Chapter 10
Cersi paced the apartment and waited on Tyson. He’d been in the shower a long time, and while part of her screamed that she should be hightailing it out of there, another part argued that Tyson was right. If he’d wanted her dead, he could have left her to bleed out on the pier, and if he’d wanted to hurt her, he’d had two days of her being unconscious to do whatever he wanted. Plus, the promise of seeing Vesa was too big to pass up. That and she was still hurting more than she was willing to let on and there was a legit worry that Vesa’s kidnappers were still out there. She didn’t want to have to deal with them now, not alone, and who better to have her back than the beast of a man currently taking the longest shower in the history of showers.
Worry slithered through her, and Cersi paced down the hall toward the bathroom. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe Tyson’s wound was just as bad as hers, but he’d been hiding it to be macho.
Fuck! Maybe he’s in there bleeding out right now! While he’d stitched her wound, bandaged it, and had given her pain meds, she hadn’t even made him show her his.
Feeling like a grade A asshole, Cersi tested the doorknob to the bathroom. It was unlocked. Certain that he was passed out on the floor of the shower bleeding to death, she shoved the door open and rushed in.
Stepping into the bathroom, Cersi slammed to a halt when her eyes collided with Tyson’s massive form. He was standing half-naked in front of the mirror, rubbing a towel over his wet hair. He didn’t see her right away, and it gave her enough time to slide her eyes down to his bare chest. It was thick with muscle and marred with crisscrossed scars and intricate tattoos. There was a tattooed cross right in the center of his chest, but that wasn’t what held her attention. No, what held her captive was the fact that there wasn’t any recent wound on him. No raw bullet hole like hers, no graze of his shoulder or arm like she’d barely caught him with the bullet. There was absolutely nothing. She’d shot him! She knew she had, but there was no proof of it anywhere.
Tyson lowered his towel and instantly tensed. His eyes, which had initially gone to the mirror, jerked to Cersi, but she was already backing up.
“Cersi.” His tone was calm, placating, and she barely heard it through the pounding of her heart.
“Where’s,” she breathed. “Where’s your wound, Tyson?”
Dropping the towel, he held up his hands in a calming gesture. “Easy,” he crooned.
“Tyson!” Her tone hitched and grew panicky. Backing up, Tyson stalked her step for step.
“Stop,” he commanded on a deep rumble.
She didn’t know if he meant backing away from him or letting her imagination run wild. And that’s exactly what was happening. Her mind was zipping through a thousand scenarios of how a man who’d been shot two days ago had zero evidence of that injury. Nothing made sense. Nothing.
Tyson’s voice was stark when he said, “It’s not what you think.”
“I,” she shook her head, her voice barely a whisper. “I don’t know what I think.” It was the truth.
“You’re gonna find out soon enough,” his expression turned anguished. “I wanted to wait. Was gonna tell you…show you at BlackLodge.”
Cersi’s shoulders pressed into the wall as she ran out of room to retreat. “Sh-show me what?”
Lips thinning into a grim line, Tyson lowered his hands and rose to his full height. “Fffffuck.” Plowing a hand through his still damp hair, he drew in a deep breath that expanded his massive chest. Taking a quick step back, he let a shift shuttle through him. Eyes locked with Cersi’s the whole time, he saw her deep brown eyes go wide as her mouth followed suit.
***
Tyson thought Cersi would faint at his revelation like Vesa had. Stupid assumption! He should have known better. His little Badass didn’t faint like he’d hoped. Nope! She stared at him in shock for the space of half a breath and then made a break for it. With Monster already loose, there was no hope of holding him back. He was on Cersi in two strides. His teeth caught the bottom of her pretty sweater, and she jerked to a halt. Without hesitation, she spun and punched Monster right in the snout. The dumb bastard actually beamed a toothy grin like it was a sign of affection. The display of all those sharp teeth though had the opposite effect on Cersi. Bending at the waist, she lifted both arms and slipped out of her sweater until she was bent over wearing nothing but a lacey bra and her jeans. Her hand flew to her shoulder as she backed up and dropped to her knees. Instantly, she started dry heaving and Tyson grabbed Monster around the throat and forced that fucker back down inside of him.
Back in human form, he was on his knees in front of Cersi in a flash. The instant his hands touched her though, she jerked back, eyes wild with fear.
“Easy, it’s just me!”
She scrambled backward on her ass as best she could while keeping her hand clamped to her shoulder.
“What…what…what the fuck was that?”
She stopped backing up when she ran into the kitchen island, but her fear-filled eyes stay locked on Tyson like she was afraid he was going to attack her.
Already kneeling, he dropped back onto his heels and let his shoulders drop in resignation. “I’m a shifter, Cersi. A wolf shifter. We’re pretty common, we just don’t come out to people often.”
Cersi was shaking her head vehemently, “Shifter? What? What does that mean? You’re a wolf? How? That…that doesn’t make sense!”
“No,” he buried a hand in his hair and gripped the damp strands there before dropping his arm. “It doesn’t, but you can’t deny what you just saw. And it’s not something I can explain to you in any short amount of time. The basics of it are that my parents were shifters. They had Haddix and me, and we’re shifters too.” He shrugged, “That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Her tone was incredulous. “That’s all!”
His eyes dipped which had Cersi looking down at herself. Realizing she was sitting there in her bra, she dropped the hand from her shoulder to cover her breasts.
“How’s your arm?”
“It hurts like a motherfucker,” she hurled at him. “You should’ve warned me what you were going to do!”
He smirked, “Would that have gotten me a better reaction?”
“We’ll never know now,” she grumbled shoving to her feet. “Will we?”
Tyson stood too and watched as Cersi stormed down the hall and snatched her sweater off the floor. She shoved her good arm in and then glared at him. “You’re gonna have to help me!”
Her words shocked him. He expected her to dress and try to bolt. He expected her to stay as far from him as possible. He expected what happened every time someone new found out what he was, he expected fear. Her calling him to her felt like acceptance. Without hesitation, he closed the distance between them and quickly helped her into her sweater. Gently gripping her elbow, he pulled her sweater down and guided her arm slowly into the sleeve. He couldn’t believe she was letting him touch her after what she’d just seen. Honestly, she was taking this way better than he’d ever expected.
When her head poked through the neck hole of her sweater, she glared at him. “Is my sister okay? And don’t you fucking lie to me! Is your brother gonna eat her?”
He tried to hide a smile when he answered, “Not in the way your thinking.”
His smile broke through when Cersi blushed and muttered, “Pig.”
“Wolf,” he corrected.
“Wolf,” she repeated on a breath. Looking up, her eyes locked with his. “Wolf,” she said much more firmly.
Tyson held her gaze and dipped his chin in a silent nod.
“Well, I hope it’s a long drive to BlackLodge because as you can imagine, I’ve got a zillion questions.”
He chuffed a laugh. “Yeah, figured as much.”
“For now though, I just have one.”
His grin faded.
“Am…,” she looked down like she wasn’t certain she wanted to ask, but after a minute she lifted her chin, eyes gone hard with resolve. “Am I gonna be okay with you?”
He kept his eyes on hers so she could see the sincerity in him when he said, “Badass, I’m not gonna lie. There isn’t much about me that’s good, but the one redeeming quality I have is honesty. So you can take it to the bank when I say that with me, you’re safer than you ever been. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, Monster and I vow it.”
Delicate brows shooting up, she asked, “Monster?”
“Yeah,” he grunted. For the first time in ever, he regretted the name he’d given his animal.
Cersi swallowed hard and didn’t blink for long minutes. It felt like she was trying to gauge whether she could believe him or not. Something must have convinced her though because she blinked and huffed out a breath as she gave him a firm nod. “Well, I don’t expect all that. You make your own luck, and I take care of myself. Keep your vows, Tyson BloodMoon, you don’t need to protect me from the world, you just need to not get pissed and devour me.” She held out her hand. “Deal?”
With a shake of his head and a snort, he folded his larger hand around hers, shaking it gently while images of devouring her stampeded through his head. He wanted to devour Cersi. He wanted to devour her in the worst fucking way.