Page 23 of Broken-Hearted

I tear my T-shirt sleeve off and wrap the thin cotton around his forearm. “You are an idiot, Nathan Blackshaw. Some people step aside from a claw attack. You step into it.”

What I’m doing isn’t even necessary, but the sooner I close the wound with something, the sooner it will heal.

I grumble as I finish my task, but I’m careful not to hurt him because he got this wound protecting me. When I lift my head, Nathan is studying me with a softness in his gaze.

I release his arm and take a step back. “But thank you, Blackshaw.”

He nods. “Anytime, peach.”

That ‘anytime’ scares me. This was yet another near-miss that could have been fatal if our new arrivals hadn’t turned up when they did.

“Who are you?” I ask the couple who chased away our attackers.

The man takes the blonde woman’s hand. We shifters spend most of our childhood getting used to nudity—ours and our packmates. Nudity matters as little to them as it does to me and Nathan.

“Matilda. And this is my mate, Simon,” she introduces herself.

“And you are?” Nathan shields me with his body.

I nudge him aside. “They just saved our lives. Quit being He-Man.”

Simon’s lips quirk in a half-smile. “Ah, mates?”

I stiffen my spine. “We are not?—”

“This is Clara,” Nathan interrupts, taking my hand the way Simon took Matilda’s. “And I’m Nathan. What are you doing out here?”

I try to pry my fingers free. It’s like Nathan super-glued our hands together. There’s no breaking free.

“It doesn’t look like there’s much around here. There is. Our home. We were out on a run when we heard growls and figured there was a problem.” Simon points his chin the way the two shifters disappeared. “I would have gone after them, but they’re headed back to the road.”

The distant sound of a car starting up drifts toward us, proving he was right not to follow. It might not matter if the shifters saw us, but we don’t need a human to see something they shouldn’t. Something like one of us shifting.

Our attackers have gone for now, but they won’t stay away forever. If they followed us from Rosenwood, I have no doubt they’ll re-group somewhere else and come back.

“You live here?” Nathan squeezes my hand in a way that feels far more reassuring than it should for a guy I don’t know all that well.

Simon nods. “We have a little cabin east of here. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like. It’s not much, but we don’t need much more than each other.” He wraps his arm around Matilda’s shoulder and smiles down at her.

It’s very sweet.

“We probably shouldn’t,” I say.

The last thing I want is for them to get caught up in my mess. Bad enough I’ve dragged Nathan into it. I wouldn’t want them hurt because of me.

Nathan tugs me against his side so suddenly I yelp. “Hey!”

He peers down at me innocently. “Something wrong?”

What’s wrong is he has his arm slung around me the same way Simon is hugging Matilda to his side.

They are mates.

We arenotmates.

So why does it feel so good tucked up against Nathan Blackshaw, and why is my wolf not filling my head with growls of complaint at being manhandled?

Andwhyam I noticing how good he smells?

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