28. Chapter 28
Chapter 28
Gage
I punched the three-digit code into the vending machine with a growl, resisting the urge to slam my palm against the glass as the little piece of metal slowed it’s spin halfway to releasing my selection. It finished spiraling back with a whir, and I wondered if my twice daily chocolate bar purchase was overloading the machine.
I wanted to break it, but then I would have to explain to Levi why I was even using the vending machine so frequently. He would probably make it Abigail’s job to replace the damn thing. I wasn’t going to create more work for her.
Not to mention, my wolf would be pissed if he couldn’t satisfy his weird obsession with feeding his mate every two hours like she was a newborn fucking baby.
Grumbling to myself about women and chocolate, I turned the corner and nearly collided with Kai. His evasion was as graceful and catlike as was expected of him. The Cheshire grin too.
“Did the vending machine personally offend you again?”
“Fuck off.” I didn’t have the patience for Kai today.
Honestly, the bastard was lucky I hadn’t gutted him. A shifter with less self-control would have taken Kai’s tongue out for flirting with his mate. I was proud of myself for not constantly trying to kill him.
“I was planning to.” His smile widened as he punched in the code for a bag of beef jerky. “I’m taking a half day today.”
“To do what?” Kai didn’t have friends outside of us, and the only other plans he made were impromptu, in the dark corner of a bar or club, with a woman he would never see again.
“Oh, and by the way, I was going to ask if I could borrow your truck.” The scent of hickory and pepper wafted into the hallway as he passed me, tearing into the bag of jerky like he hadn’t eaten lunch an hour ago.
“No.” I followed at his heel, suspicion prickling my skin. “You drive like shit, and you park like shit. Why do you need my truck?”
My interrogation was interrupted by a curtain of brown hair. It cascaded down Abby’s back as she untied her bun, catching the light and shimmering like she was some kind of fucking angel made of sunlight. She angled her head over her shoulder as she adjusted her jacket, her smile easy and natural.
For me, that smile was a rare gem. Kai didn’t even have to try.
“You ready?” she asked, tugging up the zipper on her raincoat.
“Is that your only jacket?” I interjected, temporarily forgetting my irritation with Kai.
Abby turned on the ball of her foot, noticing me for the first time, and the smile slipped from her face. The bond cracked me like a whip. Like it was chastising me for not making her happy.
“This jacket is fine.”
I raised my hand to rub absently at my chest, remembering too late about the candy bar. Her eyes snagged on the shiny silver wrapper as it crinkled in my grasp and a fine mist shrouded the lovely brown of her irises before she blinked it away.
A new sensation whispered down the bond this time, soft and gentle, a soothing balm for the pain.
My wolf lifted his chin proudly. He seemed to be better at interpreting those sensations than I was, and he was pleased with this one. We were providing for our mate, keeping her fed, and that made her happy.
Before I could stop myself, I thrust my hand out, almost punching her with the candy bar. Abby blinked at my offering, her delicate fingers brushing my palm as they curled around it.
“Thanks,” she murmured, her cheeks turning a shade of pink as she slipped the candy into her purse.
I frowned. Would it be weird if I made her eat it now? So, I knew she wasn’t hungry, not because I wanted to watch her lick those strawberry lips clean.
I wanted to lick those strawberry lips clean.
A series of carnal images flashed across my mind, and I had to fist my hands to keep from touching her again. Those lips were the subject of my dirtiest fantasies and ignoring my need was at the point of impossible.
I grounded myself the only way I knew how: Anger.
“Where are you going?”
“Oh,” her blush darkened, “Levi said it was alright for me to take the afternoon off.”
I glared at Kai, unblinking, as I asked, “To do what?”
Kai broadened his shoulders, standing to his full height. He was shorter than me by the smallest inch and internally, my wolf gloated. Even the slight incline of his eyes to meet mine made me feel superior. We were frozen in tension for only a heartbeat. This kind of eye contact between dominant shifters was only ever done in challenge and even Kai wasn’t stupid enough to accept a challenge for my mate.
Of course, I hadn’t claimed Abby as my mate in any permanent or meaningful way. If he wanted to, he could challenge me. Rubbing my scent all over her—and her stuff when she wasn’t looking—and feeding her sweets wasn’t enough to deter a truly determined shifter from shooting his shot.
Kai shook out his shoulders, giving me his back as he pretended to check the weather out the window. There was a no greater sign of trust among predators, and it made his capitulation obvious.
Good, I kind of liked that asshole and it would be a shame to rip his arms out of their sockets.
Abby was glancing nervously between us, sensing the dominance and tension thickening the air around her but not understanding the cause.
She chewed her lip, explaining again, “Levi said it was okay.”
Oh, so she thought I was here to make her get back to work. Maybe I’d been playing the uptight boss a little too hard since the long weekend.
It was the only boundary line I could draw to keep myself in check. Every night I lay awake to the sound of her nestling into my bed, alone , and I was on the verge of storming in there to fuck my scent into her until it was permanent.
“So, about those keys?” Kai had his hand out, eyes sparkling evilly.
“I’m not letting you crash my truck.”
“Oh, come on. It was one time.”
“Three times,” I reminded him.
Kai rolled his eyes. “Fine, it was three times in one night.”
“You totaled my truck, asshole.”
“Wait, I thought you said you had a truck?” Abby cut in, still confused.
“I said I had access to a truck.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t expecting sergeant douchebag over here to hold such a grudge.”
“I don’t know why you weren’t expecting that,” she muttered under her breath. “It’s okay, I can rent one.”
“ For what? ” I repeated harshly. Why was it so hard to get an answer out of her?
“I’m helping Abby pick up some furniture for her new place.” Kai dropped his hand onto her shoulder, noticed me watching, and removed it. “We should hustle before the rain starts.”
I stepped between them, physically blocking him from touching her again. “You’re moving in today ?”
My wolf howled his outrage. I was supposed to keep her close and now she was leaving us.
What did he expect me to do? Lock her up in my apartment? Abby was staying with me out of necessity. I hadn’t told her that she couldn’t leave.
Levi always told me I was the most dumbass genius he’d ever met. I understood why now.
“I’ll help.” It came out sounding like a command instead of a polite offer because it was. To Kai I said, “Enjoy your afternoon off.”
Abby was slack-jawed and speechless as I pressed on her lower back, guiding her out the office door before she could protest. Behind me I heard the distinct sound of Kai’s laughter, and I had a feeling I’d been set up.
Abby fidgeted with her purse in her lap, hunched over in the front seat of my truck. “So, thanks for helping me.”
“It’s not a problem.” I tried not to infuse any feeling into those words, which meant they came out sounding angry.
Truthfully, I wasn’t angry. I was hurt.
I was hurt that she would ask Kai for help before she would come to me.
That stung, even if it was my own damn fault.
“What store?” I started the engine.
“Actually,” that pink tinge returned to her cheeks, “it’s a bit of a drive. There’s this guy I found online—”
“You were going to meet a guy from the internet?”
“With Kai!” She snapped back. “He’s seventy-eight. He’s not a serial killer.”
“Give me the address.”
She handed me her phone, GPS app already pulled up. I sighed, biting my tongue as I pulled away from the curb.
We were nearly there when the words tumbled out. “You don’t have to move yet.”
“I do. I need to do this.”
She was so stubborn about this. I couldn’t understand it. “Don’t you think your safety is more important than your pride? Just because Levi thinks it’s safe doesn’t mean it is.”
“It’s not about pride!” She pressed her fingertips into the tops of her thighs. “It’s about—” She swallowed. “It’s about never getting stuck in this situation again. It’s about knowing I can do it on my own.”
“But you’re not supposed to.”
“Not supposed to what?”
“Do it on your own! That’s such a human concept. When you’re in a pack, the need of one is the need of all. We take care of each other.”
“Must be nice having a pack,” she snipped.
“You have a pack, Abby.”
“No, I don’t.” She pointed a self-deprecating finger at herself. “Just a human, remember?”
“You’re part of our pack,” I insisted, taking a hand off the wheel to push her finger away.
“Yeah, until Levi fires me.”
“He’s not going to fire you!”
“Or until you all go back to Alaska.” She turned to look out the window. “You said it was inevitable.”
“You could come to Alaska too,” I said, chest tight.
She studied me from the corner of her eye. “Why would I come to Alaska, Gage?”
I looked from her to the road then back to her. The truck slowed as I fixated on her, throat bobbing, gaze searching.
I stared, not caring that we were stopping in the middle of the road. Not caring about anything except that vulnerable expression, the way her jaw wobbled as she waited for me to find the words to answer her question.
It was there, filling the cab of the truck, pressing down on us. This building feeling that was so much more than attraction. It was more, and she knew it was more, and I was begging myself to say it.
“Abby, there’s something I need to—”
The GPS app chose that moment to interrupt.
“Oh shoot, that’s our turn!” She pointed right, urging me off the road.
I glared at the house in front of us as we bumped along a gravel drive. “What the fuck is this? This is where you’re getting furniture?”
She saw what I was glaring at, and her face fell. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
I slammed the brakes, turning to her to ask, “Where did you say you found this place?”
“The internet! Stop looking at me like that.”
“This is the kind of listing women respond to and they’re never heard from again.”
“I wasn’t coming out here alone,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Yeah, you asked Kai,” I snapped, accelerating the rest of the way up the drive. “Were you even going to tell me you were moving today?”
“I was trying not to be a bother. You’ve already done a lot for me.” It was a half-truth at best, and I saw right through it. The bond told me when she was lying.
“Bullshit, Abigail.”
I got out of the truck before I could do more damage. This was the consequence of my own actions—or lack of them. I wasn’t going to take it out on her.
I was going to fix it. Starting with getting her some real furniture.
But it was too late to get her back in the truck. Abby was already shaking hands with a wizened man as he stumbled from the shadows of his garage.
“There’s cat piss on it,” I grunted, crossing my arms as the decrepit old dude trying to sell his rotting furniture scowled at me.
His whole house smelled like cat piss, and we hadn’t even gone inside. Not for lack of trying on his part. Supposedly there was more furniture inside—antiques, he claimed—but that offer vanished from his lips when I came to stand beside Abby.
Maybe he wasn’t a serial killer, but he might still murder her by preying on her soft heart and talking her ear off until the ammonia fumes got to her. Or she’d come home with a box full of flea-ridden, half-feral kittens that she couldn’t take care of. At least two had popped their fuzzy little heads out of the open garage to hiss at me.
Abby retracted her hand from the questionably brown couch she was about to touch to test the firmness. “How can you tell?”
I tapped the side of my nose, eyebrows raised.
“Right.” She pursed her lips, scowling adorably at the couch as if it betrayed her. To the old man she said, “Have there been animals on this?”
“No,” he said.
“Yes,” I answered for him at the same time.
“The cats stay outside,” he grumbled at me.
Didn’t really matter, since half the house was spilling out of the garage and into the yard. It was also bullshit.
I took Abby by the forearm, tugging her close. “Please tell me this isn’t where you planned to pick up a mattress.”
She pulled her lower lip back in a grimace. “He said it’s never been used, wrapped in plastic in his garage for almost a year.”
I eyed the garage in question, searching through the towers of boxes and unidentifiable junk. If there was a mattress in there, it would take six weeks to unearth.
“Not interested,” I told the man bluntly, taking Abigail by the elbow and trying to lead her back to the trunk.
If she required her own place and the accomplishment it provided, I could deal. But there was no way in hell my mate was going to sleep on the mattress this dude’s wife probably died on.
Abby removed herself from my hold, approaching the old man and making me gag as she took his filthy hands in hers. “Do you have any family, sir?”
He shook his head. “My son doesn’t come around anymore. Says he can’t bring his kids here.”
“Yeah, I don’t blame him,” I muttered. Not quietly enough because Abby shot me a reproachful look.
“There’s no one I can call for you?”
“No.” He sounded resigned.
I leaned my ass against the grill of the truck, getting comfortable. I could see by the determined expression on Abby’s face that we weren’t leaving without the couch and the sob story to accompany it. With a sigh, I yanked out my phone, tapping furiously as I finalized Plan B.
The need for furniture was temporarily forgotten as Abby curled up in the front seat, making phone calls to various charities until she demanded a promise for someone to do a welfare check on Mister Kim. I now knew his full name, birthday, and how many cats he had. She’d repeated it six times before someone agreed to help her cause.
Meanwhile, I paid the man double what he was asking for the couch only to pay for it again in fees when I got to the dump. Abby barely glanced up from her phone as I heaved the disgusting thing out of the truck bed but when I got back in, reeking of dust and decay, she was smiling that coveted smile directly at me.
And then it hit me that I would throw a hundred cat-piss couches away if it would earn me even a moment of that light.
Maybe fate did know.
Maybe her gentleness was always what I needed to find the ground under my feet again.