Page 4 of In Your Eyes
What he was sorry about was that he had dropped his “perfect guy” act. Still, I couldn’t let him think he had impacted me. I needed to be strong, not sensitive.
“Please,” I scoffed. “I’d have to care about what you think for that to matter.”
He winced and then closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them and meeting my gaze. “Well, I guess that’s good.” He grinned. “What should we do?”
After turning the question over every which way, I still didn’t understand what he was asking. He did it on purpose, I was certain—phrased things in weird ways to make me feel stupid. Well, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing I cared or even noticed.
“Do?” I said, hoping I sounded nonchalant rather than frustrated.
“Yeah, during the meeting. Do you want to shift and hunt again?” He stepped closer to me, forcing me to raise my chin so I could keep looking him in the eyes. “That was really fun last time,” he said quietly. “I’ve thought about that day a lot.”
My stomach heated again, only this time it felt like a burn. I told myself it was from the seat belt tightening around me during the accident, but I knew that didn’t make sense. I had felt fine until Korban started talking to me. Because he hadn’t given me anything to eat or drink, I knew he hadn’t poisoned me, but it was possible I was allergic to something in his scent.
My body wanted to test that theory, it seemed, because without conscious thought I inhaled deeply. The warmth in my stomach spread lower, and my muscles spasmed. I snapped my gaze up, confused and a little scared.
“Samuel?” Korban said worriedly as he stepped closer to me. “Are you okay?” He put his hand on my cheek and that, combined with his scent, undid me.
It was the best and worst feeling of my life: relief, elation, and satisfaction, followed almost immediately by terror, disgust, and guilt. Reflexively, I squeezed my eyes shut, and all of a sudden, I felt a strange sensation in my pants. My first thought was that I wet myself. It was the only thing that made sense, the only thing my penis had been used for up to that point.
“I’m, uh—” I blinked rapidly and looked everywhere but at Korban. “—fine but I need to use the bathroom.” I gulped and slowly moved my hands in front of my groin, hoping the change in stance wasn’t noticeable. “Do you know where it is?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll show you.” He wrapped his arm loosely around my shoulders and led me down the hallway.
Had I been thinking clearly, I would have shoved him away or told him off, but my heart was racing, my briefs were wet, and my groin still felt funny. In a haze, I went along quietly, letting him take me to a bathroom at the far end of the house. He turned the handle, held the door open, and gently nudged me inside.
“Samuel,” he said quietly.
I looked back at him over my shoulder.
“It’s going to be fine.”
I had no idea what he meant, but then I never seemed to know what he meant.
“Maybe not right now, but eventually, it’ll be fine.” My confusion obviously showed on my face, because he smiled once again, this one gentle and understanding. “I promise. I’ll take care of things. No matter what, you’ll be fine.” He started closing the door slowly. “I’ll wait outside and give you some privacy.”
Later, I realized the wetness wasn’t urine and the feeling wasn’t due to an allergy. Though I doubted Korban knew what had happened, my feelings of discomfort around him were exacerbated by that incident. I felt like he’d seen me during a personal and vulnerable time, like he’d intentionally tried to confuse and disarm me and I lacked the control to stop him, and like something was very wrong about him or the way I reacted to him or both. Whatever the case, I made an effort to stay away and I hated him for forcing me to tuck my tail between my legs and hide.
The hate—I found over the years—was much easier to handle, much more comfortable and safe than the storm of confusion it replaced.
Chapter 2
YEARSCAMEand went but very little changed in my life. My focus remained on developing the skills I’d need to lead the Yafenack pack. My father worked on it with me, which was very helpful, even if he kept nagging at me to socialize. I knew he felt guilty that Eddie and Jen, my younger brother and sister, had more free time and fewer responsibilities and I spent my days and evenings on work instead of play, but I told him I was happy with things as they were. Unfortunately, that assurance never satisfied him.
Which was why shortly after I finished high school, he sent me into the proverbial lion’s den. In reality, it was a wolf’s party. Though for all the anxiety and aggravation it caused me, a room full of lions would have been preferable.
“Taking one evening off isn’t going to make any difference, Samuel,” my mother said as she handed me a napkin. “Wipe your mouth.”
“I’m a man now,” I pointed out, not that she’d forgotten about my eighteenth birthday the month prior. After all, she’d birthed me. “It’s important I work even harder.” I took a big bite of the steak sandwich she’d made for me.
“You work hard all the time.”
“That’s because I’m going to be Alpha of our pack,” I pointed out while I chewed.
“Yes. In about ten years or so,” she said, her tone a mix of sarcasm and amusement.
It was true. Usually people didn’t take over as Alpha until they were in their late twenties or early thirties. So with me being eighteen, my father was years away from stepping down and handing the pack over to me. That was good because I wasn’t ready, which was all the more reason I couldn’t waste valuable training time.
My mother, of course, would have no idea what that felt like—knowing you were intended to lead, having prepared for it your entire life, but feeling in your core that something was missing. That sense of being lacking had gotten progressively stronger over the years, when it should have been the other way around. No presumptive Alpha worked harder than me; my father even said so. And yet I knew, and he knew, and sometimes I thought the pack knew, that I wasn’t ready to lead them.
