Page 60 of The Thief

While wolves didn’t understand English, Shifters could mentally communicate their desires to their animal. The communication went both ways. This would be good practice for her.

As soon as Robyn shifted, Bear gathered her plaid pajamas and continued his search in the pouring rain.

What can I do to make this problem with Argento go away? His worst fear was Mercy splitting town or getting kicked out. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to imagine a pack without her in it. In her presence, he felt like a better man. A kinder man. A smarter man.

A handsome man.

He was so lost in his thoughts that his foot caught on a root and sent him flying. Bear hit the ground like a bag of bricks, mud splashing all over his clothes. He wiped his face and got up, gripping Robyn’s sopping-wet pajamas.

Robyn’s wolf barked up ahead, signaling she’d found Virgil. After passing through a thicket of tall shrubs, Bear spotted her black wolf circling a cluster of prickly pear. Virgil was draped over the cactus like a sacrificial lamb.

Bear stood at the edge. “You need to get out of there.”

“I’m thinking about it,” Virgil said, his eyes closed, the rain beating down on his face. “You do realize that I can’t shift because I have a million needles in my back.”

“I’ll pick them out. Hurry up. We can’t leave the car in the road with the key inside.”

Virgil raised his head and grimaced. “Do I get a cookie?”

Bear felt sympathetic. Those needles were painful and difficult to remove. “Yeah, Virgil, I’ll bake you a pan of homemade peanut butter cookies. Let’s pull you out of that cactus and strip off those clothes.”

“If I had a nickel for every time someone said that to me, I’d have exactly zero cents.”

Robyn’s wolf snorted.

Bear shook his head. “If those things have glochids, you’ll be in a world of hurt.”

“What the hell are those?”

Glochids were soft, tiny needles you could barely see. But their wrath was unparalleled since you couldn’t extract them as easily as the larger needles. No sense in scaring the kid. “I’ll put the seats down in the back, and you can lie on your stomach. You don’t want to push the needles in any deeper. Leave your clothes here. I don’t want those things winding up in the washer with everyone’s underwear.”

Virgil’s drawn-out laugh sounded more like a cry.

Bear silently thanked the fates that he’d had the good sense to put a blanket in the back seat in case Mercy got cold. Virgil could lie on that instead of rubbing his naked parts all over Bear’s new vehicle. It was a damn shame what that kid was about to experience.

Virgil took his hand. “Bear?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure you hear this all the time.”

“What’s that?”

“Be gentle.”

Chapter 11

Relief washed over me when Bear’s black SUV appeared in the driveway. By then the storm had passed. There was mud splashed on the tires and side, but nothing prepared me for what I saw when they opened the back hatch. Virgil was lying face down, naked as a jaybird, his knees bent and his feet in the air so he could fit in the back. Bear looked like an ice cream cone dipped in mud but only on his front.

A short time later, Luna trotted up the driveway with Montana astride her. By the looks of her muddy coat and stringy hair, she was in need of a spa day.

The next couple of hours were spent on miscellaneous chores. A few volunteered to clean Luna and pamper the poor thing, I folded laundry, Robyn washed the mud off the front and back steps, and Krys cleared fallen debris around the house that had shaken loose from the wind.

Once I finished putting towels and linens away, I went to see how the needle extraction was going. Virgil was lying on a towel-covered floor, a pillow propped beneath his chest, his hair twisted and clipped to the top of his head. Salem sat beside him, diligently plucking needles from his back. Melody must have pushed her pink sofa against the wall to get it out of the line of fire.

“How’s the patient, Doc?”

Virgil glanced over his shoulder at me and smiled, cookie crumbs littering the floor after he took a bite. “Better if I had more of these.”

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