She turned to Duke, her eyes tracing the blood trickling from his cut lip before meeting Duke’s gaze. She didn’t say anything right away.
Nic thought Duke might actually be holding his breath, waiting for her to speak.
“You,” she stuck one slim finger at Duke’s chest, “are an ass if you think you’ve ever been a stand-in for anyone. Why don’t you go for a run? Maybe when you get back, you’ll be more sociable.”
Nic had to bite his tongue not to say anything as Duke looked visibly shocked. The guy didn’t know what to say. Tira had basically cut him off at the knees and that wasn’t something Duke understood. No one ever spoke to him like that.
Good. The guy deserved it. He didn’t care how much Duke was hurt or confused. He didn’t get to take it out on Tira. Nic wouldn’t allow it.
Tira took a deep breath then released it on a sigh as Duke finally turned and stalked away, tearing clothes off as he headed for the back door.
Tira watched him the entire way. Either she couldn’t take her eyes off him or she didn’t want Nic to know she was crying. He knew she was. He could smell the salt of her tears.
When Duke slammed through the back door, Tira turned to Nic. Her eyes were red but they were no longer wet.
“Ti, sweetheart. You know he can be a prick.”
“But he’s right.” Her chin lifted and her mouth firmed. “I fucked him this morning.”
He held her gaze steady. “No, you didn’t. You had sex with him this morning. There’s a difference, babe. You know that. And so does he.”
She swallowed hard. “I’m not sure he does.”
He wanted to grab her hand, wrap his arms around her, comfort her in some physical way. But he wouldn’t risk making her cry with an accidental brush of their skin. So he could only sit here and stare at her. “Yeah, he does. Look, I’m not saying you need to cut him some slack because the bastard doesn’t deserve any for that. You’d be justified in any smack-down you might want to throw his way. But… Hell, I don’t know, maybe we all need to cut each other some slack.”
She nodded but he didn’t think she took anything he’d just said to heart. Except for the part about the smack-down. Her eyes had lit up when he’d mentioned it.
Nothing he hadn’t wanted to do himself lately.
“You really should be in bed, Nic. You’re not completely healed. I want you to eat and then go lie down again.”
Because he pretty much felt like crap since he’d popped Duke on the chin, he nodded. “Yes, dear,” he drawled and sure enough, she smiled.
Damn, he was so pitiful it took something so little as a smile from her to make his day.
And Duke was out there working off his anger when he’d gotten to hold her in his arms and get deep into her body.
The guy really was an asshole.
Sometimes, Nic didn’t know why he loved the bastard so damn much.
Freezing air hit Duke’s naked body like a slap when he stepped onto the back porch.
His skin broke into gooseflesh and his balls tried to crawl back into his body.
Once he shifted, he’d be warm enough but for right now, he let the cold air dampen the heat of his anger and arousal.
He wanted to strangle Nic for putting them all in this position. Rage at Tira for agreeing to it.
And he wished like hell that he could just loosen his tight-assed control issues for a few hours so he could get with Nic’s program.
He wanted to. Gods be damned, he wanted to so badly, he thought he might howl with the need.
Instead, he was out here freezing his ass.
Fuck that.
Closing his eyes, he let his magic rise up until it bubbled like lava under his skin. He’d long ago lost any desire to understand the process of how he shifted from human to wolf. That was for people who over-thought everything.
Duke believed in simply letting the magic happen and being grateful for the fact that it did.
His first shift had come when he was days away from his thirteenth birthday, early for a male. Most didn’t change until they were months into their fourteenth year. He’d shocked the shit out of his parents when he’d begun the first transformation in the middle of the night. Hell, he’d been just as shocked. And scared, though he’d never told anyone.
He shouldn’t have been. Shifting came more naturally to him than anything else in life.
Even more so than talking. He’d been an antisocial kid, had never liked to talk much. He hadn’t had to. He’d had Nic, who never shut up. Duke just nodded every now and then. And people got used to it.
He hadn’t needed to develop advanced social skills. He’d known from the time he was a kid that he’d be a soldier like his dad. A guardian of his people. You didn’t have to talk much to do that.
Nic had had other plans. After the mandatory three years of lucani legion service from ages twenty-one to twenty-four, Nic had planned to go to college, get a job. Maybe with the lucani, maybe with the eteri. He didn’t care. He hadn’t wanted to be a soldier all his life.
Duke didn’t know why Nic was still here, why he hadn’t bolted the second he’d completed his term. He hoped like hell Nic hadn’t stayed because he thought Duke couldn’t take care of himself. But that would be just like Nic.
Shaking off that thought, he reached again for his arus, the magic inherent in his body, which had burned just a little less brightly as his mind wandered.
He forced himself to push all thoughts but one out of his head.
The wolf.
He called on the arus, on the part of him that knew the shape he wanted to take. He let the burn seep through his body, let it take him to his knees as his body contorted and magic remade his cells into a sleek, gray Appennine wolf.
Most lucani took the form of the Appennine wolf, the animal native to the Etruscan homeland in Italy. Only a few, like Kyle and Cat, had a rare black pelt.
With the transformation complete, Duke stood on his four paws and gave his entire body a shake.
He still felt the cold air but now it tickled along his fur rather than against his bare skin. Drawing in a deep breath, he leaped off the back porch and made a run for the woods that separated this property from Kyle’s. Protected by wards, and occasionally by the Lord of the Silver Light himself, the Etruscan Moon God Tivr, it provided a small but welcome sanctuary for a wolf in need of a run.
Later, he’d head back to the site outside Lebanon.
Chapter Five
Nic had fallen asleep in front of the crackling fireplace by the time Duke returned.
He lay on the plush couch to the left of the fire, his body stretched full-length on the cushions. She’d been watching him for at least an hour. He hadn’t moved an inch. He’d been exhausted.
She should have been in the kitchen, getting something together for dinner but she couldn’t seem to pull herself away. She’d never had the opportunity to study him in such an unguarded state. In sleep, Nic’s expression actually made him look more vulnerable, more sad.
Awake, Nic usually had a smile and he could cover so much with a smile.
She almost missed the sound of Duke’s claws clicking against the back porch, but she must have sensed his return because her heart began to beat harder, faster. When she finally heard the sound of his now-human footsteps as he entered the house, she tensed.
She knew Nic needed the rest but she’d actually hoped he’d be awake when Duke returned.
Not that she was afraid of Duke. Duke would never physically hurt her. She trusted him with her life.