by Susan Bliler
Scenting her pain had Monster all fucking riled up. There was no way in hell that beast was gonna sleep tonight, but he’d have to get the fuck over it because there was also no way in hell that Tyson was peeling his body off Cersi’s a second before she demanded it.
He vowed this wouldn’t happen again. Tomorrow, he’d give her meds every few hours. He wouldn’t rely on her to tell him when she was hurting or needing because she was too goddamn stubborn to do so. He’d have to take her care into his own hands.
Inside, Monster was in agreement, and it was odd. The two rarely agreed on anything, especially where people were concerned. Tyson was more of a tolerate them until they go away kind of guy, but Monster wanted to kill everyone. Brushing his nose against Cersi’s hair, Tyson realized that inside of him, Monster was…content. Holding Cersi like this, Monster felt proud that they’d fixed her. Tyson felt better too, but studying Monster, he realized there was more to his contentment than just mere pride. The fucker was trying to form a bond, and that couldn’t happen.
I gotta get her to BlackLodge. Tomorrow. No matter what!
He expected Monster to rage inside of him, but the fucker was too distracted by Cersi.
Cersi. He inhaled her scent again and let it wash over both the man and the beast. What in the fuck are you doing to me?
Chapter 9
Tyson snapped awake feeling like shit. He’d slept only a few fleeting moments here and there because he was too afraid of falling asleep and taking the chance of Cersi’s pain meds wearing off.
Cersi was still tucked up tight to his body. Letting all his senses come alive, he simply enjoyed the moment. She was warm and soft, and without the scent of emotion polluting her fragrance, he could drink her in as deeply as he wanted. He did. Several lungs-full of her brown sugar and buttercream scent had Monster stretching inside of him.
He remembered her agony from last night and glanced at the clock. She had another hour before she needed to take more pills, so he settled into her nearness. She fit the cocoon of his body perfectly like she’d been made for him and that had him wondering if God made mates for Monsters. That had him thinking about The Hunt, and once his mind went there, his thoughts grew dark as he planned his revenge on The Council.
He didn’t know how long he’d been brooding when Cersi sniffed and drew him from his plans of revenge.
“You’re…on my side,” she chuffed through a laugh.
Her attempt at humor didn’t deter him from scenting her now that she was awake. Her emotions would start to kick in, and they’d tell him whether she was in pain or not. So far, there was no hint of the agony she’d been in last night.
“Tough,” he replied and pulled her body tighter into his. “Goddamn pillow barrier,” he mocked. “At least in the stories they tried bricks to keep the big bad wolf at bay. Pillows, Badass? Come on.”
She huffed what sounded like a genuine laugh and asked, “That what you are? The big bad wolf?”
Holy shit! He’d been trying so damn hard to gauge her comfort that he didn’t even realize his slip. “Just a metaphor,” he covered.
“Nah,” she disagreed. “Probably more accurate than you’re letting on.”
You have no idea.
“Tell me something,” he prodded, not only in an attempt to change the subject but out of genuine interest. “Tell me something about you.” He didn’t know why he asked that. Maybe having her in his arms, all vulnerable with her guard down, had him thinking she’d give him something.
She didn’t answer though. She stayed quiet so long he asked, “How long you been a Bounty Huntress?”
He didn’t think she was going to answer that either, but finally, she said, “Too long. Not sure why I still do it. The pay is shit.”
She elaborated on how she’d started. She even told him about her first few jobs, and Tyson was mesmerized by her story and by her voice. His fascination faded quickly when the scent of her discomfort blossomed in the air.
When she stopped talking, he eased his arm from under her head. “I want to hear the rest of this, but you need to get cleaned up and take more meds. We need to get breakfast in you too so you don’t get sick from taking medication on an empty stomach.” Jerking his chin toward the door, he directed, “Get cleaned up and changed. I’ll start breakfast. Then we’ll change your bandages before hitting the road.”
Cersi slowly sat up. “Hitting the road?”
“Yeah. We’re going home.” The hand that had been plowing through his hair stilled at the statement. Why in the hell had said it like that? BlackLodge was his home, not hers.
“Home?” she asked.
“BlackLodge. It’s where my…”
She cut him off with an eager expression. “It’s where Vesa is! You’re taking me to Vesa?”
He grinned a half smile, “Yeah. I’m taking you to Vesa.”
Cersi shot off the bed and rushed out of the room. He chuckled at her excitement but made sure not to get so lost in it that he forgot the important stuff.
In the kitchen, he poured a large glass of milk and palmed two more pills before trekking down the hall and knocking on the bathroom door. Inside, he could hear the faucet blasting, and when Cersi jerked the door open, a toothbrush was poking out of her mouth.
“Take these.” He held out the meds and tried to hide his shock when Cersi held up a finger, pulled the door open wide as she crossed to the sink, rinsed her mouth, and returned to accept the pills which she swallowed down with half the glass of milk.
“Thank you.”
For the moment, just the briefest of moments, he’d felt compelled to drop a kiss on her lips before heading back to the kitchen to start their breakfast. He didn’t act on the compulsion though because she wasn’t his. Worse, he was getting too damn comfortable with her and that didn’t make any fucking sense because he’d literally been with the woman for two days plus this morning and she’d been unconscious for most of that time.
Turning abruptly he didn’t respond to her thanks. Instead, he paced the hall to the kitchen and then distracted himself by whipping up omelets and sausage with overcooked toast.
When Cersi came into the kitchen, he was using a butter knife to scrape the burnt off the bread. He tried to hide it by angling his big body between her and the sink, but she said. “Want me to do that?”
Heaving a sigh, he stopped trying to hide the hideous toast from her. What was the point? The air reeked of charred bread.
“I could make more,” he looked at the toast and realized saving it was futile.
“No way.” Cersi took the knife from him and snatched the piece of toast from his hands. “Just because something doesn’t look right doesn’t mean it’s bad. This’ll be fine once you get around the dark parts.”
“You can’t get all the dark parts,” he grumbled.
“You don’t need to.” Cersi held up the piece of toast and beamed. “Sometimes the dark parts are the best parts.”
She took a bite of the toast while inside of Tyson, Monster’s ears were pricked all the way up. She likes dark parts!
No, Tyson admonished Monster. She’s talking about toast. Calm the fuck down!
But Monster wasn’t standing down. No, he was staring at Cersi, unblinking, mesmerized.
Fffffffuck!
Chomping on the well-done toast, Cersi glanced up at Tyson and made to lower her head but did a double-take. He knew he was watching her a little too curiously, so he tried to tear his eyes away it didn’t work until she jammed her burnt toast toward the stove. “Think your sausage is burning.”
“Christ!” Tyson whirled around and jerked the skillet off the burner. “I really do know how to cook,” he tossed over his shoulder, “I’m just…distracted is all.”
“Distracted?” She took a seat at the kitchen island. “Distracted by what?”
You! He didn’t say it though. Instead, he offered, “Thinking about the drive home. It might not be too comfortable with you and your arm, maybe we should wait a
few more days.” He’d been kicking the idea around since this morning but didn’t mention it because he wasn’t sure if he was actually trying to be noble or if Monster was trying to trick him into drawing out his time here with Cersi.
“No,” she cut into his thoughts. “I wanna see Vesa.”
He figured as much. Plating up her omelet and a side of sausage, he slid it onto the island then rifled through the drawer for silverware, which he placed on a napkin beside her plate.
“Enjoy.”
Cersi looked at her plate and then the stove. “You aren’t eating?”
“I ate while you got ready. Gonna go get cleaned up while you eat. We’ll hit the road soon’s you’re done.”
Without another word, he headed for the bathroom and the cold-ass shower he desperately needed.
Chapter 10
Cersi paced the apartment and waited on Tyson. He’d been in the shower a long time, and while part of her screamed that she should be hightailing it out of there, another part argued that Tyson was right. If he’d wanted her dead, he could have left her to bleed out on the pier, and if he’d wanted to hurt her, he’d had two days of her being unconscious to do whatever he wanted. Plus, the promise of seeing Vesa was too big to pass up. That and she was still hurting more than she was willing to let on and there was a legit worry that Vesa’s kidnappers were still out there. She didn’t want to have to deal with them now, not alone, and who better to have her back than the beast of a man currently taking the longest shower in the history of showers.
Worry slithered through her, and Cersi paced down the hall toward the bathroom. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe Tyson’s wound was just as bad as hers, but he’d been hiding it to be macho.
Fuck! Maybe he’s in there bleeding out right now! While he’d stitched her wound, bandaged it, and had given her pain meds, she hadn’t even made him show her his.
Feeling like a grade A asshole, Cersi tested the doorknob to the bathroom. It was unlocked. Certain that he was passed out on the floor of the shower bleeding to death, she shoved the door open and rushed in.
Stepping into the bathroom, Cersi slammed to a halt when her eyes collided with Tyson’s massive form. He was standing half-naked in front of the mirror, rubbing a towel over his wet hair. He didn’t see her right away, and it gave her enough time to slide her eyes down to his bare chest. It was thick with muscle and marred with crisscrossed scars and intricate tattoos. There was a tattooed cross right in the center of his chest, but that wasn’t what held her attention. No, what held her captive was the fact that there wasn’t any recent wound on him. No raw bullet hole like hers, no graze of his shoulder or arm like she’d barely caught him with the bullet. There was absolutely nothing. She’d shot him! She knew she had, but there was no proof of it anywhere.
Tyson lowered his towel and instantly tensed. His eyes, which had initially gone to the mirror, jerked to Cersi, but she was already backing up.
“Cersi.” His tone was calm, placating, and she barely heard it through the pounding of her heart.
“Where’s,” she breathed. “Where’s your wound, Tyson?”
Dropping the towel, he held up his hands in a calming gesture. “Easy,” he crooned.
“Tyson!” Her tone hitched and grew panicky. Backing up, Tyson stalked her step for step.
“Stop,” he commanded on a deep rumble.
She didn’t know if he meant backing away from him or letting her imagination run wild. And that’s exactly what was happening. Her mind was zipping through a thousand scenarios of how a man who’d been shot two days ago had zero evidence of that injury. Nothing made sense. Nothing.
Tyson’s voice was stark when he said, “It’s not what you think.”
“I,” she shook her head, her voice barely a whisper. “I don’t know what I think.” It was the truth.
“You’re gonna find out soon enough,” his expression turned anguished. “I wanted to wait. Was gonna tell you…show you at BlackLodge.”
Cersi’s shoulders pressed into the wall as she ran out of room to retreat. “Sh-show me what?”
Lips thinning into a grim line, Tyson lowered his hands and rose to his full height. “Fffffuck.” Plowing a hand through his still damp hair, he drew in a deep breath that expanded his massive chest. Taking a quick step back, he let a shift shuttle through him. Eyes locked with Cersi’s the whole time, he saw her deep brown eyes go wide as her mouth followed suit.
***
Tyson thought Cersi would faint at his revelation like Vesa had. Stupid assumption! He should have known better. His little Badass didn’t faint like he’d hoped. Nope! She stared at him in shock for the space of half a breath and then made a break for it. With Monster already loose, there was no hope of holding him back. He was on Cersi in two strides. His teeth caught the bottom of her pretty sweater, and she jerked to a halt. Without hesitation, she spun and punched Monster right in the snout. The dumb bastard actually beamed a toothy grin like it was a sign of affection. The display of all those sharp teeth though had the opposite effect on Cersi. Bending at the waist, she lifted both arms and slipped out of her sweater until she was bent over wearing nothing but a lacey bra and her jeans. Her hand flew to her shoulder as she backed up and dropped to her knees. Instantly, she started dry heaving and Tyson grabbed Monster around the throat and forced that fucker back down inside of him.
Back in human form, he was on his knees in front of Cersi in a flash. The instant his hands touched her though, she jerked back, eyes wild with fear.
“Easy, it’s just me!”
She scrambled backward on her ass as best she could while keeping her hand clamped to her shoulder.
“What…what…what the fuck was that?”
She stopped backing up when she ran into the kitchen island, but her fear-filled eyes stay locked on Tyson like she was afraid he was going to attack her.
Already kneeling, he dropped back onto his heels and let his shoulders drop in resignation. “I’m a shifter, Cersi. A wolf shifter. We’re pretty common, we just don’t come out to people often.”
Cersi was shaking her head vehemently, “Shifter? What? What does that mean? You’re a wolf? How? That…that doesn’t make sense!”
“No,” he buried a hand in his hair and gripped the damp strands there before dropping his arm. “It doesn’t, but you can’t deny what you just saw. And it’s not something I can explain to you in any short amount of time. The basics of it are that my parents were shifters. They had Haddix and me, and we’re shifters too.” He shrugged, “That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Her tone was incredulous. “That’s all!”
His eyes dipped which had Cersi looking down at herself. Realizing she was sitting there in her bra, she dropped the hand from her shoulder to cover her breasts.
“How’s your arm?”
“It hurts like a motherfucker,” she hurled at him. “You should’ve warned me what you were going to do!”
He smirked, “Would that have gotten me a better reaction?”
“We’ll never know now,” she grumbled shoving to her feet. “Will we?”
Tyson stood too and watched as Cersi stormed down the hall and snatched her sweater off the floor. She shoved her good arm in and then glared at him. “You’re gonna have to help me!”
Her words shocked him. He expected her to dress and try to bolt. He expected her to stay as far from him as possible. He expected what happened every time someone new found out what he was, he expected fear. Her calling him to her felt like acceptance. Without hesitation, he closed the distance between them and quickly helped her into her sweater. Gently gripping her elbow, he pulled her sweater down and guided her arm slowly into the sleeve. He couldn’t believe she was letting him touch her after what she’d just seen. Honestly, she was taking this way better than he’d ever expected.
When her head poked through the neck hole of her sweater, she glared at him. “Is my sister okay? And don’t you fucking lie to me! Is your brother gonna eat
her?”
He tried to hide a smile when he answered, “Not in the way your thinking.”
His smile broke through when Cersi blushed and muttered, “Pig.”
“Wolf,” he corrected.
“Wolf,” she repeated on a breath. Looking up, her eyes locked with his. “Wolf,” she said much more firmly.
Tyson held her gaze and dipped his chin in a silent nod.
“Well, I hope it’s a long drive to BlackLodge because as you can imagine, I’ve got a zillion questions.”
He chuffed a laugh. “Yeah, figured as much.”
“For now though, I just have one.”
His grin faded.
“Am…,” she looked down like she wasn’t certain she wanted to ask, but after a minute she lifted her chin, eyes gone hard with resolve. “Am I gonna be okay with you?”
He kept his eyes on hers so she could see the sincerity in him when he said, “Badass, I’m not gonna lie. There isn’t much about me that’s good, but the one redeeming quality I have is honesty. So you can take it to the bank when I say that with me, you’re safer than you ever been. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, Monster and I vow it.”
Delicate brows shooting up, she asked, “Monster?”
“Yeah,” he grunted. For the first time in ever, he regretted the name he’d given his animal.
Cersi swallowed hard and didn’t blink for long minutes. It felt like she was trying to gauge whether she could believe him or not. Something must have convinced her though because she blinked and huffed out a breath as she gave him a firm nod. “Well, I don’t expect all that. You make your own luck, and I take care of myself. Keep your vows, Tyson BloodMoon, you don’t need to protect me from the world, you just need to not get pissed and devour me.” She held out her hand. “Deal?”
With a shake of his head and a snort, he folded his larger hand around hers, shaking it gently while images of devouring her stampeded through his head. He wanted to devour Cersi. He wanted to devour her in the worst fucking way.