“Are you mad at me again already?” Caleb frowned down at her while they sat on the bus, and Nat shook her head fiercely, her eyes soft on his.
“No, Caleb. I’m so not mad at you.”
His frown remained, and he crossed his arms.
“Then why don’t you smell like before?”
A light whimper sounded in her throat. What could she say?
“Caleb…did you hear about…what happened? To that—that guy?”
His eyes grew guarded, and he uncrossed his arms and threaded his fingers together, staring down at his hands between his legs.
“What guy?” He rubbed the edge of his perfectly trimmed nails, and she watched him for only a moment before sagging back against the seat and turning to look out the window once more.
He was silent for a while before speaking in a quiet voice.
“Are you mad now?”
“No,” she whispered, not looking at him. Mad at him for slaying her dragon? For caring so much? Never.
But she was scared. So very scared that he would get himself in trouble—get hurt—trying to protect her. And there was another fear. A fear she’d been trying so desperately not to think about. Not to believe.
Caleb had been on his own for a long time with no one to tell him no, and she adored how spoiled that had made him in so many ways. How completely cocky he could be. But this…
“Caleb,” she continued whispering, trusting he could hear her even though she could barely hear herself. “When you attacked Preston, what were you going to do?”
The bus cranked to a stop, and kids around them got to their feet, walking down the aisle laughing and talking loudly. The smell of old vinyl and oil assaulted her nose as a chill wind swirled into the confined space until the door closed once again and the bus jerked forward.
And still Caleb hadn’t answered.
Nat turned to face him at last. He sat staring at his thumbs, chewing on the inside of his lip a bit, but his eyes lifted to hers when she turned.
“He was mean to you.” His tone was blunt. Unapologetic.
Nat grabbed her head, her eyes wide and her lips parting.
“You can’t—you can’t just go around—Caleb, you can’t do that!” she rasped.
He cocked a brow at her.
“Yes, I can.”
Her hands gripped her hair painfully, a high pitched wail of a breath coming from her lungs, and he grinned.
“You look really cute right now.”
Her brows were ready to disappear into her hair as she wheezed, and she turned back toward the window, desperately trying to breathe normally. He was a beautiful, adorable, wonderful, completely perfect psycho. What was she supposed to do?
“Caleb, would you listen!”
He was lying on top of her, tugging down her neckline, and he whimpered until he freed her breasts.
“I’m listening,” he whispered, his lips dropping to suck her gently into his mouth. She shoved at his shoulders, trying to think.
“Caleb…” she whined in defeat when he ignored her. “You can’t go around killing people just because they’re mean to me. You can’t go around killing people at all.”
“Why not?” he murmured against her skin, his brow furrowed in pain.
“Because it’s wrong!”
His head lifted for a moment, and he frowned at her.
“What they did was wrong.”
“Well, yes, but it doesn’t deserve death.”
A harsh, feral look entered his eyes.
“Yes it does.”
But he dropped his mouth back to her breast once more, this time circling a pink tip with the tip of his tongue. A shiver went through her, and she slid her fingers between his mouth and her skin, covering her nipples. He looked up sadly at her for a moment before his eyes grew bright.
“No. There are laws and rules and when people do bad things, then—what are you doing?” Alarm sounded in her voice when her skirt slid up.
“I want to see everything.” Interest lit his eyes as he leaned to the side to let his hand slide up her leg. She clamped her thighs together tightly, sitting up and shoving the skirt down between her legs, ignoring his mournful look.
“Caleb, you’re spoiled! You are a big spoiled puppy!” She smacked his hand when he cupped her breast again and groaned when he leaned in to kiss her neck. He was impossible.
Although…
Her hand pulled at his hair until he lifted his face to hers, and she leaned forward to tease his lips with the tip of her tongue, sliding it deep inside his mouth and catching his hoarse cry just before he shifted.
Nat sputtered with laughter. Caleb stood whining on the bed, his jeans still covering his lower body awkwardly while his t-shirt stretched around his large furry chest. His whine grew more insistent, and he nipped at the fabric.
“Okay okay, wait! I’ll get it,” she chuckled, reaching down to unsnap his pants, trying not to pull his fur in the process. When he continued whining, trying to figure out how to get the clothes off, she sat back and crossed her arms.
“No, we need to have a talk. A real talk. So no more kissing—you have to take this seriously!”
He stood staring at her, his whine light but steady, but she refused to be swayed. Instead, she adjusted her clothing and pulled her bare feet up under her skirt, wrapping her arms around her knees while she waited. Eventually he shifted back, exhaling in a short grunt as he adjusted his own clothes before leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms.
“Fine.”
He looked so adorably put out, she almost crawled over to him. Then she reminded herself that he was basically a serial killer—or a would-be serial killer…
“How many people have you killed?”
“Lately?”
He grinned when she sputtered.
“Just kidding. Just the one. For now.”
Nat wanted to flop back on the bed in relief. But she tensed again almost immediately.
“Would you lie to me?”
Caleb hesitated, and her stomach sank. He exhaled in a short burst.
“I don’t want to lie to you.”
“Oh…well that is super reassuring, Caleb.”
He started to grin again but bit the inside of his cheek when she glared at him.
“I’m not lying. I swear. My parents told me not to kill any humans, so I didn’t. Besides, I didn’t go around any until you, other than an occasional hiker I’d scare off. I’m not stupid. I know people would come looking around if bodies went missing in my woods.”
Nat bit her lip.
“Your parents…wouldn’t want you doing this then,” she said softly. He hadn’t talked about them, and she hadn’t wanted to risk making him feel bad by asking him questions.
Caleb shrugged.
“Yeah, but they also said that if I ever had to break a rule, the most important rule was not to let anyone see me shift. So really, they would have wanted me to kill you.”
Nat was surprised at the level of pain those words gave her, and Caleb frowned immediately.
“I wouldn’t have ever done that though.”
Her eyes fell. She knew that. Or she believed it, at least. But…it just felt somehow like his parents disapproved of her, even from beyond the grave.
“Hey,” he breathed, reaching out to put his arms around her and pulling her onto his lap when she tried pushing him away. “What did I do?”
A sigh left her, and she leaned on his shoulder, letting him stroke her back.
“I just would have liked if your parents liked me, that’s all.”
His arms tightened around her fiercely.
“They would have loved you, Nat. Because…well, because I love you!”
The heat from his body suddenly began radiating off him in waves, and Nat was drowning in them, her eyes locked on the skin of his neck. She could feel his heart racing, and her own hammered against her chest unsteadily. Silence surrounded them but for their short breaths, and she swallowed, slowly tilting her head up to see him watching her with nervous eyes. And all the tension left her as a smile spread across her face and into her eyes.
“I love you, too.” She pressed her lips together after she said it, feeling silly, but she’d meant it.
The nervousness faded from Caleb’s eyes, replaced by a warm, soft expression, and he reached a hand up to stroke her cheek in gentle, slow strokes. His eyes fell to her lips, and he lowered his head. Nat’s hand came up quickly to rest against his lips.
“Wait,” she breathed. “Please don’t kill anyone else. Please…”
Her hand drifted to stroke his cheek softly while frustration touched his eyes.
“I have to protect you.”
“You can protect me without killing anyone! And—and there’s this thing called accessory after the fact, or something. I heard one of my mom’s old boyfriends talking about it. Basically, if you kill someone and I don’t turn you in, which I would never, ever do, then we both go to jail. Or even get killed! They have the death penalty here.”
His brow pulled together.
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“And I don’t want you to!” Her eyes pleaded with him. “Please, Caleb. Find another way. Please don’t kill.”
His exhale was long and low, and he stared at her intently. Nat held her breath. Waiting.
Finally he groaned and dropped his forehead to hers, and she released her breath with a sigh of relief.
“Okay. But don’t talk to Preston anymore. Because I’m not promising to let him keep his hands if he touches you again,” he said testily.
Nat grinned up at him.
“Deal.”
His eyes drifted back and forth from her eyes to her mouth before his lashes finally fell and he leaned down to press his lips to hers once more. And everything was exquisitely soft and perfect for just a few minutes before he had to shift again.
“Psst, Nat!”
Nat sat in detention, managing to do a bit of homework for once. Caleb was at practice, and she usually ended up watching him instead of getting anything done. And once they got home, he was a far more active distraction, particularly since they’d used the L word a week ago.
“Nat!”
She groaned inwardly. If she kept ignoring him, he might try talking to her when detention was over and Caleb would be there to meet her. And Preston might be a jerk, but she really didn’t want him maimed. Or worse.
Her eyes lifted from her textbook at last, and she looked over to see him sitting at the desk beside her with his book propped in front of him in a way no student ever did unless they were hiding something. Nat’s eyes darted to the teacher up at the front of the room. He was engrossed in whatever he was looking at on his phone, his feet up on his desk, so Nat turned back to Preston.
“Have you seen it again?” he asked in a low voice.
Nat flared her eyes at him briefly, glancing around pointedly at the handful of other kids scattered throughout the classroom. No one seemed to be paying attention to them, but she didn’t want to risk anything about Caleb being overheard.
“He ran off,” she mouthed back, turning to her homework once again. Her eyes closed when she heard Preston scooting his desk closer to her, and she rubbed her temples.
“It’s a boy? Cool. He’ll be back though, right?” His arm nearly touched hers when he leaned in, and Nat lifted her eyes to the teacher again hopefully. No luck. He hadn’t budged.
“Preston, I don’t think we should talk about this here.”
“No one can hear. And your brother’s always around. I don’t think he likes me.”
No shit.
“How long has the wol—“ he stopped at her insistent look. “The…dog been around?”
Caleb would love that.
“Not long. And he’s gone now, so…”
Preston refused to take the hint.
“Can you charm other animals? How did you get it to like you?”
Nat could see there was no use trying to get out of the conversation. Maybe if she answered his questions, he’d scoot back before Caleb showed up.
“I can’t charm anything. He’s just nice.”
Preston snorted.
“Nice to people who aren’t mean,” she frowned.
“I’m not mean, Natty! Not anymore…not to you.”
The soft, pleading look in his eyes disturbed her more than his former insults ever had.
“Why are you even in here?” he asked.
“Mrs. Smith’s homework policy,” she muttered, trying not to look at his eyes. “I have like a ten day backlog I was supposed to serve from before.”
“Holy shit,” he grinned. “I thought you were a good student.”
Another frown touched her lips.
“And what are you doing in here?” she asked before she thought better of it.
“I was giving myself a tattoo in science class.” He lifted the hem of his shirt to show her an angry reddened patch of skin with black ink carving out a pattern that looked suspiciously like the beginnings of a wolf—on a surprisingly cut set of abs.
Heat rushed to her skin, and she turned back to her homework.
“Preston, you can’t keep talking to me. My brother will kill you.”
He shrugged, dropping his shirt.
“Meh. He can’t be any worse than my old man. I can take pain.”
Nat stilled.
“Your dad hits you?”
“He drinks a lot. And he’s a total asshole. Put ‘em together…” he shrugged again. “But I’m almost as tall as he is now. And I’m working out. Pretty soon, he won’t be hitting me anymore.”
Her chest constricted at the bravado in his voice, but his look of interest returned quickly.
“So where did he go? Does he just run around in the woods?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a breath of exasperation. “He just goes. And he’s gone. So can we stop talking now?”
Hesitation entered his eyes. And hurt. No. She was not going to feel sorry for him! This was Preston. He had harassed her forever! But she chewed the inside of her lip.
“Have you ever told anyone? About your dad?” She should at least ask this.
“I’m not a wuss,” he frowned. “I can handle it.”
“But you shouldn’t have to. Maybe if social services got involved, it would scare him and he’d stop.”
Preston snorted again.
“My old man doesn’t scare easy. And I’m gonna be the one to make him stop.”
“What about your mom? Does she try to stop him?”
He waved his hand.
“She left a long time ago. Haven’t heard from her in years.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, unable to stop her eyes from glistening.
“Whatever. I don’t care,” he said, surprising Nat by moving back to his spot and grabbing his textbook, pretending to read.
She stared at him a moment, unsure what to say, before turning back to face forward, her eyes drifting up absently toward the teacher.
Her airway closed in an instant as she met a pair of furious amber eyes watching her from the doorway.
“You promised.” Caleb seethed as they walked out of the school, the crisp November air swirling around them. He hadn’t said a word to her once detention had ended, instead staring at Preston in a cold fury. Not that Preston had noticed—he hadn’t looked back once in Nat’s direction since he’d pulled away.
“I tried! I swear I did!”
“What do you mean you tried? You said you wouldn’t talk! You talked!”
“I just—I didn’t want to hurt his feelings…”
“So you hurt mine instead?” he demanded, looking over at her with burning eyes.
“I was trying to get him to move away before you came back!”
His look of outrage pulled a groan from her.
“I just mean I didn’t want to be talking to him, and I was trying to hurry up and get him to stop. Caleb…” she whimpered. “Don’t be mad. I don’t want to be talking to him.”
“I can make him stop talking,” he hissed, and she grabbed his arm, turning him to face her.
“You can’t!”
“I can. And if you can break your promise, I can break mine!”
“That is not even close to the same thing,” she hissed back at him, glaring up into his eyes. “I’m trying to be nice to someone who was mean to me, and you’re trying to say you can kill him because you’re mad he’s talking to me!”
“You’re twisting this around! I’m saying that if you can lie, I can lie!”
“I didn’t lie! I was trying to do what I said!”
“Great. So when I try not to kill him and fail, you’ll understand,” he snapped, pulling away from her and taking long strides forward toward the form walking a good distance in front of them.
Nat scurried behind to grab his arm again, trying to hold him back.
“Caleb, this is crazy—and you can’t act like this if you want to live in the human world!”
“I can if I can get away with it. And I can get away with it easy.”
“Dammit!” she exploded, digging her heels in while she tried to slow him. “You are so pig headed! This isn’t about protecting me. You’re just mad that some other boy is being nice to me!”
Caleb stopped so suddenly she plowed into his back.
“So that’s how you see him now? Not the asshole who threw things at you—“
“They were just snowb—“
“But someone nice to you,” he continued, his eyes narrowing as he turned to face her.
“I see him,” she said, a bit out of breath, “as a poor dumb kid who…may not have been as bad as I’d thought he was. And you can stop that look right now! You were in Heather’s room with her for a long time all by yourself doing plenty of talking, so you don’t get to be all upset at me for talking to a boy!”
“I never promised not to talk to Heather though.”
“And I never threatened to kill her!”
“And I wouldn’t try to stop you if you had!”
Nat smacked her hands over her eyes.
“What kind of insane thinking…” She took a deep breath, trying to get her strangled sounds to form words and let her hands fall back to her sides. “Caleb, are you seriously telling me you don’t care about anyone else’s life? At all?”
He crossed his arms and looked away, but his eyes held a measure of uncertainty.
“I just would understand, that’s all,” he muttered.
“So if I decided to just start killing everyone I didn’t like, you’d think that was fine?”
“You could never do that.”
“Duh. Of course I could never do that—I’m not a psychopath! And I don’t think you are, either! Or you wouldn’t have been so nice to me in the woods, and you wouldn’t have tried to protect me ever since then.”
She drew a shaky breath, more than a little relieved at the growing doubt in his eyes, although he avoided meeting her gaze.
“Caleb…I know you have had a lot of new rules—and you’ve been soooo great about them. But this one isn’t just a rule. It’s something you feel. And you must have felt it, too, because you never killed anyone before,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper.
He looked down at their feet, his arms still crossed.
“You think I’m bad now? For what I did?”
Her lips parted, and she reached her hands up to cup his face, hoping no one was looking.
“No, Caleb,” she breathed. “I think you are a hero.”
Her thumbs brushed his cheeks as his lashes lifted at last, his eyes vulnerable.
“I never killed anyone before. And I didn’t feel bad about it.”
“I don’t feel bad about it either. He was a disgusting, horrible person.”
Her hands slipped from his face reluctantly, but he grabbed her wrists, holding them in place.
“Somebody might see us,” she said in a low voice, her eyes soft.
“Do you still love me?”
“Caleb,” she breathed, looking at his worried eyes. “There’s nothing you could do that could make me stop loving you…not ever. But I’d rather love you not killing off every boy who talks to me or everyone who does something bad to me.”
He leaned his head into her palm, rubbing his cheek against her skin, his expression a bit sulky but with a grudging acceptance.
“I don’t like him.”
Nat sighed.
“I know. But maybe…trust me a little? I don’t want to be super mean to anyone, and I do feel a bit sorry for him now, but that’s all it is. I don’t like Preston. I don’t feel anything for anyone…except you.”
His lids grew heavy, and his voice was husky when he spoke.
“I do trust you. I just don’t like sharing you.” He exhaled. “But I guess…I can suffer through it,” he finished, almost pouting. Then he leaned in too quickly for her to move and kissed her before grinning and stepping back. Her hands flew to her cheeks, and she looked around.
“Caleb!” she whispered, staring ahead at where Preston had been…looking over his shoulder?
Caleb glanced up at the retreating form and shrugged.
“Did he see? Good. Maybe now he’ll stay away.”
“Or tell the whole school!”
“We can just say he’s lying. Problem solved!” he grinned, grabbing her hand and starting to walk again.
She jerked her hand from his and held her fists to her chest while they walked.
“Unless you keep making it look bad in front of everyone!” she wailed.
“I’m just a guy who really loves his sister. What’s so wrong with that?”
Nat groaned and put her hands over her face only to hear him laugh before grabbing her arm.
“You’re going to fall if you don’t watch where you’re going.”
She had already fallen, so very hard, and she was going to have to keep on her toes with Caleb if she wanted to keep them—and everyone else—safe.
