15. Val
Val
My world has been turned on end, or rolled over, turned on its side—I don’t have enough clichés to toss around.
I’ve gone from moving away from my pack under orders from my Alpha Anax to finding out the man I’m supposed to guard unobtrusively is most likely my mate.
Not to mention I’ve blown Harley and fought another shifter.
“Shit!”
“What?” Harley asks, jumping back like I’ve poked him. “We don’t have to do that. And I told you, I haven’t exactly been safe, or I don’t know if I have been. I planned to get tested tomorrow.”
“It’s not that,” I say, waving a hand in the air.
“I got this.” I touch the knot on my head.
“When the shifter we saw attacked me. He’s huge, and I don’t know him, and he seemed, I don’t know, odd.
Odder than we usually are,” I correct quickly, because Harley probably already thinks I’m off my damn rocker.
“I came back because I didn’t want you facing him alone.”
Harley steps closer until he’s standing toe-to-toe with me.
“Not because I think you’re weak or anything, but because I’ve seen how vicious shifters—some shifters, I mean—can be. And that scared me. I didn’t want you hurt, and you got hurt anyway.”
“Not bad,” I murmur, touched by his concern. “It’s probably down to a little bump now. The thing is, he can scent me, I’m sure, and he was looking for you, I think. He said some weird shit. I can’t remember exactly. I think the hit to my head rattled my cage more than I first suspected it did.”
“If he finds me, he’ll find us, and we won’t let him hurt either one of us, okay?”
He makes it sound so simple, but I’m still worried. That shifter is damned big and strong.
“Maybe you should start carrying a gun. Would you do that?”
“No,” Harley answers immediately. “No. I won’t carry a gun. Maybe a stun gun or something like that. I’d be more likely to shoot myself with a gun, I’d be so nervous.”
“Okay. Okay.”
I make a mental note to call Alex, the leader of Marcus’s guards. Unless he’s gone off with Marcus and Nathan. Then I’ll talk to whoever is left in charge and ask what options there are besides firearms without explaining why I need to know.
“My place has a better door, and more locks.”
I cant my head at Harley’s almost timid admission. Then I remember. He was abducted out of his apartment. What happened in there before that?
“I don’t like being there at night, because that’s when it happened. I thought Dobson was just a one-off and when we got to my place, it was bad.”
Harley stares at the wall as if he can see into his apartment on the other side.
“He put his hand here.” He touches his throat. “And choked me. Not fast. Just enough pressure to slowly suffocate me. To make sure I had a while to feel the sheer terror of knowing I was going to die. That’s what always got that sick fucker off, I think. Seeing that kind of fear in others.”
“We can stay here.”
I carefully step around him, then stop behind him and link my arms around his waist, pulling him back against me.
“No. I’m really tired of being afraid. I’m afraid of too many things, and I don’t want to be. Help me,” he urges, craning his neck to look up at me. “Help me to remember who I was before. Help me be someone better.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility, but I accept.”
The words leave me before I can think about them, and I know then that Harley is my mate.
My wolf needs to wake the fuck up, but maybe it’s better this way.
Fate works in ways shifters like me seldom understand.
If I’d been at full strength, my wolf strong inside me, who’s to say I’d be capable of exercising the patience Harley needs?
Not that I’d hurt him, but my wolf would be pushing hard for mating, for claiming, for biting and marking and never letting him out of my sight.
I want Harley.
God, I want him.
But my ability to reason isn’t being overwhelmed by the ravenous instincts of my beast. I can be patient. I can avoid pushing him. I can even do something I’ve never done before and let Harley take the lead when he’s ready.
That thought is a little terrifying, if I’m being honest.
Still, I want to give him something. Some way of being close without asking him to offer parts of himself before he’s ready. I’m scarred physically but not sexually. Harley carries different wounds. We’re both emotional disasters, but together we’ll figure it out.
That’s what mates do.
I realize I’ve been nuzzling Harley’s hair without thinking about it. I’ve just been seeking his scent, his touch.
“We’ll do what you want to do. Nothing more.”
Harley hums and rubs against me.
“I liked you doing that, nosing my hair, kissing my temple and stuff. It felt good. But, I want more, and I want to have a steel door between us and the world, and three deadbolts, and maybe not have to worry about a hundred boxes and where your towels are. Still need to clean the blood off you.”
“Well, you have several valid points,” I admit.
I hadn’t considered any of those things.
“You mentioned that you hadn’t been safe.
You need to know that as a shifter, I can’t contract any communicable disease, but you still have to get checked out, Harley.
I don’t know if turning you would cure any of the human illnesses like herpes or HIV, or if it’d make them worse or—”
“I don’t want to be turned, not if it means biting each other’s dick when we come. No. No fucking way,” Harley says heatedly. “That’s just messed up, dude.”
“There are other ways.”
I probably shouldn’t know about them, but I do. Marcus turned Gabe through a blood ritual that didn’t require the traditional method. Shifters are the biggest gossips alive.
If Harley ever wanted it, I’d beg Marcus to do the same for him.
If Harley wanted it.
I won’t push.
“We’ll talk about it later. For now, let’s go to my place so you can shower.” Harley winks at me. “I have this huge shower that I think we’ll both fit in just perfectly. And I—are you sure you can’t catch anything from me?”
I nod.
“Yeah. That’s well known and proven and all that in shifters. One of the few medical things we are certain of. I have no problem with you fucking me bare, Harley. I’d prefer it, but you can use a condom, of course. Whatever makes you comfortable.”
Harley whimpers and presses a palm against his groin.
“Damn. I haven’t topped before, didn’t think I wanted to, but you are making me ache for it.”
A small twinge of worry works through me. We’re both stepping into unfamiliar territory in our own ways. Still, Harley knows what feels good from one side of things, and I can always tell him what I need.
I don’t have to grit my teeth and lie still.
More than that, I trust him.
And that realization settles warmly in my chest.
“You’re thinking so hard I can hear it,” Harley teases. “Or at least, I can hear your mental gears grinding. Maybe being able to know one another’s thoughts would be a good thing, but so is talking honestly, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
I step back and turn Harley toward me.
“I’m just nervous about getting fucked, but I want to do it. I was thinking that you know what feels good as a bottom, so you’ll take good care of me.”
“I will.” Harley nods. “Now, let’s find you some clean clothes. Any idea which boxes to look in?”
I head for the bedroom.
“There should be five boxes in here marked ‘clothes’. Probably I should have been more specific and put labels like jeans, or shirts, or underwear on the boxes, but hindsight and all that.”
I notice Harley has stopped outside the bedroom door.
I don’t ask why.
I have a damned good idea what’s putting that glint of fear in his eyes.
“Let’s see, I’ll hand you boxes, and you can take ‘em to the living room and open them.”
I don’t wait. Harley needs something to do before too many bad memories come at him.
I pick up the first box I find with the proper marking. Lifting it makes my left thigh throb. I hand it to Harley and drop a chaste kiss on his pink lips before going for another box. In short order we’ve got some clothes stuffed into a bag and we’re leaving my place, locking the door behind us.
“You’re good,” I tell Harley when I notice tension creeping into him. Maybe we don’t have the mental bond, but I’m already beginning to read him. “Just think about me, and you, and what we’ll be doing together very soon.”
“I’m gonna come in my jeans if I do that for very long,” Harley grumbles.
But he’s smiling, and he seems more relaxed as we walk to his door.
Harley unlocks the three deadbolts and steps inside before I have a chance to check the place out. I really wish I could smell things the way I used to. Instead I have to rely on one eye and instincts that feel duller than they should with my wolf snoozing away inside me.
The inside of Harley’s apartment is a hell of a lot nicer than mine, and I tell him so.
Harley looks around, then rushes over to grab a pile of clothes.
“It’s messy. I’ve been crashing in here when I had to sleep.”
His face turns red and he darts into what I assume is the bathroom. Sure enough, the sound of water spraying follows a moment later.
“Come on in here when you’re ready. I’m gonna get naked.”
Well hell.
I really wish I could teleport.
“Tease,” I call back, making my way toward the bathroom.
About six feet away, I stop and set my bag on the floor. I kick off my shoes, then peel off my socks while leaning against the wall. My shirt comes next. The jeans are harder. I figure it’s best to get the scar-baring over with.
Should I take off the patch?
My eye is intact, but I decide to leave that choice up to Harley.
Taking a deep breath, I straighten and cover the last few steps.
The moment I reach the doorway, every thought about my scars and shortcomings vanishes.
All I can think about is Harley.
He’s beautiful.