Troy [Whitedell Pride: 12]

by Catherine Lievens

  “I don’t think I can ever have a normal life again, not like this.”

  “Fine, not exactly normal, but a new normal for you. You can’t go back to being a human and to the life you had before the harpy, but we can build a new normal together.”

  Emery’s gaze was locked with Troy’s as if he was reading Troy’s deeper secrets. Emery had nailed everything Troy thought, every doubt he had, and he wasn’t sure it was a good thing.

  “Troy?”

  Troy nodded. “Yeah, okay. I’ll try.”

  The smile Emery gave him was enough to make Troy really want to try to make things work between them. “That’s all I ask for. I’ll be there for you if you need it, okay?”

  Troy nodded again and quickly changed topic. “So, do you want to go eat with the others? I don’t know who’s going to be there, but I don’t think everyone will.” There was no way all the pride members could fit at the dining table, so it was a safe guess.

  “Do you want to eat with them? I know you’ve been very solitary since you got here. I don’t want to push you too far too fast.”

  “We’re never going to make a decision if we both keep asking each other what we want to do. We need to, uh, compromise, I guess.”

  Emery beamed at him and Troy wondered what he had done to earn such a smile.

  “Exactly! We have to compromise, just like any mated couple. So, I’d like to eat with the others if it’s okay with you. I’ve been on my own for a long time, and I missed being part of a family. I know I’m new here, but I’d like to try to really become a member. Not that Dominic asked me to be one, but since you are...”

  “Since I am, you’re a member too. There’s no way Dominic wouldn’t take you in anyway, even if you weren’t my mate.”

  “So? Do we go?”

  Troy nodded. “Yeah, we can go.” If he was honest with himself, he missed being around people. He’d kept to himself because he thought the others would be scared or weirded out, but he did realize he hadn’t even given them a chance to prove the contrary. He’d been too scared of rejection.

  “We can eat as fast as we can and come back here right after diner.”

  “We’ll see once we get there, okay?”

  Emery jumped out of bed and walked to the bathroom, apparently not caring one bit that he was naked. Troy wasn’t ashamed of his human body, but he wasn’t as comfortable with being naked as Emery clearly was, so he quickly got up and grabbed his jeans from the floor. He slid them on and opened the dresser, taking out a new change of clothes.

  “Hey, do you want to shower with me?” Emery’s voice asked from the bathroom.

  “Uh, no, go ahead. I’ll shower once you’re done.”

  Emery’s head poked through the bathroom door. “Really?”

  The pout on Emery’s face was adorable, but Troy just shook his head. “You know we wouldn’t get much done if we did, and we have to hurry if you want to go down for diner.”

  “Fine, have it your way.” Emery stuck his tongue out at Troy and disappeared again, leaving a slightly shocked Troy in the bedroom.

  He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from Emery, but it wasn’t the playful, sweet and caring man he had found. He’d spied on Emery more often than he wanted to admit even to himself, and he knew Emery was a fierce warrior. He wasn’t afraid to fight with men bigger than he was, and he usually won. He spoke his mind without caring what other people might think about him, and he was friendly with everyone, but Troy hadn’t expected all of that and so much more to be directed his way.

  Troy was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t notice Emery exiting the bathroom until Emery was right in front of him. His hair was still damp and hung loose around his face, making him look even younger, not that Troy knew how old his mate actually was.

  “Go on, it’s your turn.” The smile on Emery’s face was soft and Troy couldn’t resist leaning down and pecking him on the lips before heading to shower. Maybe they could make it work after all.

  * * * *

  All the heads turned their way when they entered the dining room. Emery could feel Troy was very uncomfortable, so he squeezed his mate’s hand harder, hoping it would make him feel better.

  “Hi everyone. Is there space for two more?”

  Emery had never eaten with the pride members. He’d lived and eaten with the other enforcers since he’d gotten to Whitedell, even if he knew most of the pride members.

  Keenan gave them a wide smile and hopped from his chair, pushing it aside before gesturing to his mate to follow him to the kitchen. They both came back with a chair and placed them next to Keenan’s in the space he had made for them.

  Emery leaned against his mate and whispered, “Who do you want to sit by? Keenan or Denver?”

  “Denver.”

  Emery chuckled. He’d already known Troy would choose Denver, of course. The big, silent man was the obvious choice for someone who didn’t want to talk much, while Keenan was the exact opposite.

  Emery settled next to Keenan and reached for the roast that was sitting in front of him. His stomach growled when the delicious smell hit him, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He heartily tucked in but kept one eye on Troy.

  Troy didn’t seem to be doing bad, but then the fact that Denver wasn’t trying to get words out of him probably helped.

  “How did you convince him to come out?”

  Emery turned to look at Keenan. “I’m that good. Dominic didn’t ask me to move in with Troy for nothing, you know.”

  Keenan’s eyes went huge. “You moved in with him?”

  “I thought you knew since you’re Dominic’s PA.”

  “I didn’t.” Keenan turned toward the head of the table. “Hey, Simba, when were you going to tell me?”

  “Never.”

  “What?” Keenan’s voice was loud enough to make most of the people sitting around the table turn to him. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not your business.”

  “But I’m your secretary! I should know these things.” Keenan pouted, and Dominic chuckled.

  “Still not your business, although I’m surprised you found out only now. Sometimes I swear you bugged this house because you seem to know everything that goes on in here.”

  “It happened only once! It’s not like I have a supply of them or something.”

  Emery followed the exchange with wide eyes. Had Keenan really bugged the house?

  Keenan turned to him and noticed the way Emery was looking at him. He smirked. “It was only the one bug, I swear. I put it in Dominic’s office because I wanted to know if he was planning something for my birthday.”

  “Was he?”

  “No, but then it would have been ruined if he had since I was kidnapped by the wendigoes.”

  Emery winced. He still remembered the wendigoes. How could he not? They had to be the ugliest things he’d ever seen, and they stank to high heaven.

  “So, are you going to tell me what happened? Why did Dominic tell you to move in with Troy? Do I have to find you guys a bigger room? I think there’s still one with two twin beds if you want to.”

  Emery hesitated. Troy hadn’t said he didn’t want to tell about their mating, but Emery knew everyone would make a big deal out of it and he wasn’t sure his mate would appreciate the attention. “No, I think we’re fine with the room we have, thanks.”

  “You’re sure? We could put another bed in the room, although I’m not sure if it’ll fit. Maybe we can take out the king sized and—”

  Clearly the fact that Troy and Emery were mates wasn’t widely known yet.

  “We’re fine with one bed, thanks,” Troy told Keenan over Emery’s head, and Keenan stopped talking.

  “You are? Does that mean you two will sleep in the same bed?” Keenan wiggled his eyebrows in a playful manner. Emery appreciated the fact that no one gave Troy a second look and gave him all the time he needed to open up on his own. Well, everyon
e but Keenan, but that was a given.

  “Don’t you sleep with Jonah?”

  “Well, yes, but we’re mates.”

  Troy gave Keenan a pointed look, while Emery gaped at Troy. He really hadn’t thought Troy would admit to it so soon, and especially not in the middle of the first diner both of them attended with the rest of the pride.

  Keenan squealed as soon as he understood what Troy was telling him and the people around the table stopped talking and looked their way. Emery winced, but Keenan didn’t seem to care. He flung his arms around Emery’s neck and gave him one loud kiss on the cheek before launching himself out of his chair and doing the same thing to Troy.

  Troy looked a bit dazed and shocked at the affectionate gestures, but Keenan was already talking a mile a minute. “We have to celebrate that! Do you guys want a party? I can organize one for the weekend, or maybe the next one. Emery, do you have to go on a mission? Maybe we can ask Dominic to cancel it if you do.”

  Keenan slapped his own forehead with his palm and continued, “Of course you don’t have any missions. I would know about it. Probably.” He glared in Dominic’s direction before going on. “But then if Dominic assigned you to Troy, he wouldn’t have given you any other mission.”

  “Keenan, love, I think you should let the men breathe. Troy looks like he’s about to faint,” Jonah said from Keenan’s left. Emery gave him a grateful smile and Jonah grinned. “He’s a bit... enthusiastic, especially when it comes to matings. I guess it’s the romantic in him.”

  “Are you sure?” Emery asked. “From the little I know about him, he reacts like this to just about anything.”

  Jonah chuckled. “You might be right.”

  Emery looked around the table to see how everyone was reacting to the news. Some people still looked confused, but he saw Nate and Derick smiling at him and Dominic nodded in acknowledgment when Emery looked his way. Jayden and Darin had their heads close together and were whispering like crazy. Oliver was beaming to Troy, while his mate looked at him with a fond expression. No one was reacting badly, though, and that was the most important thing.

  Emery turned to Troy and noticed he was blushing like crazy. “You should’ve known better than to tell Keenan.”

  Troy gave Emery a lopsided smile. “Oh, I knew exactly what I was doing. Telling Keenan was the best way to let everyone know as fast as possible. This way we won’t have to repeat it again and again.”

  “I think he’s nearly more excited than we are.”

  Keenan was still talking a mile a minute about parties and cakes and even balloons. Emery knew he had to stop him before he started making calls and inviting people. “Keenan.”

  Keenan’s mouth snapped shut. “Yes?”

  “Look, we’re grateful to see you so happy for us, but I don’t think a party is the right thing for Troy. He’s still having a hard time adapting. Honestly, I was surprised he actually agreed to come down for dinner, and he’s lived with you for the past four months.”

  Keenan’s eyes went soft as he looked in Troy’s direction. “Yeah, sure. Sorry. I guess my former partying self comes out when I’m excited.”

  “No worries. I’m sure we can do something small, though, maybe a pizza and movie night?”

  Troy needed to start coming out of his room—their room—but a party wasn’t the best occasion for him to do that. Pizza and a movie with a few other pride members, though, he probably could do. He might not be entirely comfortable with it, but the room would be dark and he wouldn’t have to talk with anyone.

  Keenan nodded. “Sure! We can get popcorn and soda, and check the movie on—”

  Emery chuckled. Nothing stopped Keenan.

  Chapter Three

  Troy pressed his lips together and tried to concentrate on his book. It wasn’t easy, not when his stomach felt as if it was about to come out through his mouth.

  The only time Troy had ever felt as bad as he felt now was the morning after his DNA had been tinkered with. Well, he wasn’t sure it was a morning after, if he was honest, because he had lost track of the time passing while he’d been in there. He only knew that they’d taken him from his cell and sedated him and he when he’d woken up he was back on his bunk feeling like a bus had just hit him.

  He was feeling very much the same at the moment. He wanted to puke, and cramps were making him want to bundle up on the bed and never leave it.

  Troy moaned with the next cramp and let his book fall on his knees. There was no point trying to read it. He hadn’t read one single word over the past half hour anyway.

  “Troy? Everything okay?”

  Troy groaned, but it wasn’t in pain this time. He should have known Jayden would find him if he stayed in the library. The weasel shifter seemed to live there, and it wasn’t the first time Troy had crossed paths with him.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You don’t look so good to me. You look like you’re about to throw up, actually, and I wouldn’t want you to do it on the books. Some of them are quite old and valuable, you know, and—”

  Troy tuned Jayden out. It wasn’t hard, not with as bad as Troy was feeling. He should probably go back to his room—no, he really ought to go to the infirmary and ask Adrian or Jared to check him, but it was the last thing he wanted to do.

  Troy might be used to being poked at with fingers and needles, but it didn’t mean he liked it. He didn’t have the best of experience with labs and hospitals. He knew Adrian and Jared were nothing like the men in the lab, but his body didn’t seem to care, and most of the time he had to fight himself just to avoid running away as fast as he could.

  “—asked Dominic if he could give me the funds to buy it, because it would help a lot for my research, but it’s so expensive that I’m not sure he’ll say yes. I might have to find another way to get enough money, so I thought I could—”

  Troy put his book on the table next to the armchair he was sitting in and grabbed the sides of the chair. He used the hold he had on them to get up, but it was still far from easy—or painless. His whole body protested and he groaned.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? I think I should accompany you to the infirmary, just to be sure, you know?”

  “No, it’s okay. I’ll be fine. It must be something I ate.”

  Jayden looked dubious. Troy knew it couldn’t be something he ate, because Emery and he had started to regularly eat with the pride members since that first time two weeks before, and they all ate the same food. Jayden knew it too, and he clearly wasn’t fooled.

  “If you’re sure...”

  “I am, but thanks for offering.”

  Troy nodded at the small shifter and went for the door. It still puzzled him that all the people around him seemed to really care. They’d all been happy to know Emery and Troy were mated, and everyone had congratulated them. Troy hadn’t expected it, not after spending four months holed up in his room or in the library with only books for company.

  The only human beings he’d spent some time with had been Jared, Adrian, Jayden and Dominic, but no one seemed to care, and now everyone treated Troy as if he’d always been a pride member.

  Troy pushed the door to his room open. He was relieved when Emery was nowhere in sight. His mate was cute and sweet, but he also tended to hover a little too much over Troy. It made Troy feel a like an invalid when he wasn’t even sick. Well, he hadn’t been sick until a few days earlier, but he knew what would happen if Emery found out. Troy would end up spending hours in bed, and not in a good way.

  His stomach lurched and Troy pressed his lips together again, but this time he wasn’t able to stop himself. He ran to the bathroom, narrowly making it there before his breakfast came back up.

  Troy hugged the cool porcelain for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. When everything that needed to come up had done so, he leaned back and reached for the washcloth he’d left on the counter that morning. He used it to wipe his fac
e, then let it fall on the floor.

  He would have thought he’d have felt better after throwing up, but he didn’t. If anything, he felt even worse. His knees ached where he’d pressed them against the bathroom tiles, and his back hurt.

  Troy didn’t think he had the strength to get up, not right away, so he leaned back against the wall, close enough to the toilet that he just had to lean over if he needed to throw up again.

  Troy was scared. His life was out of control and had been for the past year, but once his DNA had been spliced and his body had gotten used to it, he’d never even had a headache. It would be just his luck to get sick after everything he’d already been through already.

  Troy’s stomach lurched and he tensed, but nothing tried to get out, so he relaxed again. He leaned his head back against the wall and pulled his knees up, hugging them close to his body. Troy didn’t know what was going on, and he didn’t think he wanted to know. He would rather stay in the dark, because he just knew it was something he wouldn’t like and that would turn his life around again. He’d already had enough of that for a lifetime, though.

  “Troy?”

  Troy groaned. Great, Emery was home, and he was looking for him. He slowly stood up, happy when his body didn’t protest—well, most of it didn’t. His back still didn’t seem to be up for much more, though. “In the bathroom.”

  Troy put the washcloth in the sink and braced himself against the counter just as the door opened. “Everything okay?”

  A flash of annoyance passed through Troy. “I’m fine. Why the fuck is everyone so worried about my health?”

  He felt guilty instantly. He could see Emery in the mirror in front of him and he knew he was the reason for the hurt expression on his face.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

  Emery disappeared through the door again. Troy let his head fall forward and took a deep breath before going after his mate. “I’m sorry.”