CHAPTER ONE
“Who hit you?” Tysen asked angrily as he entered the front office.
I jerked, startled that he was so close to me and here, in the office. I hadn’t even heard the front door open, what a terrible receptionist I was. The number one rule was to be aware of your surroundings.
“Um…” I replied smartly.
Wasn’t he supposed to be out of the state? The last I had heard, he was in another state for the rest of the week.
He tilted my face to look at him and gingerly touched the bruise on my cheek while I tried not to get lost in his eyes. “Tell me what happened,” he whispered. Even though it was an order, he said it more like a request.
“He didn’t get the promotion he was certain he was a shoe in for and went out drinking. I would have left him alone, but there was lipstick on his mouth and…”
He interrupted me with fists clenched at his side. “We’ve cleaned one of the duplexes and stocked the fridge. I’ve got two guys going to your apartment to gather your things.”
“Tysen, I…” My eyes had filled with tears as soon as he had told me they had prepared a place for me. They were too caring and too good.
He wiped the tears and smiled at me. “I’ll pick you up at five.”
“Thank…”
He put his finger over my mouth. “I promised that I would take care of you and I meant it. For the rest of your life, Jess. You should have called me last night.”
“I didn’t want you to go to jail,” I admitted to him.
“That only happens if someone can call the police,” he said with a smile that was incredibly predatory.
The phone rang, disturbing our moment.
“I have to get that,” I told him. I stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek before reaching for the headset.
“See you after work,” he said and headed towards the exit.
“Wolf Enterprises,” I answered as I watched his taut backside walk away.
After I finished with the call, I walked into the back room and stood with my hands on my hips, glaring at the occupants of the back office. Four men sat at computer desks, suddenly very interested in their work.
“Who called him?” I demanded angrily. They knew exactly what I was talking about, so I did not clarify who I meant.
They all looked at me and Tom, the oldest of them at thirty-five years old, stood up and said, “I did.” His freckles stood out more than normal from the glow of the overhead lights and his flushed skin, most likely due to anger at the situation.
“I was going to call him,” I informed them irritably.
“That bruise happened hours ago,” Marco argued and stood up. “You should have called one of us as soon as it happened.”
“I thought Tysen was out of state,” I explained.
“He was,” Tom said, “but he came back so we wouldn’t go kill that piece of crap.”
“This is why I didn’t call you guys,” I grumbled. Truthfully, I was glad to have people who cared so much for me and who had my back. I knew of quite a few women who would still be with their abusive boyfriend right now. I knew as soon as it happened that I was gone. I also knew if any of them had come to the house last night after it had happened, that Jon would have been sent to the hospital, at the very least.
“When were you going to say something?” Marco asked. “It’s ten o’clock.”
“I was going to wait until Jon was at work.”
They frowned at me.
“My bags are already packed at the house. I was not planning on going back there. You can ask whoever went to get my things, I packed it all this morning before I left for work.”
“Then why didn’t you call one of us this morning to get you and your things?” Tom asked.
“Guys, I appreciate your protectiveness and am incredibly thankful to know you have my back. However, I can take care of myself. If I didn’t know the pack, I would still have left and went to a friend’s house or something.” Not that I had many friends outside of the pack, but I would have found somewhere to stay.
They seemed satisfied with my answer and calmed down a bit. No doubt, they had heard the truth in my words. Shapeshifters were great at detecting if someone was lying.
“He is still going to get a visit,” Lucas said from the back corner where he was usually brooding. “Doesn’t matter if you waited a month or a year to tell us.”
Oh. Since I didn’t know how to respond to that, I turned and went back to my desk to do some more work. I was surprised that Tysen or the guys hadn’t tried to convince me to take the day off. Then again, at work they could keep an eye on me and ensure that I didn’t interact with Jon during the day. Or, if he did stop by my work, they would be there to talk to him.
Two hours later, I realized that my cell phone was gone.
“That jerk,” I growled at the empty front office. I dialed Tysen’s number and tapped my finger on the desk while I waited for him to answer.
“You can’t stay with him,” he said instead of saying “hello” like a normal person.
“Did you take my phone?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?” I knew why, but I still wanted to hear him say it.
“I didn’t want you listening to him trying to convince you to stay.”
“I wouldn’t. I am leaving him.”
“And I’m going to make sure that you do. I can’t spend one more day watching you slowly wither while he drains your soul.”
“That was very deep,” I whispered and then laughed softly.
“You don’t see it, but we can,” he murmured. “Your soul has darkened considerably since you started dating him.”
“Are you saying I have a black soul?” I asked with a laugh.
“Almost. Souls don’t turn fully black unless filled with evil. Yours is just sick and dying.”
“My soul can’t die,” I said and rolled my eyes.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me.”
I looked around, but he wasn’t here.
“I had already packed my things. Ask the guys after they get to my house. All of my things were packed and waiting for them.”
He didn’t talk for a moment and I savored having actually caught him off guard for a change. It rarely happened.
“I’ve got to get back to work. Just don’t break my phone,” I ordered him. After setting the phone down in the cradle, I sighed loudly. Was he right about my soul? Shifters had some really strange abilities, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
“Why are you upset?” Lucas asked me.
He leaned against the doorway, blocking everything behind him with his ridiculously large shoulders. His hair was shoulder length and tied back with a leather string. It was solid black and the softest hair I’d ever touched, male or female. His cheekbones were high and there was no doubt that he was full-blooded Cherokee. There was a rumor that he had been contacted to do modeling, but no one was able to confirm or deny it.
“Can you see my soul?” I asked softly.
He nodded once.
“Is it dying?”
“It was,” he said in agreement with Tysen. “It’s a little brighter today than usual.”
“Will I die? How do I regenerate it?” Was that even possible?
“I don’t think you will die. Happy experiences and being somewhere you feel loved will help it revive itself.”
“Is that the real reason he’s putting me in one of the duplexes?” The duplexes were situated in a small cul-de-sac and was fully owned by the pack. It was the safest place for me to be, surrounded by the pack, just seconds from someone rescuing me, if needed.
Lucas exhaled while looking at the ground. This was the most he had talked to me in a single day, ever.
“Being with the pack should help, but it won’t be enough just to live there and work here. You will still have to find happy experiences and…” He paused and then whispered, “Tysen should talk to you about this. He can tell you more.”
He was hiding something from me. After knowing these guys for a decade, I could tell.
“What are you hiding?” I asked.
He shrugged and went into the back office, closing the door. It was so infuriating how they could just walk away, leaving me to deal with the silence and unanswered questions. Leaving me alone to my own thoughts about such a serious topic for several hours was not the best decision, but I just tried to focus on work instead of my supposedly impending doom.
Tysen walked in the door at exactly five o’clock with a scowl on his face and tense shoulders.
“What’s…”
I didn’t even get to finish my question as he walked by me and into the back. He shut the door behind him and left me staring at the closed door. “Well, hello to you too.” Clearly someone was in a bad mood. I finished cleaning up my desk, organized my stacks of papers, and made my to-do notes for the next work day. I watched as the computer signed off and then switched off my monitor to save on energy.
A few minutes later, he came out with the scowl still in place. After a second of silence, he looked up at me and smiled, the anger completely gone. “Are you ready to go?” Tysen asked.
“What’s wrong?” I asked instead of answering him.
He draped his arm across my shoulders and tugged me against his side and around the front desk. “Let’s go get some food.”
“Is it about me?” I asked since he obviously wasn’t going to give me specifics.
“Do you want Mexican? I’m craving Mexican food.”
“That’s a ‘yes’ then,” I grumbled as we walked out to the parking lot. It was a hot day, one that made me glad I worked indoors and didn’t have a construction job like my dad had had. He used to come home covered in dirt and sweat and lay down on the tile floor for ten minutes before removing his boots and taking a long cold shower. Mom always complained about having to use so much stain remover on his clothes and how she had to do his clothes last or the rest of our clothes would smell like a construction site, no matter how many times she washed them.
Tysen opened the car door for me, chivalry not dead with him, and then walked around to his side. As I sat down, I noticed a cell phone on the seat. It was new and still had the plastic on the screen.
“You get a new phone?” I asked curiously despite the nagging feeling in my chest.
He sat in the driver’s seat and started the car without looking at me. “No, that’s your phone.”
I examined it and narrowed my eyes at him. “No. It’s not. Where is my phone?”
“I got you a new number too. All of your contacts, well, most of your contacts have been moved over to this phone.”
“Tysen,” I sighed. “I don’t need you getting me a new phone. I can afford a new one. Or I could have deleted his number myself.”
“Since I broke the last one, I figured I owed you a new one.”
“How did you break my phone? I told you not to break it!” One thing. I had ordered him not to do one thing and he couldn’t even do that.
His grip on the steering wheel tightened and his foot pushed down on the gas pedal a bit harder.
Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up while he was driving.
“He was messaging your phone. I told him to stop trying to contact you.”
“What did he say?” I asked softly, knowing it wasn’t going to be a good response. My boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, had no idea that Tysen and the boys at work were shifters.
“He told me that if I wanted to keep you two apart, I would have to come meet him face to face.”
Oh, Odin’s beard, that idiot.
“Is he alive?” I asked softly.
He looked at me sharply and then back at the road. “Of course he is. You know I don’t just kill people.”
“I’m surprised actually,” I admitted.
“I really wanted to,” he acknowledged, “but I thought it might upset you and I didn’t want to have to deal with his body.”
“I’m sorry that you had to deal with that. I could have handled it.”
“It was my pleasure,” he said with a wicked grin.
“He’s in the hospital, isn’t he?”
“Duh.”
I sighed and leaned my head back against the headrest. “You shifters are so protective,” I whispered.
“This has nothing to do with being a shifter,” he argued. “Any male would have done the same, even a human, or a troll.”
He was right, I knew that. I still liked to ruffle his feathers occasionally.
“Thank you,” I said quickly before he could interrupt me. “Thank you for caring.”
He linked our hands together and whispered, “No matter what, I will always protect you, Jess.”
“How do I fix my soul?” I asked him. I didn’t want to rat Lucas out for telling me about it if I didn’t have to.
“Being away from him will help. Being around the pack will also help.”
“What else? How long will it take?”
“I can heal you a bit,” he offered.
“Every time you use your powers on me, it ties us more and more. I’m human. You’re not supposed to use your powers on me.”
“The Pack Assembly met and they agreed that I could heal your soul, not all the way, but enough to ensure it was on the path to recovery.”
The Pack Assembly was a group of the top shifters in the state who met to discuss important items. Tysen was technically Alpha since he was the strongest of them all, but they didn’t want it to be a monarchy, so they created the Assembly. Knowing that they had gathered and agreed to let him do this, meant a lot to me.
Fear knotted in my stomach like a weight. “It’s really bad then, isn’t it? My soul? What would have happened if I had stayed with him?”
“Your soul would have shriveled until it was barely existent and your body would have become a shell.”
“Would I have died?”
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” he assured me and squeezed my hand.
I had forgotten we were holding hands. It was nice and reassuring, so I didn’t pull away. His hands weren’t as dark as usual. How often did he get outside anymore? He was a great attorney and made a lot of money, but he sacrificed his time outdoors, which could be a bit taxing on his primal side.
“Would I have died?” I asked him again.
His hand tightened around mine, but I was pretty sure it was involuntary. “Yes.”
I sucked in a gasp and slouched in the passenger seat. I would have died. That scumbag may have actually done me a favor by cheating on me and hitting me.
“Mexican or sushi?” he asked me softly.
“Mexican,” I whispered as the severity of my situation settled upon me.
“Hey, you’re safe. I’m here.”
“What if you hadn’t been?” I whispered mostly to myself. I was fairly certain that I still would have left Jon, I had no patience for abusive people. But, I also knew that when I left him I would have the pack to help me.
“It’s not important. What is important is that you can now live a happy life and find a man who will treat you right.”
I glanced at him and smirked as soon as I saw his clenched jaw. Tysen and I had dated a few years ago, but we broke up when I moved out of town, though I had returned only a few months later. He never stopped loving me and, if I was honest with myself, I hadn’t stopped loving him. I just wasn’t sure he was ready to be with me again.
“I guess I’m going to have to start going out to the bars on the weekends again,” I said and smiled wide. “I don’t know if I even have dresses that are short enough for this type of event.”
“You don’t need a short dress to attract men,” he said seriously.
“You’re full of compliments today, aren’t you?”
“Just speaking the truth.”
“Tysen, did you come back from your trip because of me?” They said he had been out of state, but clearly, he wasn’t anymore.
“Yes. I had to check on you and see you for myself.”
“You could have just asked Lucas or Marco about me.”
He sighed softly as he pulled into a parking spot. “I couldn’t.” Turning to face me, Tysen stared into my eyes, but I realized, he was staring into my soul, literally. “I knew your soul was dying and I knew this would accelerate it. I had to come to ensure that you were okay and help you in any way that I could.”
“I appreciate you not letting my soul die,” I said with a smile as I tried to lighten the mood, but I was also serious.
He rested his fingertips on the bruise under my eye and whispered, “This is going to tickle.” Warm light, sunlight on a spring day, emanated from Tysen. His eyes, normally green with flecks of brown, were now honey colored and glowing. My face went numb and the connection between Tysen and I woke.
He was angry, but also happy. He didn’t like that I had been hurt, but knowing I was away from that loser was great. He loved how the red shirt fit my curves and…
The connection dissipated and everything returned to normal.
“Thank you,” I said, out of breath. My cheeks were flushed and I hoped he thought it was just from his power.
“You’re welcome.”
“Food?” I asked.
He nodded and let go of my hand. “Food.”
The restaurant was busy, but we were seated right away at a table near the exit. Shifters preferred to be near exits for quick getaways in case of danger. This restaurant was decorated in greens and reds, but unlike the other Mexican food restaurants in the area, this one didn’t have anything hanging on the walls. It also had true authentic Mexican food, verified by Marco who was a stickler for that type of thing.
Tysen grabbed my hand, which was rubbing my cheek where my bruise had been.
“Sorry,” I muttered and focused on the menu.
“What would you like to drink?” Tysen asked.
“Margarita,” I replied automatically.
“You sure?” he asked and I knew without looking at him that he was scowling. I didn’t drink often, but when I did, it didn’t take much to make me drunk.
I set my menu down and said, “If you don’t want to have to deal with me, I won’t drink. Or you could just drop me off at my temporary home.”
His brows furrowed when I said “temporary”, but he didn’t comment.
“You can drink whatever you want,” he said and then added, “you just seem dehydrated.”
Was I? How much water had I drunk today?
“How about a margarita and a glass of water?” I said in compromise.
He laughed once, but his scowl was gone. “Deal.”
“I’ll have the usual for dinner as well.”
He felt that part of his chivalry required him to place the order for me. I didn’t mind. I had learned that there were a lot of things Tysen and the other shifters did that I just had to let them do. One thing was brushing their hands along my forearm when they walked by, even if I was speaking to someone else or if they were busy. The touch set off some type of sensory transmitter that relaxed them and kept them connected to each of the people they touched.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” he asked me.
No. “I was busy packing.”
“Promise me something?” he asked. “If, Odin forbid, this ever happens again, call me immediately.”
“Yeah yeah,” I said dismissively, not wanting to get into it or think about it happening.
My drinks came and after chugging my water, I started drinking my margarita.
“Yes,” I sighed after a long drink.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to heal your soul,” he informed me.
“Will it hurt?” I asked curiously.
“Have I ever hurt you before?” he asked with a smirk.
Once. We were playing in the forest, the entire pack and I. They were in wolf form and Tysen tackled me while I was running from them. He had tackled me many times before, but what we both didn’t know was that there was a rock on the ground. My head hit the ground and he stumbled, one of his claws scratching my arm.
He noticed my frown and said, “That was an accident. I never would have tackled you if I had known that rock was there. Plus, I was trying to avoid hurting you when I ended up scratching you.”
“I trust you,” I replied. “I know that you hadn’t meant to hurt me that day.”
As we ate dinner, I felt myself falling into the familiarity of being with Tysen. He was calm, even if the roof was caving in, he would slowly get up and carry me out. Okay, maybe he would run to keep us from getting squished, but he would still be calm about it.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
I hadn’t realized he was looking at me since he was signing the receipt.
“How calm you always are,” I admitted.
“Is that a bad thing?”
I shook my head. “It’s refreshing actually.”
He smiled and waited for me to start walking before following. My first few steps were a bit wobbly, which made me giggle.
“Lightweight,” he teased as he slid his arm around my waist to help support me on the walk to the car. “You’ve lost more weight than I thought you had,” he muttered as he gently squeezed my ribs. I pretended like I had not heard him.
“What am I going to do?” I asked softly as I leaned against the car and he opened the door for me.
“About what?”
“My life.”
He froze and looked at me with a neutral expression. “What do you mean?”
“I’m back to being a middle-aged, single woman with no house.”
“You have a house.”
“That’s your house,” I argued.
“Would you feel better if you paid me rent?” he asked.
“What?” I asked and blinked stupidly.
He took advantage of my shock to get me into the car and buckle my seat belt.
We headed towards the Trinity Oaks Subdivision where the duplexes were.
“I can write a contract and you can pay rent for the duplex,” he explained. “We can make it one hundred percent legal and by the books.”
“Really?” I asked in shock. When we were dating, he would have never let me pay for it. He would have insisted that I just live there.
He nodded. “I know that you don’t like being coddled and I respect that. I want to ensure that you’re safe and if that means letting you pay for rent, I’m fine with that.”
It seemed that I wasn’t the only one who had grown these past couple of years.
“You’re different,” I whispered.
He smiled. “You’re just now noticing.”
“What else have you changed your stance on?”
“You’ll have to find out as we go along.”
“Are there going to be rules regarding my using the duplex?” I asked.
“Depends…”
“On?”
“What you want.”
“Can I have parties?”
“You don’t party.”
“Can I play mariachi music?”
“You don’t listen to that anyway.”
We pulled up to his duplex and he helped me out.
“You’re going to stay here tonight, so I can keep an eye on your drunk ass.”
“Such a sweet mouth you have,” I teased him.
“So I’ve been told.” He smiled and chuckled.
“Can I paint the house pink?”
“You hate pink.”
“Can I have men over?”
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “What?”
“Can I have men over at the duplex? Human men who want to date me? Or maybe non-human men, I haven’t really thought about it.”
He didn’t answer me, instead he opened the door and helped me up the stairs to his room.
“You didn’t answer me.”
“There’s still a pair of your pajamas that you forgot in the bottom drawer,” he informed me and headed towards his bathroom.
“Have any other women worn them since I was last here?”
“No.”
I was fairly certain that he wouldn’t lie to me about that, so I changed into them while he brushed his teeth. Staring at my reflection, I frowned at the woman before me. My hair needed a trim, the split ends were making it look awful. Eyebrows needed some plucking and I needed to remember to put makeup on in the mornings so I could fill them in. I’d lost some weight since the last time I was in Tysen’s house, over two years ago, and I looked older. I tugged on the corner of my eye, fairly certain I had crow’s feet already.
“You’re doing that face that you do when you’re judging yourself,” Tysen whispered from behind me.
I looked up in the mirror to look behind me. He leaned against one of the bedposts of his bed with folded arms and a serious frown of his own. Looking handsome as ever.
“I’m old,” I explained, “and I’ve changed a lot since I was last here.”
On slow, silent feet, he padded across the carpet to stand behind me, his chin just above the top of my head. “Once your soul begins to heal, you’ll notice improvements. You also need to start eating better and working out again. Did you do anything while you lived with Asshat?”
“No,” I realized. I hadn’t worked out while I had been with Jon and he was right that I had developed crappy eating habits. I had lost all of my previously gained muscle mass, the definition in my arms and stomach long gone.
“You’re just as beautiful as you were the day I met you,” he whispered and wrapped his arms around me in a hug. “Even if you can’t see that.”
He always knew what to say. Part of me wondered if it was due to the strange bond we had developed from him healing me, or if it was part of what being a good Alpha meant.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” I asked softly. I hadn’t seen him that much over the last year, but he still could have said something during the times that he had seen me.
“Why didn’t I tell you that you needed to eat better and start working out? Maybe because I didn’t want you to think I was a dick. Plus, you were still with him so you most likely would have just fallen back on your habits and it would have made you sad to focus on it.”
“You know that I wouldn’t think you were a dick.” He was one of the few men who I’d met that told a girl to go to the gym, not because he didn’t want her to be fat or he was being insulting, but because he wanted her to be able to protect herself and stay healthy.
“Do you want to go to sleep?” he asked and released me.
“No, I think I’ll watch some TV.”
He grabbed pajamas out of his dresser and nodded. “I’ll meet you down there.”
I paused at the doorway as he took his shirt off. His back was incredibly muscular and would have been perfect for modeling, had it not been for the one, thick white scar that was diagonal from his shoulder to the top of his butt cheek. The only scar he had on his body because he had been trying to save me.
Before he realized I was still there, I hurried down the stairs with a death grip on the railing so I didn’t fall. My hand fumbled for the light switch at the bottom of the staircase and eventually found it. The bottom floor of the duplex hadn’t changed. A large flat panel TV took up one wall of the living room and three couches lined the back wall. The kitchen was small, but he had every utensil known to man. Okay, maybe not every utensil, but definitely more than most people had, even chefs. The small dining room had eight pictures around it. One of the entire pack five years ago, the day they officially became a pack of their own. Another of Tysen and Lucas standing next to a five-hundred-pound tuna, they were still very proud of that catch. The last six pictures were of the pack and me playing games and camping together. I stood in front of the very center picture and rested my fingertips on the glass. Tysen and I stood together in the center with the pack around us while we looked up at the full moon. Marco had taken that picture. It was the last picture taken of Tysen and me as a couple.
It was also the last picture taken of Tysen before he gained that scar.
“Old memories shouldn’t hurt you today,” Tysen whispered and wiped tears from my face.
“This is my favorite picture,” I said, even though he already knew that.
He nodded. “It’s one of mine as well, which is why it’s stayed up.”
“That was the night before…” the attack.
“Let the past stay there,” he whispered. With slow, gentle movements, he pushed my hair out of my face and wiped my tears away. “We are alive and that’s all that matters.”
Alcohol made me weepy. I hated being weepy. “Right,” I agreed.
He turned around and went to the living room. “Do you want to watch a movie?” he asked.
“Do you have any new ones since I was last here?” I asked him. I had to stop focusing on the past. Time to move on!
While he looked at the movie collection, I took my favorite spot on the couch, the corner where the L-shaped couch met. The cushions were very fluffy and that spot made me feel like I was being hugged.
“What’s the last movie you watched?” he asked.
What was the last movie I watched? I hadn’t really gone to the movie theater the past year. Jon had always been using the TV so I hadn’t watched movies on the television either.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
He held up a DVD case to show me the cover. It was a comedy and I had wanted to see it, but I was fairly certain I hadn’t yet. When had I stopped going to movies? I used to go at least once a month.
“Sure,” I agreed. He put the movie in and I wrapped my arms around myself. How come I hadn’t noticed the changes? There were quite a few pretty drastic changes. Had I just been slowly beaten down the last year and I hadn’t been able to notice the progress?
Tysen put the movie in and then sat on the center of the couch. “I know you’ll like this one,” he informed me.
All of my changes the past year had been negative, but Tysen’s changes all seemed to be positive so far. He always seemed perfect. Was he? When had I started adding negatives to him? I had broken up with him, but it hadn’t been because of anything he had done wrong. In fact, he had been the best boyfriend I had ever had in my entire life.
While the previews played, I really looked at Tysen. His chestnut hair was a tad longer than usual, his jaw had stubble, but no more than two days’ worth, and the muscles on his forearms appeared bigger and more defined. Or was that just the alcohol talking?
His skin wasn’t as tan as usual, which meant he had been spending a lot of time indoors. That made sense, since he was an attorney and his business had started booming according to Marco. And it confirmed what I’d thought when looking at his hands.
He looked good, no, great. Had it been a mistake to leave him? Had I wasted two years of our lives apart because I was stupid? Probably. I couldn’t even remember why I had left him to begin with.
The movie started and pulled my attention away from Tysen. We laughed together as the moon rose and I remembered what it meant to be safe.