ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (16 page)

“I love you,” he finally said, and I smiled.

“I love you too.”

As long as we had that, we would be fine.

Chapter 2

It took me a long time to get used to Argos’s wolf. The whole thing – being married to a man who shares skin with a monster – is bizarre.

When I met him and he told me he was a werewolf I thought he meant it more as a metaphor. We’d been dating four months when he’d been ill, and instead of being able to slip away and change over full moon, I’d been with him in the room. One thing I can say right now – it’s damn scary seeing a man shift into a werewolf. It’s messy and the body gets so deformed in the process of moving from one thing to another, that you’re looking at a nightmare.

I didn’t see the shift the first time. I might never have come back if I had. I’d been asleep in the chair next to the bed. When I’d woken up there’d been a wolf in the bed and I’d had a heart attack, running from the room screaming. There was nothing cute and cuddly about it. A wolf was a wild animal, a predator.

After that I’d tried to live with it. I didn’t like his wolf, I didn’t want to see it, and when I realized he’d meant it literally, I didn’t want to meet the pack either. He hadn’t been alpha then.

The more time you spend with someone or something, the more you start loving it. It was the same with Argos. I fell in love with the man enough to accept his wolf, and every time something small happened that got me used to the animal more and more. Until I was fine seeing him in wolf form, fine seeing him shift. The pack… well it took longer before that worked out.

Argos had a drinking problem when we met. Why had I still fallen for him? I guess it’s like that, we all want what we can’t have, end up with the bad boys when the good ones would have been more wholesome. But I didn’t want wholesome. I wanted Argos.

A human alcoholic is already a difficult. Throw a wolf in the mix, and you’ve got problems. Argos’s wolf was rampant when he was drunk. He lost it completely, couldn’t stop his change even outside of full moon, and there were times that he was worse than a lone wolf, running rogue, driven by bloodlust.

I’d been the one his pack had called one night when he’d lost it completely and broken free of his pack, I’d been the one they’d asked to go after him, because he wasn’t listening to them.
Wolfgrimm,
they’d christened his hellish alter ego. I didn’t understand much about pack dynamic then, but looking back now it was a big deal they asked me. And I had been crazy to accept. I could have been killed, but ignorant people are the bravest. If you believe you can do it, the impossible becomes possible.

I tracked him down that night, and managed to get him back. He didn’t kill, the way he would have. And the pack took me in. He woke up with a hell of a hangover and a temper that was about as murderous as his drunken wolf’s, but I’d told him to grow up and I’d thrown water in his face. Maybe if I understood a wolf’s anger then I wouldn’t have done it. I know I won’t try it now.

After he gave it up, after the ultimatum where it was me or the drink, it was magic all the way. I loved him, and he loved me, and somehow we made it work. I think it was because we worked together, because he was trying for me, and that made me try for him, too. I wasn’t going to give up on him as long as he was determined not to give up on himself. Everyone has flaws – his is alcohol, mine is that I’ve given up a normal life to be with a werewolf. No one is ever perfect.

I was busy with a student when I got a call. I pushed the ‘decline’ button and put my phone on silent. I wasn’t going to interrupt a lesson with a student who had finally overcome her fear of reading. She was in high school and for some reason she’d never learned to read properly. There was nothing wrong with her, she just had about ten years of catching up to do on her reading skills.

My phone rang again, vibrating on the table. When I picked it up to look at the screen Argos’s number flashed again.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “It might be an emergency. He’s not usually this persistent.”

I stood up and answered the phone.

“I’m in a lesson, honey. What is it?”

“I’m going out tonight with some of the guys… a pack meeting.”

I pulled a face, rubbing my temple with my left hand. I was getting a headache.

“Okay… is something wrong?”

“I’m letting you know I’m going to be late,” he said again.

“So nothing’s wrong? You couldn’t have texted me?”

“Why are you making a thing of this? I thought you wanted me to let you know where I was. I’m doing it.” He was aggressive. It had been a very long time since he’d been aggressive. My first reaction was fear, but I refused to give it space. If it got a hold of me I would panic the way I had when I’d first found out about his problems.

I took a deep breath. There were a lot of things I could say to that.
Why are you being a pain in the ass? You haven’t actually told me where you were going to be. Why are you interrupting my lesson for something you never need permission for? What the hell is going on?

Instead I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded. He was acting strange. He was falling back on old habits. He was showing a face I had hoped I would never see again. It scared me but I let it go. How could he do anything right if I expected him to disappoint me? It was a hard lesson I learned after he’d sobered up. I hadn’t been able to trust him in the beginning, even when there was no reason to be suspicious anymore I still struggled.

“Thanks honey, I have to go.” Argos couldn’t feel what I was thinking or smell what I was feeling over the phone. Just was well because I couldn’t afford a fight over the phone at a student’s house, and I was plenty angry for him to pick on. I hung up before he could say anything else and switched off my phone.

It was three in the morning when Argos finally came home. I hadn’t been able to get to sleep. He smelled of cigarettes and the faint tang of alcohol clung to his clothes when he bent over the bed to kiss me like it was any other night. When I pecked him with a stiff neck he frowned slightly and walked to the closet, kicking off his shoes.

“Where were you?” I asked. I took a deep breath, and wished I had a werewolf’s nose for a change. Lies, emotions, I would have been able to smell them.

“Pack meeting,” he said.

“Until now?”

He sighed deeply, like it was a pain to answer my questions. “We often stay out late, honey. We’re werewolves.”

“You only have one big pack meeting a month that runs this late, and you’ve already had that one,” I pointed out, and I hated what I sounded like. “You smell like smoke,” I added, just in case the hole I was digging myself wasn’t deep enough. I was clever enough, at least, not to mention alcohol. It was a touchy subject.

Argos turned to me and his eyes were amber. His wolf was just behind them, looking out at me, and it wasn’t happy to see me.

“Am I not allowed to spend time with the guys?” he asked. His voice was deeper than usual.

“Which guys?” I asked.

“Dammit, Rachel!” he yelled and threw down his belt. It hit the floor with a crack, the buckle hitting the concrete underneath the carpet. He’d put all his strength behind it, aggression at his best. He wasn’t his usual self, the wolf I’d come to know over the past couple of years.

“I’m just asking,” I said. My voice was steady, no trace of the fear that was building inside of me. But I felt it, the panic wrapping long cold fingers around my neck, and even if I sounded confident, I knew Argos could feel me.

“You’re
accusing
,” he spat and turned to go into the bathroom. When he crawled into bed with fresh pajamas he smelled cleaner, the smell of the washing powder I used filled the room. But the smell of cigarette smoke still clung to his hair like he’d been in a bar and not the forest. Like he was with other guys than his pack. The guys he usually tried to stay away from. I wanted to ask what was going on. I wanted him to reassure me. Not knowing was eating me up. But he was furious. I could see it in the way his shoulder muscles bunched under his shirt when he turned his back to me. I could feel it in the power that streamed out of him, so intense that as a human it even knocked my breath away.

I wasn’t going to ask. As his wife it was my job to trust him. I pushed away the thought that as my husband it was his job to not give me any reason to doubt.

When the sun rose Argos was out of bed again, and getting ready to go to work. He had a standard office job, an insurance broker at a low-key company that didn’t draw attention to itself. Werewolves tried to blend into society that way, although I doubted anyone could miss Argos, with his muscles and his swagger that screamed authority.

“You’re up early,” I said, rubbing my eyes.

“I have a meeting,” he said, looking himself in the mirror, knotting his tie. His face was carefully expressionless, like he was really trying, and his voice was calm and void of emotion. “I’ll probably have to work late as well.”

I breathed in to say something, but blew it out again instead. Somehow I doubted he was just going to be at the office working late, but to ask him would be to show him that I just didn’t trust him. And I trusted him. Right?

He looked at me and I was relieved to see that his eyes were black again, the wolf absent. I knew it was just under his skin, and at the smallest provocation it would come out. But at least it wasn’t sneering at me. I hated it when his animal spoke through him even though he was in human form. It felt almost like a betrayal. He walked out of the room, and I heard the front door slam.

He hadn’t even said goodbye.

My mother phoned just before lunch.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, without even saying hello.

“Of course everything is okay,” I answered without even thinking about it. “Why do you ask?”

“I spoke to Argos just now and he sounds awfully snappy.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“He’s under a lot of pressure, mom. He has meetings and things – a lot of work. I don’t even bother him at work unless it’s an emergency.” That wasn’t entirely true, but I was going to stick up for him. I would always stick up for Argos when it came to my mother, no matter what happened. And as much as I loved him, it wasn’t just a matter of loyalty. I didn’t want my mom so say ‘I told you so’. I didn’t want her to tell me that I’d screwed up, I’d made the wrong choice, I’d married the wrong man. Wolf. Whatever. I didn’t want to believe that I’d made a mistake.

And it was suddenly harder to do that.

“Why did you phone him at work?” I asked. That was more suspicious than any behavior Argos came up with.

“Is it wrong of me to try with my son-in-law?” she asked and changed the topic before I could say anything about it. I rolled my eyes and pretended to listen until it was time to leave for my next student. I ended off the conversation, relieved that I had a real excuse and I didn’t have to make one up. As much as my mother annoyed me, it still made me feel guilty when I lied to her about why I couldn’t talk.

When I came home the front door was ajar. I fished in my purse and found my pepper spray. It wasn’t going to help me much if whoever was in the house was a preternatural creature – vampires and witches didn’t really react to pepper spray. But I could take on a human.

It crossed my mind for a moment that I would be so lucky if it was just a normal break in – if the problems in my life was human for a change – but I swallowed down my wish for a different kind of life before I could dwell on it, and pushed the door open.

A vase lay broken on the floor, the flowers Argos had gotten me last week lying on the floor between the shards. The water had splashed out in an egg-shaped wet patch.

The dining table was a little skew, like it had been bumped. I heard a crash in the bedroom.

I lifted the pepper spray and swallowed down my heart that was beating in my throat.

Argos stood in our bedroom, tie slack around his neck, top button undone. One half of his shirt hung out. His chest rose and fell in an off rhythm, like he struggled to breathe. When he looked at me, finally noticing me, he swallowed.

He should have heard me when I’d come in. He should have heard my car when I was a block away. Instead it looked like I’d caught him off guard.

“Are you okay?” I asked. He looked terrible. His eyes changed, became wild and crazed, so bright the amber was almost yellow. He was hanging on to his humanity with the tips of his fingers. His wolf was so close to the surface I was surprised he answered me at all.

“I just needed something,” he said, holding out a diary he hadn’t used all year. I frowned.

“What’s wrong?” I asked carefully. “The house is a mess.” I made sure not to keep looking into his eyes. If he was this close to changing, and he wasn’t in control, it wouldn’t do to challenge him.

“Nothing,” he said, closing his eyes again. “I tripped.” I could see him fight for control, pain and conflict on his face. When he opened his eyes again they were still amber but darker than before. He was winning. “I have to go,” he said and walked past me. The smell of brandy hung around him. I breathed in sharply, and Argos turned at the door. He stared me down, challenging me to call him out. But his wolf was dangerous, and I wasn’t ready for this fight. Not yet.