Page 14 of Lone Wolf
“Why?” I demanded again. “No other human has asked me for this. Why?” I needed to know with a strength that puzzled me.
“I just…” He stopped and shook his head. “No, there’s no excuse. I’m sorry. I’ll leave. Charge me for the whole four hours, you more than earned it.”
He was ignoring me, ignoring my questions. My…personhood.
“Not until you explain. You at least owe me that.”
He slumped down onto the edge of the bed and after a moment began pulling his socks on, but it was like watching a blind man in an unfamiliar territory. “I think you’re beautiful. It’s been a long time…”
Oh. OH.
It happened, sometimes. A human who lived near an enclave might find a shifter attractive, might get to know them a little. It was a scandal to encourage them—the humans thought we were animals, the shifters thought the humans were monsters. But it still happened occasionally.
The hint of alpha came back to me again, but this time it had an entirely different connotation. He was likely wearing cologne, something his shifter lover had said made him smell a little like an alpha.
I edged around the foot of the bed, watching him carefully.
David stood up and glanced around the room as if searching for something. Probably his shirt. Or his shoes.
His eyes were red.
I was a fool.The hooker with the heart of gold.He looked so broken, the poor thing. If I did this for him, would I just hurt him worse?
“Promise me,” I said slowly, “that you will never mention this to anyone. It’s…”
His eyes widened and he turned slowly to look at me as if he were trapped in honey. “No, Salem, really. You don’t—”
I put a hand up; he was just close enough that I could lay my fingers on his lips to stop him saying whatever was coming next. “Promise me. We are not dogs, to perform at your bidding. But I will do this for you, if you will promise to take this secret to your grave.”
He nodded dumbly at me and I watched him a moment longer, worried that I’d trusted too far.
“I swear to you, on my mother’s ashes,” he said quietly, and there was something in his voice that rang like an alpha’s. It was easy to see how a fellow shifter could take him into their heart and their bed, try to keep him like he wasn’t something entirely other.
“Wait here.” I wasn’t going to shift in front of him, that was too private for humans. But the gift of my wolf, I could give him, for the sorrow and longing in his heart. We were wolves, and that made us fierce, but a wolf could be gentle too, and care for those creatures unable to defend themselves.
I slipped into the bathroom, closed the door until there was only a crack of open space between it and the wall, and changed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Damian wasn’t sure why he’d asked. It was a foolish thing to do and if there was anything that might give him away, it would be that.
But when Salem peered out of the bathroom, his ears half-flat with stress, it was all Damian could do not to cry.
A long silver muzzle curved into a slender head. The fur went from hoarfrost on his nose to a deep pewter gray behind his ears and when he stepped cautiously the rest of the way out of the bathroom, Damian could see that the pewter color continued all the way down his body, only fading as it crept down his legs.
He was so beautiful, and not just because it had been ten years since Damian had seen one of his people in this other exquisite form.
In a single bound, Salem crossed the room and leaped up onto the other end of the bed, but that he was still wary of Damian’s intentions was obvious.
Damian balled his hands in the rumpled covers of the bed. He had to—if he wasn’t gripping those sheets to the point of pain, he would have already been reaching for the other shifter.
This had been a terrible idea. But would he go back in time and make a different decision?
Not a chance.
Salem lowered his head and his ear perked up a little. Damian watched him, his knuckles aching with the strength of his grip. Salem took a tentative step in his direction, then another, and Damian held his breath, waiting, hoping.
When Salem put his nose up to sniff Damian’s ear, Damian closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath. The smell of fur, that specific sound that a wolf made when scenting, the warmth of Salem’s body beating off his skin, it all came together to nearly drown Damian in memories. His mother, gone to ashes now. His brothers and sisters—betas and gammas all of them, except for Val, the little adopted omega, so different from the rest of them. Gone to ashes now too, before Damian could come back for him.
