Page 28 of Predator

Probably. “Unless you have something better to do.”

His lips curve upward in a small, crooked grin. “Well, someone did say something about a shower…”

“It’s a good thing I can ask questions even as I scrub up.”

In answer to my quip, Lucas tilts me back in his arms, swooping me up as though suddenly eager to prove me wrong—and I don’t even mind when he does.

I might not have been able to get a lot out of him during our very memorable shower—since it’s kind of hard to interrogate your mate when his dick is in your mouth—but Lucas more than makes up for it. No matter what I want to know about him and his past, present, and future, he’s willing to humor me.

So, yeah. Over the next couple of days, I learn a lot about what an Alpha does—and the rest of the pack, too.

When he’s not obsessively protecting his pack and the non-supes in Winter Creek, Lucas’s favorite pastime is playing the piano, though he also enjoys running for the sake of it, and—not surprisingly—is an amateur taxidermist. I guess, if he took his frustrations out on the wild wolf that went rabid or something and killed Jolie, having to repair it whenever the feral slashed it, he’d need to be able to repair it if he was determined to hold onto it.

And he is. I let that one go. If Lucas needs a stuffed wolf head as a reminder of what the last seventy years cost him… who am I to insist he take it down because it creeps me out? Especially when I look at it now, I see the lengths my mate went to all out love for me.

Some girls like flowers and candy? Me? I’ll stick with my opal necklace and a wolf head—and, honestly, that’s all you need to know about me.

Tristan obviously likes to build model trains for some reason, but he also builds larger furniture, too; he was the one who handcrafted Lucas’s dresser as a gift some sixty years ago. Kirk has a fondness for murder mysteries, plus a knack for completing any crossword puzzle he can find—in ink. Jade… she’s not snapping at me anymore, so I call that a win in my book.

That’s about all I can say about her, but since Lucas won’t even think about letting me go on patrol so soon after me kind of, sort of being feral, I spend most of my time with Eleanor when he and Kirk aren’t around. It’s inevitable that, after Lucas, she’s the one I’ve gotten to know the best.

Like her mate, she loves to read. She’ll call out silly answers to his crossword puzzles, then act amazed when she gets one or two right. While most of the pack’s clothes are bought and traded for with the non-witch residents who live on neutral territory, she confides that she’s spent the last decade and a half teaching herself to sew. She makes the never-ending supply of sweatpants that the wolves use as emergency clothes, and offers to show me how.

With a snort, I have to decline that one.

Is it because my grandmother is the head of a 1950s fashion house? No one outside of the supes in Winter Creek would have any idea that the Marie Bordeaux who ran Bordeaux Designs seventy years ago is still in charge today, but her line lives on in the outside world as much as it does inside of the stasis curse.

The idea that I can pick up a needle and thread or figure out how to use a sewing machine… yeah. No, thanks. That’s not my thing for so many reasons, and I’m lucky that Eleanor seems to get that.

She was also dead-on when she explained why she and Jade rarely wore long-sleeved shirts and pants. For Jade, it’s because she’s a she-wolf and shifters run at a hotter temperature even when they’re not in their fur. For Eleanor?

Heat is no joke, man.

Phew.

I remember reading somewhere that ovulation in a human usually lasts about a day. It must be the same for wolves because when that hit earlier this week? I was torn between wanting to drown myself in a cold shower for a little relief and banging Luc’s brains out.

Luckily, Lucas could tell from the change in my scent and my temperature what I was going through. He put Tristan in charge, told him we were only to be interrupted if the witches made a move, then hustled me off to our room where he let me do both: banging him until I was too weak to do it myself, then letting him hoist me up and fuck me in the shower.

Only when I was waking up the next morning, curled up against his naked body, does it hit me that I’ve been having unprotected sex with Lucas.

Like, I obviously knew I was. I guess I figured that he’s a wolf shifter, I’m a human, and he hasn’t gotten laid in seventy years so odds of him having an STI were pretty low. I got tested after Danny tried to cheat on me since I didn’t believe that bastard when he said he hadn’t slept around on me. I got the all-clear from the clinic, and when I mentioned it to Lucas in one of those awkward conversations we had pre-bonding—the ones that made me wish the earth would open up and swallow me whole—he had no idea what I was talking about.

Right. When he met Jolie and knew she was meant to be his mate, they probably didn’t have to talk test results, huh?

Pregnancy wasn’t a worry for me, either, since I’ve been on the shot for ages. I had my last injection a couple of weeks before I ever left New York for Winter Creek so I figured I was covered until at least January. It’s mid-November now… and that didn’t stop me from ovulating, did it?

Another perk of Lucas’s bite? That’s what Eleanor said when I hunted her down for a little—and, okay, panicky—girl talk. Luckily, before I freak out too much about possibly being knocked up, Eleanor points out that she’s been mated to Kirk for seventy years without any pups.

Not because they didn’t want them, either, and used some kind of supe BC to control it. Nope. The curse kept them stuck in time—and though she went through a monthly heat because she’s mated to a wolf shifter, she never got pregnant.

Is it bad that I’m relieved? I’m just getting used to the idea of having forever with Lucas. Forgive me for wanting a little time for just the two of us before we even think about starting a family.

Lucas agrees. To him, the pack is his family. I’m his family. Whatever happens next will happen, but for now… in this strange limbo. stuck between the one part of the curse ending and another still freaking holding on, we’re together and that’s all that matters.

I just hope it stays that way.

CHAPTER 9

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