the cabin, it looks like the perfect place for a hiker to stop for a couple of nights along a trail that winds through the forest.
I have no idea where we are, or even how far we are from the road. We walked for maybe thirty minutes, and we were moving fast. It’s quiet here though, and I have a feeling we would hear any trouble coming before it surprised us, which might’ve been why Matilda and Simon settled here.
It’s an open concept one bedroom cabin with low ceilings. The kitchen and living space all form one space, and a closed door leads to the bedroom. It’s rustic, earthy, and with cozy vibes. When Matilda tells me it’s so small that the bathroom is in an outbuilding, I’m not sure I’d be happy living so simply.
“It’s a tourist cabin, and we’re staying until we figure out where we want to settle,” Matilda explains when I ask her about the less than ideal bathroom situation after she returned from the bedroom dressed in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt.
Stumbling outside to use the bathroom while half-asleep would probably lead to me walking right into a tree or getting lost. Or, if I was really unlucky, a bear.
“Out of curiosity, are there any bears around here?” I try to look casual as I listen hard for any large animals trampling through the forest.
Nathan steps up close behind me, clasping my hips as he speaks directly into my ear. “I’ll protect you from any bears, peach.”
Matilda let me borrow a T-shirt to wear since I’m missing a sleeve after I tore it off to tie up Nathan’s arm. When I glance down, there’s no more fresh blood on the strap of fabric. It looks like it’s healing.
I step away from him and he releases me so reluctantly, it’s clear he doesn’t want to.
“If you’re calling me peach for the reason I think you are, you need to stop,” I say, opening up more space between us.
He blinks big, innocent brown eyes at me. “And what reason might that be?”
I caught the way he was staring at my ass when my old boss asked how I was. My gaze snags on Matilda’s grin before I can call Nathan out on his inappropriate nickname for me.
I walk away from Nathan and take a seat at the dining table.
Naturally, two seconds later, Nathan drops into the seat beside mine and pretends not to notice my glare.
“We don’t have any bears around here,” Matilda reassures me, drawing my attention. “Just quiet, nature, and the occasional lost hiker who wandered off the trail.”
“We just point them on their way and go back to blissful tranquility, don’t we, Mattie?” Simon says as he walks out of the bedroom.
He’s dressed in a pair of black sweats and a baggy, slightly wrinkled gray T-shirt. His feet are bare, as are Matilda’s, and they match in their casual clothing.
“We do,” Matilda agrees as she pulls two glasses down from an exposed wood shelf and turns to the refrigerator. “But it would be nice to have something a little more private. Our own land maybe.”
“Thing is, land is expensive,” Simon says, joining us at the dining table. “And we’re looking for something underdeveloped so we can build things exactly how we would want.”
Nathan moves so close to me, our thighs bump. I scoot further away, but my options are limited. One more shuffle to the right and I’ll wind up on the floor.
“Move to Hardin,” Nathan suggests.
I snap my head toward him, surprised. So do Matilda and Simon.
“Move to Hardin?” Simon echoes.
Nathan nods. “We have land. A couple of my packmates bought a neighbor's land to turn it into a rural mountain retreat for inner-city kids.”
“And how did that work out?” I ask, because the thought of dealing with a bunch of screaming kids getting lost in the forest does not appeal to me.
I don’t mind kids. One or two, maybe even three, sound manageable. More than that, and I start looking for the nearest exit.
Nathan scratches his hair, his expression wry. “Uh, not actually that well. It was a pretty big undertaking and kids like to wander off and try to get themselves eaten by the local wildlife. Turns out you can’t just growl at them to come back when they misbehave. So now that land is just an extension of ours and we use it to run, but that’s it.”
Simon sits up in his seat, cocking his head. “Would you be open to selling it?”
Nathan shrugs. “You’d have to speak to Savannah and Jeremy. It’s their land. Can’t see why not when they spend more time at our house than over there.”
Matilda sets down glasses of water in front of me and Nathan. “Dinner is going to take a little longer. We have steaks and salads.”
Nathan’s stomach rumbles so loud it drowns out my own. I glance over at him. He doesn’t look the least bit sheepish. “I’m a growing man.”
I snort.
“So, how long have you two been together?” Simon asks, bouncing his gaze between us.
My cheeks burn. “We’re not together.”
“ Yet ,” Nathan adds softly, but firmly.
I debate arguing, but I figure we’ve argued in front of Matilda and Simon enough for one day. “You said something before about having trouble,” I say to Matilda instead.
She retrieves packages of steak from the refrigerator as Simon pushes himself to his feet. “I’ll grab the salad, baby.”
Matilda aims a smile at him and flicks on the stove, setting a cast-iron skillet on it before she faces me. “My parents died when my brother and I were younger. He wanted to lead, and Damian Markus, our neighbor, wanted me. Since my brother is a beta like me, he wasn’t strong enough to hold the pack on his own, so he promised me to Damian in return for his help. Damian was only happy to agree.”
Nathan whistles between his teeth. “Shit. That is?—”
“Yeah,” Simon says tightly. “Damian Markus was also responsible for killing my father. I was there looking for revenge. Instead, I found Matilda about to go through with a moon-blessing mating ceremony she didn’t want.”
I bounce my gaze between them. “And so you dealt with Damian and your power hungry brother?”
Matilda stops seasoning the steaks to look at me. “Simon killed Damian, and my brother ran off. That was months ago now and I have no clue if he ever led our pack like he wanted to, or what happened to Damian’s pack without him there to lead it.”
“So that’s why you’re living in the woods?” Nathan asks.
It had seemed like they might be hiding from something. And they are. Potentially an alpha-less pack and a brother who tried to sell his sister out for power.
Your pack is supposed to have your back, protect you, and be a family to you.
Not try to sell you out or trade you for power.
I jump at a soft brush of fingers across my lower back. I peer over my shoulder and take in Nathan’s hand. His expression is completely casual.
“Problem?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
“You’re pushing it,” I warn him.
He nods. “Duly noted.”
But he leaves his hand right where it is.
“We thought it was wise to keep our heads down, especially since my brother would’ve had time to figure out my old pack doesn’t have as much money as it did before,” Matilda says, distracting me from Nathan’s touch. “Obviously, I wasn’t about to let him get away with treating me like shit.”
Matilda with the sweet, pretty face and soft golden curls, sounds like she might have given her brother hell. And I think I know how she got payback.
“You robbed them?” I grin.
She shrugs. “I took back some of the money the pack only had because of me. If they want more, my brother can figure out how investments work on his own.”
“But you don’t think he will?” Nathan asks.
“My brother is lazy. Noah had pretty much everything handed to him. He won’t put in the work. It’s why he went looking for Damian to fix his problems for him,” Matilda explains.
Steak sizzles as it hits the smoky hot cast-iron skillet, and I’m not sure whose stomach is louder, mine or Nathan’s.
As Simon gets to work making the salad and I try not to fall off the dining table escaping Nathan’s hand, the conversation swings to living in the middle of nowhere, and the unused neighboring land Simon is interested in buying from Jeremy and Savannah.
After our delicious meal, I venture to the outside bathroom to use the toilet and wash my face. Nathan does likewise.
Matilda and Simon retreat to their bedroom after setting up the couch that folds into a double bed in the living room. I have the comforter pulled up to my neck with my eyes closed when Nathan returns from the bathroom and slides under the sheets.
I’m wearing a T-shirt I borrowed from Matilda, and I’m trying very hard to pretend Nathan isn’t lying inches away from me. It isn’t working.
“You asleep, peach?”
“Yes,” I lie.
He chuckles. “Well, I’m staying awake for a while longer in case those shifters try to surprise us.”
My desire to push him off the bed if he puts a finger on me evaporates. I roll onto my side, facing him. Matilda drew the curtains before she and Simon when to bed, so with all the lights off, I can barely see Nathan. “You don’t have to do that.”
He’s stretched out on his back, arms folded over his chest. “Yes, I do.”
“Did you mean what you said before about it being okay if Matilda and Simon wanted to buy land in Hardin?”
Nathan turns his head toward me. “Why wouldn’t I have meant it?”
“I heard about the cold-blooded alpha. So did Martha. She freaked out at first when she heard I would be going to stay with you.”
Because of his reputation. He killed his packmates. Not all, but some. Women, children, and the old alpha.
“Rumors,” Nathan says. “Dayne won’t have a problem with a mated couple settling there if they wanted to.”
“Not all alphas would agree.”
Most alphas would be too territorial to invite a potential enemy so close to his pack.
“Dayne would. He’d want to meet Matilda and Simon first. Get a measure of them and see if they’re liable to cause problems for the pack. I don’t think they would, though. Trouble rarely comes from a mated pair.”
He’s right.
Trouble usually comes from an alpha wanting something that is not his to take.
Like me. I don’t know what I did to attract Adrian’s attention, and why he’s so determined to have me, but he doesn’t look like he’s about to give up and go home anytime soon.
I yawn as sleep slowly overtakes me.
“Come here.” Nathan urges me closer.
“I’m not interested in you, Blackshaw,” I mumble, liking how his chest makes a perfect pillow.
“Of course you’re not,” he says, and from his amused tone, I envision a big, fat grin on his face. “Sleep. I’ll keep you safe.”
I rest my hand on his chest, absorbing his steady heartbeats. “You still want to keep me safe after I pushed you down a mountain?”
He kisses the top of my hair, and it feels too good to complain about him taking liberties. “A hill.”
I’m smiling as I relax. “Nathan?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” If he hadn’t come after me, Adrian would have found me in Rosenwood, and if I couldn’t hitchhike out of town fast, I’d have been trapped.
“No worries.” He pauses. “If I called you peach now, you’d shove me out of the bed, wouldn’t you?”
I yawn. “Without a moment’s hesitation.”
“Then goodnight, Clara.”
“Night, Blackshaw.”