Chapter 10

Triana had been sure her mother had lost her mind when she’d set three big cast-iron pots on the stove that morning to make dinner for Remy and his friends.

“It’s just the four of them. You know that, right?” Triana said as she helped her mom chop mountains of peppers, onions, celery, and herbs. “They can’t eat this much jambalaya, or we’ll have to roll them down the steps.”

“Don’t worry about that,” her mother laughed. “Something tells me those boys are going to show up here with an appetite.”

It turned out her mother had been right. Remy and his three friends had oohed and aahed in appreciation of the aroma coming from the kitchen before they’d even gotten upstairs to the dining room. And once they’d started eating, they hadn’t messed around. They’d put away more of the thick, spicy stew than Triana would have ever thought possible. And that was on top of the huge tray of corn bread they’d demolished. How the heck could guys who looked like they did eat like that? Triana put on weight just watching them.

“You have to give me this recipe,” Max told her mother as he inhaled another piece of corn bread, then helped himself to seconds—or whatever it was called when someone ate six bowls of anything. “I have to make this the next time I’m running the grills at the cookouts we have at our SWAT compound in Dallas.”

“I’ll write everything down for you,” her mother promised. “If you’re making it on a grill, you’ll have to watch the heat and stir it constantly, or all the rice will sink to the bottom and burn to a crisp.”

Sitting there at the table in a dining room that had started feeling way too lifeless since her father had died and listening to her mom share jambalaya cooking tips with Max made Triana smile. She hadn’t realized it until now, but Remy and his friends reminded her a lot of her father. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why she thought so exactly. None of them looked like him or acted like him. They simply had a presence that struck her as familiar. She was almost certain her mother felt it, too, which was probably why she was having such a good time.

Triana was still thinking about that when she realized Remy was looking at her in a way that had her stomach doing backflips. Their eyes locked, and while everyone around them was laughing and talking, she and Remy simply shared a moment alone in a room full of people.

There was no denying it. She was falling for Remy—hard. Even though she’d known him since high school, she’d only been seeing him romantically for three days, but she already wanted to spend time with him after they both went back to Texas at the end of the week. Dallas and Houston were only a few hours’ drive from each other. If she and Remy wanted to, they could make it work.

If anyone had told her she’d have these kinds of thoughts about a guy so soon after getting involved with him, she would have told them they were crazy, then tightened the straps on their straitjackets herself and called for a pickup wagon. But it wasn’t crazy. She’d never met anyone like Remy, and no matter how much she got of him, she always found herself wanting more.

Part of it was the amazing sexual chemistry between them. There was no denying that. She loved sex as much as the next girl, but with Remy she didn’t just love it—she craved it all the time. That quickie in the hallway last night had been amazing and probably should have left her satiated for days. Instead, after a couple of hours dancing with him at a club on Bourbon Street, she’d dragged him back to his hotel room for another round of lovemaking that probably qualified as an out-of-body experience.

Even more than the sexual cravings, there was something about being with Remy that made her happy. Whether they were walking quietly hand in hand down the street or chatting about the storm in the Gulf and where it might end up, Triana found herself feeling the way she imagined people felt when they were in love.

Loud laughter pulled her attention back to the conversation, and as she gave herself a mental shake, she swore from the knowing look Remy gave her that he somehow knew what she’d been thinking. It wouldn’t have surprised her. She already thought he was some kind of superhero with powers and abilities far beyond that of mortal man. How else could he be so amazing?

“Cooper wanted to do something special for his new bride to show her how much he loves her, but he also wanted it to be something she would never see coming in a million years,” Max was saying, and it took Triana a moment to figure out they were talking about one of the other guys on the Dallas SWAT team who’d recently gotten married. “So he got the whole team together and we came up with a choreographed line dance to the song ‘Howlin’ for You’ by the Black Keys.”

“Let’s just say there’s a reason most of us are cops and not dancers,” Brooks said with a pointed look at Zane. “The whole thing was supposed to be sexy, but it ended up being hilarious. Everly, Cooper’s wife, practically passed out she laughed so hard.”

Triana’s mother smiled. “And you all danced?”

“Only because we didn’t want to let Cooper down,” Zane said. “But since I have absolutely no rhythm, I mostly stood there looking cool and snapping my fingers to the beat.”

Triana wasn’t so sure of that. She’d seen Zane and Kim dance together last night, and he seemed to have plenty of moves as far as she could tell. She opened her mouth to say as much, but Max already had Zane on his feet and was attempting to show him how to do the dance they’d done at the wedding. Despite what she’d seen last night on the dance floor, it turned out that Zane honestly didn’t have any rhythm. Then again, he didn’t have any music to work with so that could have been part of the problem.

“You gotta loosen up those hips, dude,” Brooks said in between laughing. “You dance like you have a stick shoved up your butt.”

Zane tried, he really did, but it was hopeless. Triana laughed so much she almost fell out of her chair. If she stayed and watched the British SWAT cop try to dance any longer, tears were going to start running down her face and that would just make a mess of her makeup.

“I’m going to get the dessert,” she said to Remy. When he made as if to join her, she shook her head. “Stay. I’m just going to slice the cake and bring it out. Hang out here and make Mom laugh some more.”

In the kitchen, Triana took the big chocolate cake out of the fridge, then grabbed plates from the cabinet. When her mother had frosted the layer cake earlier, Triana had been sure most of it would go to waste, considering how much jambalaya she’d made. But after seeing those guys in there eat, she figured there wouldn’t be a crumb left.

As she sliced the cake, Triana wondered when she should bring up the idea to Remy of continuing their relationship long distance. She was so distracted, she hadn’t even realized she’d cut herself with the knife until she felt a sting along one side of her left index finger.

Crap.

She jerked her hand away from the cake, afraid she was going to get blood on it. She’d barely gotten her hand under the faucet so she could wash it off and see how bad it was when she felt someone beside her. She turned to see Remy standing there, a look of concern on his face.

Damn, he was quiet for someone of his size. She hadn’t even heard him come in.

“Let me see how bad it is,” he said, taking her hand and pushing it under the faucet, then gently washing away the blood.

Triana opened her mouth to tell him it was nothing and that she could take care of it, but the words got stuck in her throat at the worry on his face. She glanced at her finger, thinking maybe the cut was worse than she’d thought. But it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it was a little nick less than half an inch long and not as bad as some paper cuts she’d had. You wouldn’t have known that from the care Remy took tending to the cut. He washed it out with soap and water, then put pressure on it to stop the bleeding, while drying the rest of her hand with a towel.

“Where does your mother keep her Band-Aids?” he asked.

She was going to tell him that she could get it, but one look at his face changed her mind. “On the lower shelf of the linen closet in the hallway.”

Triana expected him to go get it, but instead, he stood there holding her finger tightly, his expression thoughtful. While she certainly enjoyed him holding her hand, she was a little confused at the same time. They certainly couldn’t stay like this for the rest of the night.

She opened her mouth to point out that everyone was probably waiting for dessert when Zane walked in with the box of Band-Aids. The British SWAT officer didn’t say a word but simply set the box on the counter, then walked out.

Triana stared after him.

“How did he…?” she began, but the words trailed off as Remy opened the paper wrapping of the Band-Aid and applied it to her cut.

“Thanks,” she said. “I never thought of first aid as romantic, but now I see I was wrong.”

He arched a brow. “Romantic, huh? I’ve never thought of it that way, but maybe I have a different definition of the word than you do.”

Triana raised up on tiptoe and kissed him, wrapping her arms around him to pull him close. “Does that fit your definition of romantic better?”

Remy nodded, giving her another kiss, this one long and lingering. Her body quivered in response, and she glided one hand down to caress the bulge in his jeans.

“Think anyone would noticed if we slipped into my room for a quickie?” she asked teasingly. “I promise not to make too much noise.”

He chuckled softly. “As tempting as that is, I think someone might come looking for us.”

She let out a dramatic sigh. “You’re probably right. Promise to make it up to me later?”

He kissed her again, making her weak in the knees. “Count on it.”

* * *

“So, now that the locals are gone, are you going to tell me what the hell has been occupying that so-called mind of yours?” Max asked.

Remy frowned across the table at the younger werewolf. He and Max had joined some of the NOPD SWAT team for lunch after Drew and Brooks had put an early halt to the morning’s training so they could make that afternoon’s work more difficult. Since there’d been fifteen of them, the waitress had shown them to a back room reserved for parties, but now that the other cops had left, he and Max had the place to themselves.

“Nothing,” he lied.

Max snorted. “Bullshit. You were so preoccupied during training this morning that you tossed a 180-pound body dummy over your shoulder and hopped an eight-foot-high chain-link fence like it wasn’t even there. Gage told us not to do crap like that.”

Remy opened his mouth to deny it, then stopped himself. Maybe he had done something that stupid. He wasn’t sure. The morning had been kind of a blur. In fact, he barely remembered any of the combined physical fitness and tactical movement training Drew had put together for them. It wasn’t his fault. The training, which consisted of humping heavy gear and rescue dummies, climbing buildings, and shooting pop-up targets, hadn’t been very challenging. Unfortunately, that had left him with lots of time to think about other stuff—like Triana.

“Did anyone see me do it?” he asked.

Max waited until the waitress dropped off their second orders of burgers and fries and left the room before answering.

“No. No one saw you do it but Brooks and me.” Max reached for the bottle of ketchup. “So what the hell is bothering you?”

Remy glanced out the window at the light drizzle coming down. That morning, the weather experts had announced that Ophelia had changed direction and was now moving along a more northerly track. While New Orleans wouldn’t get hit with the worst of the storm, it would still get wet. The outermost rain bands of Ophelia had started coming ashore an hour ago, dropping rain all the way from Mobile in the east to Lafayette in the west.

“I’m just worried about this thing with Aaron Lee,” Remy said, turning back to Max. “It’s been two days and we haven’t heard anything from the informant in his organization. For all we know, the guy—if it is a guy—could be dead by now.”

“I hear ya.” Max dumped half a bottle of ketchup on his plate, completely drowning his waffle fries, then took a big bite out of his cheeseburger. “How’s everything going with Triana?”

Remy cringed. He should have known Max wouldn’t buy his crap about the informant. While he was worried about the informant risking his, or her, life to put Aaron Lee behind bars, that wasn’t what had his head spinning in circles. That didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it though.

“Good,” Remy said noncommittally as he focused on his food. He stayed away from the ketchup, preferring to taste the food he was paying for, not the free bottle of crushed tomatoes on the table. “We have a lot of fun together.”

“You have a lot of fun together,” Max mimicked, imitating Remy’s casual tone. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but what the hell is wrong with you?”

Remy ground his teeth. Did Max even have a filter on that damn mouth of his? “What do you mean?”

“It means you’re full of shit,” Max said. “I haven’t been a werewolf long enough to know if you’re sending out those signals that some of the others can pick up on telling them if you’re lying, but I don’t need to be a werewolf to figure it out. Don’t tell me you haven’t realized just how special Triana is, because the rest of us sure as hell have.”

“I’ve already said we have a lot of fun together,” Remy pointed out.

Max shoved a waffle fry in his mouth. “Yeah, I heard you the first time. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re scared.”

Remy gave him a sharp look. “Scared of what?”

“Scared that Triana is so special.”

Remy shook his head. “It’s not like that. Just drop it, okay?”

But Max didn’t drop it. Instead, he reached across the table and poked Remy hard in the chest, making his chair slide back a few feet.

“It’s not like that?” Max snarled, his eyes rimmed in gold. “Then maybe you can tell me how it is, because I’m not seeing it.”

Remy stared at him. Like any newer werewolf, Max sometimes had control issues, but Remy had no idea why the guy was so pissed at him.

“Things with her are happening too fast, that’s all,” Remy said, pulling his chair in.

Max frowned. “What do you mean, it’s happening too fast?”

Remy sighed, wishing he didn’t have to talk about this but knowing Max would never let it go.

“I was thrilled when we ran into Triana in that club Sunday night,” he said. “She’s a beautiful, intelligent woman I enjoy spending time with, but I never wanted it to go beyond that.” Max opened his mouth to say something, but Remy cut him off. “Unfortunately, it’s too late for that, and now things are getting…strange.”

Max downed another waffle fry. “Define strange.”

“Remember when Triana nicked her finger with the knife last night?”

Max nodded. “Yeah. I smelled the blood the same time you did.”

Remy sighed. “I knew she cut her finger before I smelled the blood.”

Max frowned. “What? How?”

“That’s where the strange part comes in. I knew it the moment it happened. I didn’t smell it. I didn’t hear it. I frigging felt it.”

“What do mean, you felt it?”

Remy shook his head. “I know it’s crazy. I was sitting there watching you trying to teach Zane to dance, then I felt a twinge of pain in my left index finger. I didn’t even know what it meant, but I was up and heading for the kitchen anyway.”

Max’s eyes widened. “Okay, that’s freaky.”

“No kidding. And it’s something that’s been building since I saw her on Sunday night. Triana is getting under my skin like you wouldn’t believe.” Remy stared down at his half-eaten cheeseburger. “After I bandaged her finger, she asked if I wanted to go to her room for a quickie.”

“I heard,” Max said. “So Triana is wild. Nothing wrong with that.”

“The problem is I’m finding it nearly impossible to say no to her,” Remy said. “It’s like I’m addicted to her.”

Max grinned. “As addictions go, I think I could deal with it. Yeah, feeling things she feels is a little weird, but I’m still not understanding your major malfunction with this situation.”

Remy cursed silently. Why did this have to be so frigging complicated? “When we got back to my room last night, we ended up making love for hours, and it was amazing.”

“Is the malfunction showing up at some point?” Max interrupted. “Or are you just rubbing it in?”

“I’m getting to it,” Remy snapped. “As Triana lay there on my chest afterward, she whispered something I can’t stop thinking about.”

“What?” Max quipped. “‘Worst sex ever’?”

Remy bit back a snarl. “No, you stupid dumb-ass. She whispered that this—us…her and me together—is something she could really get used to.”

Max stared at him as if he was a pig wearing a Rolex.

“Damn, you’re slow,” Remy growled. “Max, we’ve been together for four frigging days and Triana is already thinking long-term. While I didn’t exactly freak out, I definitely tensed when she said it, and I think she picked up on it.”

“Shit,” Max muttered. “You sure?”

Remy shrugged. “She didn’t say anything else to me the rest of the night and didn’t give me more than a quick kiss when I left the hotel room this morning. I didn’t do it to upset her, but when she said those words, they set off alarms.”

Not to mention made him want to run for the frigging hills. Even that might not be far enough to forget about Triana and the things she was making him feel.

Max didn’t say anything. Instead, he seemed to be considering that as he ate the rest of his fries and wolfed down what was left of his cheeseburger. When he finally finished chewing, he wiped his mouth with a napkin and shook his head.

“Okay, I thought about it and I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t get it. You have a beautiful woman who’s crazy attracted to you. She also happens to be an old friend, so she has that going for her too. Then there’s the whole sexual-chemistry thing, and apparently she’s already excited about the idea of a future with you. So, what the hell is the problem again?”

Remy cursed. “It’s not that simple.”

“It seems pretty simple to me,” Max said. “You’ve found The One for you, so what’s all the drama about? You’re like the sixth member of the Pack who’s found theirs in the past year. Seven, if you count Khaki. I’m not really sure if that counts as one or two since she fell for Xander, and I already took him into account. Now that I think about it, I’d count her in the total number, since she’s part of the Pack now.”

Remy ignored the rest of Max’s rambling babble. The One. Remy had avoided even thinking about that term over the past few days, telling himself there was nothing more going on between him and Triana than an old friendship and some epic sexual chemistry. There was a part of him that had known he was lying to himself, of course. But he did that a lot, and was completely okay with it.

Now, he couldn’t avoid the obvious anymore. The thought that Max was right and Triana was almost certainly the one-in-a-billion soul mate he was destined to be with for the rest of his life started a panic attack like nothing Remy had ever experienced. One second he was hyperventilating, and the next he was starting to shift.

They might have been in the backroom of the restaurant, but there were probably forty people twenty feet away, and there he was completely wolfing out. His fangs and claws extended, his facial bones reformed, his nose began to push out, and every muscle in his body started to twist and spasm as it attempted to assume a shape that sure as hell wasn’t appropriate for his current environment.

If he hadn’t been freaking out at that moment, Remy would have taken the time to wonder how it was possible for him to shift so fast. Unfortunately, he was freaking out, and all he could do was attempt to get a grip on himself, slow down his breathing, and shove the beast back inside its cage. But no matter how hard he fought, it wasn’t working. He was going to completely lose it. Right there. Right then.

Remy was about to get up and launch himself out the window, praying he could make it into the wooded area behind the restaurant without anyone seeing him, when he felt a stabbing pain in his hand.

He looked down at his hands stretched out on the table in front of him, inch-long claws extending from the tips of each finger. The ring finger on his left hand had been dislocated at the second knuckle and now lay twisted to the side at a weird angle. As he tried to make sense of that, Max grabbed the pinky finger beside it and twisted that one too.

Shit, that hurt.

When the pain of the ligaments starting to give way finally broke through the panic racing through his body, Remy’s control snapped back into place. His facial features returned to normal, then his fangs and claws retracted, and finally the long muscles of his legs and back calmed down and stopped spasming.

He popped his two fingers back into place as Max swiped a waffle fry off his plate. Remy resisted the urge to stab him with a fork.

“What the hell is up with you?” Max asked after all Remy’s parts were back in place. “I’ve never seen you lose control. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the Pack lose it as bad as you just did. Well, maybe Carter, but he’s always had issues.”

Remy grabbed his iced tea and downed the entire glass in a few swallows. Then he sat there a while trying to get his heart rate back to normal when all it wanted to do was start racing all over again at the knowledge that Triana was The One for him.

He had a sudden urge to ask the waitress to bring in a couple of bottles of the strongest whiskey they had behind the bar, but decided against it. Not only would it look bad as hell to have a cop in a Dallas PD uniform sucking down booze with his lunch, but Max wouldn’t have let him do it anyway. The idiot would probably sit there cheerfully breaking his fingers for the rest of the afternoon.

“I’ve been in love before,” he finally said. “Her name was Jess, and she was my partner in the U.S. Marshals, back before I became a werewolf.”

Max was so stunned he stopped, the waffle fries he’d stolen from Remy’s plate halfway to his mouth. “No shit?”

“No shit,” Remy confirmed. “I was naive enough to believe having a relationship with my partner wouldn’t lead to trouble at some point. It was against the rules, but I was young, cocky, and thought I knew it all. I figured I could have everything I wanted without having to pay the price. It turned out I was wrong.”

“What happened?” Max asked.

“We went after some assholes who’d broken out of the federal prison in Leavenworth and ended up trying to take them down without backup. My relationship with Jess made me lose focus at the wrong time. It got her killed and turned me into a werewolf.”

On the other side of the table, Max stared at him. “That’s it? You were in love, she died, and now you aren’t interested in women anymore? Wait a minute. What am I saying? I’ve seen you go out with lots of women. Hell, I’ve never known you to not be with a woman.”

Remy shrugged. “That’s different. Sure, I like women—I’m an alpha frigging werewolf. It’s just that I have no interest in anything serious with any of them. I let them know I’m in it for the fun and I only go out with women looking for the same thing. I rarely see any woman more than three or four times, except a select few. But those are special cases because both parties involved know it’s just a sexual thing. We’re both comfortable with the fact that we’re using each other for sex.”

Max shook his head as he pilfered more fries from Remy. “Damn. I’m a guy and even I think that’s messed up. You’ve committed your life to a series of meaningless fucks because a woman you were serious about died in the line of duty? You can’t really believe that Jess’s death is on your hands. I don’t know the particulars, but she probably would have died even if you hadn’t been sleeping with her.”

“But I was sleeping with her, and she did die.” Remy held up his hands so Max could see his palms. “See that?”

“See what?”

“The blood.”

Max lifted a brow. “Dude, maybe we can set you up with that shrink who talked to Cooper a while ago. He might even be able to text you her number, so you can call her now.”

“I don’t need to talk to a shrink,” Remy ground out.

Max looked doubtful. “I think maybe you do, because there’s no blood on your hands—figurative or otherwise.”

Remy stared down at his hands. “That’s funny, because I see it all the time.” He pinned Max with a look. “Watch someone you love die in your arms when you could have done something to prevent it, then tell me there’s no blood on your hands.”

Max sighed. “Okay. You blame yourself for your partner’s death. I get that. I hate to tell you this, but none of that matters. Because whether you want it to happen or not, Triana is The One for you. You’re going to have to come up with a way to deal with that.”

Remy didn’t bother denying it this time, not even to himself. He shook his head in disgust at his own stupidity. The moment he’d seen Triana on the dance floor, he’d known there was something special there. He should have run the other fucking way then, but instead he’d convinced himself he could reach out and play with fire for a little while and not get burned by the werewolf legend that had bonded the other members of his pack with their soul mates.

He’d been wrong.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or throw up. Of all the guys in the Pack who’d been secretly looking forward to finding The One for them, it had happened to him, the one werewolf who’d been praying it wouldn’t.

The irony wasn’t lost on him.

Max sat there silently, apparently waiting for Remy to wake up and realize there was nothing he could do about the situation and that he was simply going to have to accept it.

Panic punched him in the gut. After what he’d gone through with Jess, not to mention the aftermath, he promised himself he’d never get close to anyone else. The mere thought of going through the pain of seeing another woman he loved die in his arms was almost enough to bring another shift on.

“I’m not going to deal with it,” he told Max. “This is my fucking life and I’m not going to let some stupid legend decide how I live it. When I go back to Dallas, I’m going without Triana.”

Max regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, then snorted. “That’s your big plan? You’re going to stand up to this magical force from the cosmos that has been making some of the strongest werewolves in the Pack jump through hoops and just tell it to fuck off?”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Remy growled.

Max reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, yanking out enough twenties to cover both their meals. It was only right, since the waffle-fry-stealing punk had eaten most of the food anyway.

After tossing the money on the table, Max gave him a curious look. “I’ve come to the conclusion that you have a frigging screw loose, so I’ve stopped expecting anything you say to make sense, but let me ask you one thing. What the hell are you so worried about?”

Remy swallowed hard. “I’m worried that I’ll have to live every second of my life looking over my shoulder, worried a mistake I make is going to get Triana killed.”

Max shook his head. “Yup, you’re beyond mental. Damn, Remy. Triana isn’t Jess. She’s not a cop; she’s a scientist in a lab, complete with the funny white jacket and a magnifying glass. She’s not in any danger.”

Remy got up from the table and headed for the door, not even bothering to reply. Max wouldn’t get it. How could he explain his gut was screaming that if he gave in and let Triana into his life, she’d be the one that would pay for his decision?