Page 398 of Love Bites

I stared like a zombie at the spot the wolf had been.

“Lexi?” He dipped down and tried getting my attention. Then he lifted my chin and grinned. “It’s pretty exciting stuff, admit it.”

Then my head began to shake. “No, no, no. Ican’tbe one of you. I can’t do this, Austin. If it’s true and I shift in front of Maizy…” I began to panic. “How could I have not known?”

“Calm down,” he said, taking hold of my arm and leading me to the sofa. “I know it’s a lot to take in. Here, sit down.” Austin knelt before me and placed his hand on my knee.

I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or throw up. My hands were shaking uncontrollably and I was suddenly thirsty. Austin smoothed his hands over mine and patiently waited until I simmered down. Or until my heart rate stopped breaking the sound barrier.

“If you don’t develop a relationship with your animal, then you can’t be trusted with your own family. I can supervise your visits, or…”

“Or what?”

He stood up and walked to the other side of the room, where he leaned against the doorframe.

Damn, that lean.

“Or we can tell them. We can sit down and show them what you are. It’s something you should be proud of, and while we keep our world secret from humans, this would be one of the exceptions. She’s your mom, and eventually she’ll notice you’re not aging. But it’s important they don’t tell anyone, and I don’t know about your daughter.”

I blinked.

“My daughter?”

“She’s young, and you know how kids are. Not that anyone would believe her, but they won’t tolerate any disloyal—”

“Wait a second, Austin. Mydaughter?”

He furrowed his brow and his blue eyes flashed. “Yeah. And if that piece of shit I dragged down the stairs was her father, then I don’t want him hanging around or there’s going to be trouble.”

“Maizy isn’t my daughter, Austin. She’s my sister.”

Something shifted out of place in his expression, a new look I’d never seen before.

He closed the distance between us and instead of kneeling down to eye level, he leaned forward and put his hands on either side of the sofa cushion behind my head.

“Your sister?Wes’ssister?” he asked in disbelief.

I nodded.

I’d never really been scared of Austin until that moment. His eyes bored into me and I looked away. For a minute there, I thought he was going to yell, or maybe I fantasized a little bit that he was going to lean down and kiss me fervently.

But he came to some kind of conclusion after a hard stare and straightened up with his arms folded.

“I don’t want your ex coming around again. If I find out he has, I’m going to track him down and personally deliver the message.”

A knuckle cracked.

“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I have no intention of seeing Beckett anymore. We’re over.”

I stared at Jericho’s belt on the floor, then at Austin’s. I remembered the slow precision with which Jericho unlatched the leather and slid it out, imagining Austin doing a move like that. Maybe it was for the best he didn’t shift after all.

I really wanted to kick myself.

“Does he have anything of yours? You mentioned the car title. I don’t want anything holding you to him.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But I read up on it and I can get a new one.”

“One of my brothers may be looking for a car,” he suggested.

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