Page 63 of A Beta Protects

But one I can’t bring myself to care about until I get my mate home, clean the dirt, tears, and blood from her face, and ensure she’s okay.

And we need to talk.

I need to tell her everything I should have before.

I head for Galen’s truck, leaving him to bark orders at the others to get to work making Bryce’s death look like a wolf attack. Any other time, we’d bury the body, but a missing sheriff is going to cause us more problems than a dead one killed by a wolf.

As I get in the backseat of Galen’s truck, Sierra passes me a blanket that I wrap around Kira, who is quiet in my arms.

Thirty minutes later, Kira sits perched on the end of my bed as I crouch in front of her. She still has the blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

Kira seemed a little disappointed when I slipped into a pair of black sweatpants as soon as I carried her up the stairs, leaving her to make a brief stop in the bathroom for a washcloth and a bucket of water. Otherwise, she’s been quiet.

Watchful but quiet.

She doesn’t take her eyes off me as I slowly and methodically wipe the blood and dirt from her face. She has bruises from where Bryce must have hit her, and I want to kill him all over again when I see those signs of her abuse.

I’ve dipped the flannel in the bucket of warm water for the second time when I say, “You look like you’re bursting with questions.”

She’s a little too watchful for this to be shock.

“Have you always been able to change into a wolf?”

“Since I was seventeen,” I say, giving her a probing look.

“Oh.”

She doesn’t immediately shove me aside and sprint out of the door. I let myself relax a little more. The longer she doesn’t run away, the less likely she will.

“We’re called shifters.” Finished wiping her face, I move onto the scratches and bruises on her arms. “And we have our first shift around puberty.”

“Does it hurt, squishing yourself into a smaller…” Her voice trails off when my lip twitches at the wonder in her voice.

When I peer up at her, her cheeks are pink and she’s avoiding my gaze.

Bryce’s abuse has cut deep, and I keep seeing signs of it. Lowering the washcloth, I wait until we’re eye-to-eye. “Ask, Kira.”

She shrugs. “It’s a stupid question.”

“No question you ask me will ever be stupid.”

“You smiled.” Her gaze dips to my mouth. Not that there’s any sign of a smile to be found now. Her fear of speaking her mind has killed my amusement.

“I am in awe that you haven’t left me. It’s a relief. And I smiled because you reminded me of a joy I’d forgotten.”

She tilts her head. “Joy about what?”

“My first shift. I had a lot of questions and no one to answer them. I’m glad I can answer them for you.” That first shift came suddenly, one night, when I was in foster care. It felt like something was trying to get out of me.

I climbed out of my bedroom window, driven to get somewhere green, with no clue why, and I shifted. I was seventeen when I learned I wasn’t like everyone else. There was no way I could stay with humans in case they ever learned what I could do and caged me like an animal.

So I left, changed my name from Dom Walker to Dom Wolfe, and started living my life on the road, searching for more people who were like me.

I found other shifters on the way, but they were never any I wanted to stay long with. So I kept moving on, looking for whoever left me in Minnesota with not so much as a name.

“You’re bigger now,” she says, her eyes dipping to my bare chest. I could have put a shirt on along with sweats, but I’ve seen the way Kira looks at me when I’m bare chested, and I like it. She finds me attractive, so I didn’t put a shirt on. For her. “When you’re a wolf, where does the rest of you go?”

I grin at her and shake my head. “I couldn’t tell you. It’s the magic of the shift, I guess.”

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