She leaned against him, and for the second time in as many days, he carried her to a bedroom not his own.
Damien pulled back the covers and laid her down in the middle of the bed, making sure the blankets fully covered her. She was human and injured, and he’d been ignoring Pryce’s warning to give her time to heal. Some alpha he was. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t part of his pack. She was under his protection, and he was doing a lousy job of caring for her.
“Go to sleep, Tess.” He kissed her forehead.
“You’re like me,” she said, slurring her words now.
He wasn’t sure if that meant he was stubborn or persistent, because she was definitely both of those, as well as beautiful, sexy, witty. Yeah, he needed to do something about her, before he fell for her. Maybe she should stay with Aloe tomorrow. Jackie was newly bonded, so she and Noah would be going at it too often to have a houseguest.
“No,” Tess said, shaking her head, struggling to keep her eyes open. They held an intensity, as if she needed him to really hear her. “I’m like you,” she repeated.
“In what way?” he asked.
“I’m a shifter, too.”
Chapter Six
TESS
When Tess woke, she was alone. She had a vague memory of Damien sleeping beside her. She felt the bedding. Cool. Wishful thinking perhaps. Tess took a deep breath. The faintest hint of Damien’s scent remained in the room, but that could have been from when he had carried her in last night. Or it could have been more recent.
Her sense of smell wasn’t what it was before the WSSO had experimented on her. In fact, none of her senses were as attuned as they used to be. Nonetheless, she could still feel her wolf inside of her.
God, it had been so long since she shifted. Over ten months. Was it possible she wouldn’t be able to shift at all because her kidnappers had kept her wolf trapped too long? She had never heard of anyone going so long without shifting. Even the weakest of shifters shifted once every few months, despite the pain they endured. The inner wolf needed to be freed, to run and play as only a wolf can. A shifter’s wolf had a way of making its needs known. It was up to the human side of a shifter to make sure those needs were met.
Today was a new day, and she’d attack it like she had every day since the WSSO had captured her. Deal with what was before her and hope for the best. Merely standing up without a cage barring her was a luxury she’d never take for granted again.
She stretched underutilized muscles, biting back the pain in her shoulder. Pryce had said her shoulder would take time to heal. Already it felt considerably better, but not normal, not yet. That was another worry; her healing had slowed, too much.
There was a fresh pile of clothes on the dresser. The red, floral, hi-low skirt came above her knees in front but fell nearly to the floor in back and fit perfectly at the waist. It didn’t hide the scratches and bruises on her legs like the jeans had, but it fit, so she couldn’t complain.
Tess stared at her exposed legs. The scratches hadn’t healed much, and the bruises were now a deep purple. This was her sixth day since Damien and his men had rescued her. Damien’s bloody nose and bruised cheek had healed by the next morning, evidence of a strong shifter. She had been strong once, too. Now she was healing like a human.
What if she… No, she wouldn’t let herself think like that. She would shift as soon as she finished healing. A sinking feeling overtook her. It had been so long since she last shifted, and her wolf was so quiet.
She should attack her fears head-on, but fear slithered up her spine. “Nope, later. I’m already dressed,” she said to the empty room. First priority was finding out where she was. A simple walk outside would give her a sense of what part of the country she was in, or maybe she’d spot a street or route sign that would give the location away.
After Tess pulled the light blue blouse over her head, she stared at the sling. Pryce might know more about healing, but if she babied her shoulder, then she’d feel human, she’d look human. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to be herself, be the shifter who used to shift in seconds and run through the neighborhood, setting off every dog within a mile radius. She would heal fine without the sling, even if a little slower than usual. She was still a shifter.
As she folded the t-shirt and jeans she’d fallen asleep in, Tess made a mental note to thank whoever had lent her the clothing. Perhaps she could do some chores in exchange. Giving charity was one thing, taking it, well that didn’t sit well with her, since she was capable of providing for herself, or at least had been. First things first, though. She needed to find Damien and answer the questions she had avoided yesterday. He was right. Any detail she could tell them could be helpful, and while she didn’t think the parts she left out would help, it was possible he would glean a clue from those scraps of information. She would have to endure the embarrassment that accompanied telling him the truth.
With no one in the kitchen or anywhere in the house that she could see, Tess headed out. She had expected a suburban neighborhood with other houses on a street, trashcans, kids riding bikes, the works, like back home. After all, Damien’s house was a typical suburban house, with its four bedrooms upstairs, granite counters in the bathrooms, a great room and kitchen downstairs, along with a few doors off the kitchen that probably led to an office and storage. The house had been rather quiet, except when the men were there, but still, she had never envisioned the massive trees that blanketed the area as far as she could see.
There wasn’t even a garage or cars nearby, let alone a road. His house was set in the middle of the damn woods with a few small utilitarian-style buildings nearby. Several trails led outward from the area, like the spokes of a wheel. She wished her hearing was back to normal, so she could listen for where everyone had gone. She was in the middle of nowhere without a phone or car and unable to shift. Fabulous.
That last part wasn’t true. She hadn’t tried to shift, so whether she could was still an unknown.
“Tess?”
Damien! Her smile rose from deep within, no thought needed. Thoughts of him kissing her last night returned, and without meaning to, she licked her lips.
He frowned. Had she done something wrong? She hadn’t apologized for their little disagreement last night, but in all honesty, when he’d picked her up, laid her on her bed and tucked her in, she had thought everything was fine between them.
“I didn’t know where everyone went,” she said, sensing a sudden chill between them. “I was about to pick a path at random.”
“Most of these lead to other homes, shifters in my pack.”
“I’ve never seen a pack in the wild. At least not since I was a kid.”
“But you have seen a pack before?” His eyebrows scrunched together.
“Didn’t I tell you I’m a shifter, too?” She thought about it for a moment. Yes, she had told him right before drifting off last night. Unless she had mumbled, and he hadn’t heard her.
“I know you believe you’re a shifter.”
“Believe?” Maybe she hadn’t heard him right.
“Sorry, Tess, but you smell human.”
She didn’t have it in her to slap him for the insult. Anyone else, yes. But not Damien. He was straightforward and not one to play games. It was still an awful thing to say to a shifter, especially when she didn’t smell like a human. She couldn’t. God, she hoped she didn’t. That would mean… Nope, not going there. I’ll heal, then I’ll shift.
“Is this because I lied last night about the lab?” She sighed, thinking how even now, nearly a year later, she was trying to protect her friends.
“I was afraid to tell you I was with a group, a raiding party. My alpha, William, doesn’t like sharing pack business with other packs. It’s rather stupid, but my first thought was that I didn’t want to get the others in my group in trouble. Jason and Mitch got away. Vicky too, I think. We didn’t exactly have permission from our alpha to raid that lab. Well, we did, and we didn’t. It’s a long story. But tha
t was almost a year ago, so by now they’ve probably told William the truth.”
Not so much a long story as an embarrassing one. Her pack had moved from North Carolina down to Florida when she was a child. Her alpha had grandiose ideas about finding the red wolf shifters that had disappeared into mainstream human society and bringing them into the fold. Her mom was a red wolf, so clearly they existed. More shifters in his pack meant greater strength and power among packs in general, and considering how small her pack was and how big William’s ego was, well, it was a recipe for disaster. ‘Prove the pack’s might and attract those lone wolves out there,’ he had said. ‘Easy as pie.’ He’d said it often enough the older shifters believed him. They weren’t the ones going out in the middle of the night risking their lives.
She’d been drafted along with five others. William had told her group to destroy the research facility outside of Atlanta. The humans there were working on weapons designed specifically for wolf-shifter physiology. It was a crazy plan from the start, and one that the younger shifters knew would fail, but she and the others had listened to their alpha just the same. Except they’d decided to go after a small research lab near Raleigh. They chose a facility that they thought they could do some real damage to because of the low-tech security. They didn’t have the tools or know-how a special forces team would have to infiltrate a larger or better guarded facility. Unfortunately, Jason, who had been tasked with scouting the location, had underestimated the security. She and at least two others had been caught.
Telling Damien about any of this was risky. If he decided to send her back, she’d have to put up with an egotistical alpha with delusions of godhood again, and she wasn’t quite sure she wanted that. At least not yet. Granted, she still had to go back to see her family and get her clothes. Even if she decided to leave her pack and become a lone wolf, she wasn’t eager to chance a run-in with William quite yet. Right now, she could really use her dad’s advice or even her sister’s tougher-than-nails attitude. Tess would go back on her terms, not anyone else’s. Maybe she could sneak in, see her dad and Lily, and avoid William.
“Tess, if you were part of a pack, someone would have reported you missing months ago. Packs have their rivalries and all, but we still maintain contact, especially when someone goes missing.”
“What do you mean, ‘if’? Of course, I’m part of a pack.”
The way his brows came together, a mixture of doubt and concern, was rather quite endearing. The fact that he didn’t believe her, that he talked to her as if she really were human, however, hurt. Either way, there was something about how he regarded her that made being patient with him easier. He was an alpha, which meant he wouldn’t simply take an outsider’s word for anything important. That hot kiss last night aside, she was an outsider, and he had his pack to protect. She would just have to prove herself.
“William must have reported it, but that doesn’t mean you’d know about it. I mean, you’re out in the middle of nowhere, Damien.” In all fairness, she could see William being too daft to report them missing. More than likely, he didn’t want to share any intel with other packs, especially embarrassing news that his shifters had been captured, or worse, that they’d disobeyed his orders. That wouldn’t inspire confidence in any wolf he hoped to recruit into the pack.
“News travels in the shifter world, sometimes slower than in your world, but we have ways of staying in touch with other packs, even ones we don’t have direct contact with.”
Your world? “Now, wait a minute, Damien.”
“Ten months is long enough that we would have heard about shifters missing from Florida.”
She suddenly had a sinking feeling. What if Jason, Mitch, and Vicky never got away, and William had no idea they’d gone after a different target? He could have thought her group had simply left the pack.
“I’m telling the truth.”
Damien’s lips thinned and his jaw tightened. He didn’t believe her. She had told a small lie or two last night, but this was different. Revealing that she was a shifter was big, not something to lie about, and yet he still saw her as human.
“Fine. Don’t believe me. Just point me toward town or the nearest phone, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“I didn’t say I was kicking you out.”
“Like I want to stay here with someone who thinks I’m crazy.” She headed toward a path. She had no idea which one to take, but anywhere was better than standing there and being called a liar.
Her hands fisted at her side as the anger built within. She was done running from bullies. She spun around and marched back to Damien, standing chest to chest to the towering idiot that smelled like black licorice.
“Why would I pretend to be a shifter?” she bit out with as much force as she could, trying not to let his scent dull her anger.
“Because you fear us and think we won’t hurt you if we think you’re one of us.”
She pulled her hair to the side and offered her neck. “Sniff me, Damien, and tell me if you smell any fear coming off of me.”
He leaned in real close, sending a shiver through her when his warm breath struck her neck. Why she had bared her neck so easily to an alpha who was not her own was not only shocking, but strangely erotic. She wanted him to pin her down with his jaws, or better yet, run his tongue over her throat, leaving his scent as he trailed lower, between her breasts. Oh, yes, she liked the idea of him lifting her shirt and taking her in his mouth.
Instead of fulfilling her crazy fantasy, Damien whispered in her ear. “Sweetness, I can smell you a mile away, and any shifter, even a weak one, would know that. And no, I don’t smell fear, but I don’t smell wolf in you either.”
She slapped him across the face. He couldn’t have said anything more hurtful if he had tried.
Gray eyes narrowed. “And you don’t heal like a shifter.”
She slapped him across the face, again. This time his eyes grew dark, as if she had crossed a line.
“Then show me your wolf. Shift right now.”
This time he caught her wrist as she swung at him. “You’re only making me hunger for you, Tess, and I don’t think you’re ready for that. Right now, you should be shifting for me, if you’re shifter.”
Right now? After so many months? She peered into those steely eyes of his. He’d never respect or believe anything she had to say if she didn’t shift for him, but as she looked inside herself, she didn’t feel her wolf stir.
“I… I’m not sure I can.”
“Even weak shifters can shift on command. It’s slow and painful for them, but they can do it.”
He released her arm and waited. Large biceps bulged beneath his black t-shirt as he crossed his arms over his powerful chest. Patient but unyielding. Oh, how she wanted to run her hands across each and every muscle on him, as much as she wanted to slap that arrogant look off his face. More than that, she wanted to shift to prove to him that he was wrong, but mostly because she wanted to be the shifter she’d always been.
Again, Tess searched inward for her wolf, calling her with all the energy she had. Shifting used to be so easy, a mere thought and her bones would reform and slide into place, her fur would spring forth. Within seconds she’d be running through the hot, humid Florida air from backyard to backyard, causing dogs to bark and houselights to click on, all while taking in the sweet scents of angel wing, jasmine, and gardenia. And on garbage night, the stench of rotting food, dirty diapers, and everything in between.
Now, no matter how much she thought of her wolf, envisioned her bones moving, or dreamed of once again calling to others in the distance with a long harmonious howl to see who was out and ready to play, nothing happened. Her wolf was silent. Not even her blood stirred in preparation for a shift.
“Still waiting, Tess.”
Frustration, fear, panic surged to the surface in one ball of resentment as Tess punched Damien in the jaw, hard. Then she ran, without looking back at the shifter who not only called her a liar, but who wasn’t
there for her when she needed him most.
* * *
DAMIEN
“What do you think?” Damien asked, rubbing his jaw as Hayden emerged from the shadows. He’d been watching the whole time. The mere fact that she hadn’t smelled or heard him behind the large pine was enough to prove she wasn’t shifter. But damn, she certainly seemed to think she was.
“I think she has a right hook that even Callen would appreciate.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re always serious. But so was she.”
“Meaning what? You think she’s telling the truth? That she’s a shifter?”
“Nothing about her is shifter. But I don’t think she’s lying either.”
“It’s one or the other, Hayden.”
“What if it isn’t? They held her prisoner for ten months, and we have no clue how much of that she spent caged. They wouldn’t need to put a human in such a small cage. But a shifter who they wanted to keep from shifting, that’s the way to do it. A metal cage would keep the wolf locked inside as much as the human.”
“We’d still smell her wolf, even if they’d somehow fucked with her ability to shift.”
“We can’t assume anything until we know more about what they did to her.”
“No pack has reported her or anyone fitting her description missing. Maybe she was with a raiding party, like she said, but they weren’t shifters.”
“Not all packs are as willing to share info, Damien. Or care about their shifters enough to find out the truth. Mine didn’t.”
“Your pack had a crazy alpha who deserved what he got. He had to be put down.”
Hayden lowered his head for a moment, and Damien realized he’d been too blunt. Not that Hayden needed coddling, but he still carried the guilt from that day. He shouldn’t, but he did. And too many shifters had a tendency of reminding Hayden of how he had betrayed his birth-pack.
“Hell, I can’t seem to do or say anything right lately,” Damien said.
Damien’s Dilemma Page 7