Page 45 of Cursed by Death

I shrugged carelessly. “No. He’s not a wild animal. He’s just Rally. And he’s human beneath all of that fur.”

“None of us are human, Ruby,” he said in a quiet but very serious voice.

That was a conversation I wasn’t interested in getting into now, or, likely ever. If we weren’t human did that make us monsters? I didn’t want to be a monster but I wasn’t entirely sure he had included me in his non-human category.

I didn’t think I’d ever be able to think of someone as sweet as Ginger as being a monster. Or adorable and charming Hunter.

I was definitely more monster than the both of them combined.

I ignored Fox and looked to the other guard in the room standing beside him. “What’s your name?”

He dropped his head, respectfully. “Theo.”

Theo had a deep voice full of gravel, sounding as if he had a mouth full of it. His dark hair was buzzed close to his skull and his eyes were an empty, but almost deadly, grey.

I had a feeling Theo didn’t like me much and was likely a serious asshole. Maybe I was just being judgmental though because he appeared to not like me on sight. Perhaps I was too human for him. Wouldn’t that be a nice change.

All of these shifters not liking me before even giving me a chance was going to give me a complex. What, did I stink or something? My perfume was expensive and wouldn’t come off of my skin until I showered, so it couldn’t be that.

“Nice to meet you, Theo,” I forced myself to say, even though I was pretty sure it was a lie. I probably wouldn’t ever think it was nice to meet anyone who took one look at me and didn’t like me.

The man clearly had bad taste, but if he did his job and kept Rally safe then my opinion on him shouldn’t really matter. I would keep telling myself that even though I absolutely did not believe it.

I patted the wolf on the head as if he were a pet and everyone was staring at me once again. I sighed because being here around the shifters was becoming exhausting. “I have to go, Rally. Text me tomorrow to let me know that you’re really okay, please.”

“You’re not the least bit afraid of him, are you?” Theo asked me curiously.

I wanted to tell him to mind his own damn business, but I decided to play nice. For now. But only because everyone else was watching me like they wanted an answer to the question as well. And I was starting to get pissed because even though I hadn’t answered the question exactly I’d still answered it all the same. “It’s Rally.” For me it was that simple.

The wolf in question made happy noises as he rubbed his face against my thigh.

That was it for me, it was time to go.

“I’ll meet you in the car,” I told Ginger and Hunter.

And then I got the fuck out of there. By some miracle, I managed not to run or look back.

Chapter 23

Ginger and Hunter didn’t make me sit out in the car and wait very long for them.

What I wasn’t expecting was for Hunter to open the front passenger door so the wolf could jump up onto the seat. Ginger strapped the baby into the car seat and she and Hunter got into the back on either side of the baby.

“Umm, guys?” I muttered, at a loss for words. I cleared my throat and looked back over my shoulder into the backseat. “Why’s Rally in here? I have a feeling his bodyguards aren’t going to like him leaving all that much right now. I got the feeling they wanted to keep him close on hand so they could watch over him, for whatever reason.”

The wolf growled and I shot him a dirty look, a look that growl rightfully deserved. “Don’t you dare get pissed at me, buddy. I don’t think you need all those babysitters. I actually kind of think the whole thing is a little ridiculous, really. Shouldn’t you be able to take care of yourself? I mean, if you couldn’t take care of yourself then you wouldn’t have won all of those challenges and you wouldn’t be in charge anymore. I could see one or two guards because you are the Prince, but a whole crew of them seems like overkill to me.”

I didn’t even know why I was bothering to talk to him about this at the moment because it wasn’t like he was able to respond to me in his current… body or did I say form? Whatever. In his current wolf form.

I think I might have been uncomfortable with what had just happened in the farmhouse and so now I was talking a bunch of shit because I was nervous. Until that moment I hadn’t been aware that I’d had such a nervous habit.

“Do you expect him to respond?” Hunter asked me in a voice that shook with humor as I started up the car and reversed. “I’m sure when he’s back in his human form he’ll answer all of your questions. If he can remember them all.”

Hunter laughing at me and making fun of me really pissed me off, but I let it roll off my back because I knew he didn’t mean anything by it. I thought it might be what friends did, with the poking fun of, and all, but I didn’t really have friends so I had nothing to compare it to.

What the hell did I know?

Thomas had never joked or poked fun of me, not that I could remember. The only time I had friends before that had been the twins in foster care.

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