“You’re afraid someone roofied my food?”
Biting the side of his lip, he stared at her with a calculating expression, hands clasped in front of his chin. “When my sister, Ava, was eighteen, she went to a party. It was in a field with a couple of kegs and all local kids. Safe, right? Only I got a call in the middle of the night from her friend saying she couldn’t find Ava anywhere. I’ve never been more panicked in all my life.”
“Where were your parents?”
Colt huffed an angry laugh. “I was the parent. Our mom passed right after Ava was born. I don’t even remember her, and since Dad burned all her pictures when he was drunk one night, I got nothin’ left of her. I don’t even dream about her face no more. She’s just…a ghost. My dad was a different kind of ghost. He liked booze and gambling and his kids, in that order. He didn’t work, and he let the bills pile up. I got tired of getting kicked out of rental places, so I got a job at fifteen and started supporting us. Had to hide my damn money so he wouldn’t gamble his way through our electric bill every month. Ava don’t know that part. She never asked. After he left, she missed him, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her what a fuck-up he was, or that we were better off without him. When he left, Ava was sixteen, I had just graduated high school, and I had a kid sister to finish raising. So when I got that call in the middle of the night, I just had this awful feeling something bad happened to her. Something bad she would never recover from.”
“Oh my gosh,” Karis whispered. “Was she okay?”
Colt nodded. “She was fine. She was sleeping way back in this field away from everyone. She was untouched because she knew what happened right away. She knew someone had messed with her drink, so she ran. Got as far away as she could before she passed out. Whoever put that drug in her drink didn’t watch his prey well enough, and thank God for that, because she escaped with a bad hangover, but nothing more. The next day, she told me how awful it was. Told me how she couldn’t control her body and how she laid there looking up at the moon, unable to move. Those drugs are no joke, and I trust the people of this town zero percent when it comes to my Clan. I’ll trust them even less now that you’re here. They could use you to hurt me, so no, I don’t want you drinking or eating anything you ain’t watched over like a hawk. Not unless it’s at the ranch.”
Her appetite lost, Karis pushed the tray of food away and rested her elbows on the table. It had suddenly gotten very warm in here. “You raised your sister for a couple years. That’s very noble of you.”
“Ha. I raised my sister from when she was a baby. She doesn’t remember that part. My dad sucked as a parent. Ava was my baby girl as much as his. I protected her, fed her, and got her clothes, and the second I was able, I started earning money to take care of us, and fuck my father. He’s still alive, probably, I don’t know. He ain’t called in ten years. Ava’s just now figuring out she was always better without him. If she asks questions about him now, I tell her the truth. She’s tougher than she used to be.” A slow smile spread across his face, and his eyes softened. “She’s made of gristle like me, maybe.”
“You’re proud of her.”
“Hell, yeah, I am. I hated that she left this town and left me behind, but she went and made something of herself. Ava is a force to be reckoned with. I suspect you’re much the same.”
“How can you tell that about me in such a short amount of time?”
“Instinct. That, and you damn-near Changed in the plane to defend my name against that old coot, Cooper. I was a stranger, but you were pissed enough to let your animal scratch at your skin.”
Karis couldn’t help her grin. “You keep me from getting roofied, and I’ll watch your back too.”
Colt chuckled and dipped his gaze to his food. “Deal.”
He looked back up at her once, then at the table, then back to her again.
“What?” she asked, canting her head.
“Can I pay you a compliment without you thinking I’m just trying to get in your pants?”
“I like compliments,” she said softly. Danger. Dangerous territory, but she couldn’t make herself get up and excuse herself to the bathroom no matter how much she tried right now.
“You joked that you were plain-faced. Over and over in our messages, you put yourself down.” Colt shook his head, his scars shining in the fluorescent lighting. “You ain’t plain to me.”
“But I’m—”
“Don’t,” Colton demanded. “Don’t you do it. Whatever you’re about to say won’t make a lick of difference to me. Just because you say something, don’t make it the truth, Karis. Maybe you told yourself mean shit for a while, so you started to believe it. Or maybe someone else made you feel like that, and if they did, well fuck them. Your eyes are bright like your smile, and your hair looks soft and shiny. It doesn’t matter how you see yourself, I’m telling you how I see you, and you’re real pretty.”
Her cheeks were heating like she had her face right next to a fireplace. Nothing intelligent came from her parted lips. Nothing but a soft, “Thank you,” because a man should be thanked when he made a broken girl feel like this—like some of her pieces were put back together.
“It was a boy,” she explained in a quiet voice. “He made me feel like not enough.”
Colt nodded for a long time and then asked, “You want me to kill him?”
She snorted and then giggled, thinking he was making a joke, but Colt wasn’t smiling. “You don’t have to. I avenged myself,” she murmured.
“How?”
“By becoming a breeder.”
Colt cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, which were now fading from gold to green. “I want to show you something.”
“Is it perverted?”
His blond brows arched nearly to his hairline. “Are you asking if I want to show you my dick?”
“Well?”
“Well, hell yeah I want you to see my dick, but not right now, woman. Your mind is in the gutter. I want to show you something I’ve never shown anyone before.”
“That could still mean your dick, Virgin Colt.”
“Oh good grief, I’m leaving your little perverted ass here to find your own ride if you don’t come on,” he muttered, as he stood and walked toward the exit.
Karis snickered to herself. She couldn’t help it. She’d just watched that smooth-talkin’ boy’s face blush. Colton Dorset was fun to pester.
She pushed the door open and jogged to catch up to him in the parking lot. “Where are you taking me?”
“You said this didn’t feel finished.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“You said this felt like the beginning.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Well,” he said, turning on her. He offered her the first easy smile that actually reached his eyes. “I’m taking you to the beginning.”
Chapter Five
Other than the visible pulse at his throat, and the quick shaking of his leg under the steering wheel, Colton wasn’t moving.
He’d pulled in front of an old, dilapidated, tiny house on Moore Street, but he wasn’t getting out of his truck, and he wasn’t talking anymore. In fact, he’d stopped talking the second they pulled onto Moore and the air had filled with something heavy. Colton smelled like fur, and Karis knew down to her bones that if he turned toward her right now, his eyes couldn’t pass for human.
Swallowing hard, she ripped her gaze from the tripping pulse of his neck and stared at the house. It was all wood planks on the outside, and the roof looked like it had three layers of old shingles and had rotted in several places. The gutter on the left side was hanging from the house, and the driveway looked like it hadn’t been shoveled the entire winter. There were no tire tracks either, and on the farmhouse window by the door, there hung what looked like pink eviction notices that were so old they’d curled at the corners.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly.
But Colt didn’t seem to hear her. Her stranger mate had no reaction at all, so she unbuckled
and scooted over the bench seat until she sat right beside him. And then slowly…carefully…she rested her hand on his thigh and repeated, “Are you okay?”
Colt looked down at her hand, blinked hard a couple of times, and then he did something that shocked her. He wrapped his big, strong, calloused hand around hers and squeezed. And then he smiled at her. It was forced, and obviously so. Intent on lightening the mood, she reached up with her free hand, poked her finger in his left dimple, and pushed his lip up in a bigger smile. But Colton twitched his chin to the side and brushed his lips to her palm. And with a quick smack sound, he gave her their very first kiss.
Karis sat frozen as he rubbed his soft lips back and forth against her palm, his gold eyes never leaving hers. His words broke the spell. “You made me feel braver, and I made a mistake.”
Karis dropped her hand and tried to pull the other one from his grasp, but he held on tighter and wouldn’t let go. “What do you mean you made a mistake?”
“I brought you here too soon.” His chest puffed up against his plaid shirt, and then he released his breath in an explosive sigh. “I haven’t come back here since Ava left and I moved out of the place. I haven’t even been on this street. I don’t like this place. But you came, and my head got turned around. I thought, what the hell? You didn’t run, so I might as well show you all the grit right up front. All the bad parts of me.”
“Well…that’s actually refreshing. No honeymoon stage, just get down to the dirt and see if we really want to do this.”
“Yep.” He blew out three quick breaths before he tugged at the top button of his shirt, popped it open and away from his muscular neck. “Except now you get to see me panicking.”
“Why are you panicking?”
“Because in that house, I always felt like a failure. There aren’t many good memories here. My dad was a shit, couldn’t be pleased if I was the King of England, and when he left and I could’ve had relief from his ornery ass, then I had to go to work just to keep this crappy roof over Ava’s head so she could focus on school and graduate.” His voice dipped lower. “So she could make something of herself.”
“I think you are a very good brother, and a very good friend.”
“Why do you say that?” he murmured.
“Instinct. Now…do you want me to go look in the windows by myself? Or do you want to come with me.”
“No, no, no. You don’t have to go in. It’s nothing to look at. Just a shack.”
“You don’t want me to see where you grew up?”
“No…it’s not that. I just…”
“What?”
“I guess I don’t want you to see how I failed.”
Karis jammed her finger at the house. “That? That’s not a failure. That is an honorable life you provided for your kid sister when you could’ve quit. You could’ve gone to the state for help with her, and you didn’t. You became a guardian instead. Did she starve?”
“No.”
“Was she warm at nights?”
“Yes, I nearly killed myself working to keep the bills paid.”
“Did she feel safe?”
“I think she did.” His voice was growing softer with every answer, and so were his eyes, and now his smile wasn’t so forced. It was barely there, but it was genuine.
“Did she finish school? Did she make something of herself?”
“Yes.” The smile stretched wider. “And yes.”
“A plus job, mother fucker. You were basically parent of the year and you didn’t even make a kid.” She pointed to the house again. “That’s not anything to be ashamed of, Colton Dorset. You did damn good. I want to see it. I’ll be right back.”
When he released her hand as she started to scoot toward the passenger’s side door, a feeling took her. Suddenly, her palm prickled like she’d grabbed an evergreen branch, and her skin was cold where he’d warmed her. For an awful split-second, she didn’t like the way her hand felt without his. She hesitated leaving him.
Losing her ever-loving mind, Karis did something completely out of character. She leaned into him and kissed him on the cheek. His hand went automatically to her neck, gripping her hard. She reacted by pressing her lips harder against his skin, and for a few moments, they stayed like that, her lips throbbing for more than just a taste of his cheek.
Breathily, she whispered, “If you come in there with me and face your demons, I’ll let you kiss me. And someday I’m going to explain how big an offer that is for me.”
Colt looked utterly stunned as she slid away from him and pushed open the door. She forced herself not to look back as she slipped and slid up the icy walkway to the splintered front door. Heart hammering in her chest, her lips still warm from where she’d pressed them to his cheek, she tried the door handle with no luck.
Karis wasn’t a quitter though, so she made her way around the overgrown, winter-bare landscaping, kicked at a couple of thorny vines that had latched onto her leggings, and as soon as her snow boots found traction on the snow, she jogged around the corner of the house. There wasn’t even a door on the fence, and when she made her way into the backyard, there was only half the fence left standing. The rest had apparently blown away long ago. There was a concrete pad for the back porch, completely iced over, and when she tried the backdoor handle, the barrier creaked open. Score.
It was freezing inside, partially thanks to the broken back window and the obvious hole in the roof over the living room. Karis liked the cold but this place chilled her to her bones. The wood floors were scuffed all to hell and splintered in places. There was an old green couch in the living room, an ancient TV, complete with rabbit-ear antennae, and the dingy rug looked like it had seen much better days. She couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be gray or brown. Inhaling deeply, she was a little disappointed that it didn’t smell like Colton. But then, why would it? He had left this place years ago. It must have had at least one renter to get that pink eviction note on the window, and besides, Colton hadn’t been a bear shifter when he lived here. He had been human and would’ve smelled completely different and foreign to her. She couldn’t have recognized his old scent even if she tried.
“I got that couch on the side of the road,” Colton rumbled from behind her.
Karis smiled and turned slowly, and damn, he was a sight for sore eyes. He stood in the doorway, cowboy hat pulled low over his glowing eyes, arms crossed over his chest, making his muscles look even bigger. He’d unfastened another button on his flannel shirt, and his legs looked strong as tree trunks pressed against his jeans when he stood with his legs locked like that. His nostrils flared, as if he was scenting the air like she had done.
“The rug ain’t ours, though. That was an add-on from whoever lived in this place after me. That TV though…Trigger saved up and got that from a pawn shop for my birthday when my dad knocked over the other one. We got, like, four channels, and one of them happened to be the sports channel. Anytime we weren’t working, we were watching football games on that couch right there. There’s a good memory.”
“Did the good memory surprise you?”
Colton chuckled. “A little. You make things…easier. Don’t you? That’s your power? You have an easy way about you, and it settles the ugly parts of men.”
“No one’s ever said that.”
“Well, maybe your magic only works for me.”
“You’re terrifying when you say nice things like that.”
“I can tell. I can see the panic in your eyes when I say something positive. You want to shut down on me so bad, don’t you? You want to run.”
“There’s still time,” she said cheekily. “I haven’t signed any contract to be your mate.”
“Yet.”
Karis shook her head at the cocky man. “Are you going to give me the tour of this castle, or what?”
Colton pointed to a door off the living room. “Bedroom, and here is the den.” He gestured to the tiny room that was open to them with stained brown countertops. “Kitchen. And thr
ough here,” he murmured, leading her through the kitchen, “is where Ava slept.” He pushed open a door. Creeeak. “Holy shit,” he rumbled, blocking her view entirely with his gargantuan body.
Karis snuck under his arm, but stopped when she saw what he was looking at. It was a small room, just big enough for a white dresser and a twin bed, which was covered in white linens. The curtains on the single window were white and frilly.
Colton scanned the small space. “This is just how I left it. I added this on to the house when Dad left. Before that, I’d slept on the couch, and he had the bedroom on the other side of the house, and Ava had a cot behind a curtain on a string. It was a not-good-enough makeshift room near the kitchen, and she was so sad when my father left I wanted to do something nice to get her mind off it. She wouldn’t sleep in his room. She was pissed at him. Hated him. Hated me. Hated everyone, had this huge chip on her shoulder, and I wanted to turn it around and make her light and fun again. Take her worries away for a little while. So I built her own room and worked double shifts for weeks to pay for pretty, girly bedding and curtains. Trig made the furniture, I painted it, and I surprised her with it when she came home from school one day. And I’ll never forget her smile when she walked in here. It was the first time in my life I didn’t feel like a fuck-up. We fought like cats and dogs after Dad left and I started telling her what to do…but that day, she hugged me and told me I was a good big brother.”
Karis couldn’t help herself. She leaned against his ribs and slid her arms around his waist. This man was so warm, so solid, and for reasons beyond her comprehension, he was easy to be around, as if they’d known each other years instead of hours. She wasn’t uncomfortable and didn’t feel awkward around him at all. That was special, right? Meeting someone and having an instant connection with them. Or maybe that was just the breeder contract that sat in the back of her mind. Neither one of them had anything to lose, so why not just be comfortable and transparent from the break?
“My brothers were extremely overprotective. I rarely even admitted when I liked a boy in school, or they would threaten him and chase him off. I used to haaate them for it. Oh, I would get so mad! But now I look back, and it was kind of sweet of them to care like that. Sometimes I would think they were terrible big brothers, but that’s just what siblings do. I would think they were terrible, but secretly, I loved them more than anything. I still do. They’re total monsters, but they’re my monsters. I bet Ava loved you very much, but she only showed it sometimes.”