Page 28 of Reclaiming Home

“It’s only a cut, it’ll be fine,” he tried to reassure her, but with the blood still dripping—albeit sluggishly, thankfully—it wasn’t working.

“Okay, how about you go fix dinner and I’ll take your brother upstairs and get him cleaned up. I didn’t buy that big first aid kit for nothing, after all.” I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring look, then widened my eyes theatrically. “Do you think I jinxed it?”

She smacked my arm and shook her head. “Oh fuck off. Your house broke him so you get to fix him.” Then she flounced off to the kitchen.

“She’s more affected than she thinks she’s letting on,” Kye murmured softly.

“I know.” I sighed and smiled at him. “Come on, let’s go fix you up.”

He followed me into the main bathroom, where I grimaced at the state of his clothing. “How about you shower first? But obviously don’t get the cut wet.”

He mirrored my expression as he glanced at himself in the mirror. “Oh I’m such a horror show. My hair will be disgusting!”

It would be. In fact…. “Here’s hoping we don’t have to shave any of it.”

The horror in his eyes when he snapped his gaze to mine was kind of funny.

“That’s not funny!”

“It is. Kinda.” I grinned. “I’ll bring you some of your clothes. Get in the shower.” I stepped out of the bathroom and almost stumbled when he called out “Yes, Alpha,” after me.

He’d put his bags in the bedroom earlier that day, so they’d be out of the way. Then he’d piled some of his clothes on top of the dresser by the door. I grabbed clean underwear, pajama pants, and a T-shirt from his selection, and walked back into the bathroom.

It hadn’t occurred to me that he might feel awkward with nudity, because wolves didn’t really care about such things and frankly I saw submissives naked more than I saw them clothed at the clubs.

“Uh,” he managed to say, standing there in the nude, his hand on the shower faucet. The shower was adequate, but the water took time to heat up, and I supposed he was about to turn it on for that.

I quickly put his clothes on the edge of the sink next to the first aid kit I’d already brought out from under it. “Sorry. If this is too awkward for you—”

“No, no. It’s not that. I guess it’s less weird to you?”

I chuckled. “Well, for one, there’s very little modesty within a wolf pack. I’ve tried to be polite about it around you and Carys, but expect me to forget at some point when I need to shift.” I kept my gaze on his face the whole time. As much as part of me wanted to look my fill, this wasn’t the time.

He turned the water on and moved to examine the cut in the mirror again.

“I think the nudity is a similar thing to listening in to others’ conversations,” I continued. “It’s all about living together as harmoniously as possible. That brings some challenges, and you need to be courteous of others’ privacy.”

He hummed thoughtfully, then smiled slightly. “Explain that to me?”

As he stepped back to the shower, this time all the way under the stream while dodging it at the last moment so as not to get his hair wet, I let my eyes wander downward.

He had the cutest bubble butt I’d seen in a while. It was incredibly biteable, and I tore my gaze away at the last moment before he glanced at me questioningly.

“Well, people want some modesty, right? So we don’t stare at others while they’re naked, unless invited to look,” I explained, smirking a little. His blush had little to do with the hot water and that made my wolf preen even though it probably didn’t quite know why it was doing that. “And as for the listening in… well, our hearing is much better than humans’. So we get exposed to things early on. Hearing conversations we shouldn’t, hearing what people do behind closed doors, that sort of thing.”

“Oh…Oh!”

I laughed at the horror in his voice. “Yeah. Let’s say you learn to close your ears for a lot of the noises you hear in the night.”

“I have so much to learn about werewolves,” he said as he started to scrub some of the blood off his neck. “It’s a whole other culture, for one.”

I hummed thoughtfully. “I guess it is. We were even more different centuries ago. More secretive and most packs lived in total seclusion.”

Kye snickered. “What do you call this house?”

“Okay, but most of theothermodern packs I know don’t live quite this remotely. They do tend to live on large properties or adjacent to large nature reserves, though.”

“Well, personally I’m looking forward to learning more. That was what I was going to do tonight after dinner, but we’ll see if my brain has enough energy after all this.” He gestured at his head.

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