Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter, page 5
part #2 of Midnight Liaisons Series
Ramsey.
“I . . . I . . . sorry,” I wheezed, my heart pounding as I tried to calm from the nightmare. “Did I wake you up?”
“You were screaming,” he said in a low voice. “Listen to me very carefully.” His voice was deep, slow, and even. “Relax your body. Think of me and my voice, and I want you to relax your muscles. Unclench them and just relax. Understand?”
I blinked in the darkness. “I think I’m okay now, really—”
“Listen to my voice,” he repeated. His form was immense; when he moved, his big shoulders hid the moonlight from the hole in the roof, blotting out the world in the darkness. He leaned in, so close I could feel the whisper of his breath on my cheek and neck. “I want you to think about me. Focus on my voice and my heartbeat. Can you do that?”
I stared at him, confused. “I—”
“Get away from her,” a male voice roared. The door to the bedroom crashed open with a massive scrape on the floorboards, and I saw Connor slam into the room, wolf-eyes gleaming. He clutched a baseball bat in his hands. Before I could scream, he swung it and connected hard with Ramsey’s shoulder.
The bear-shifter grunted but didn’t move from where he crouched over me, caging me in his arms. Protecting me. I expected to hear a growl in his throat, but to my surprise, his voice remained slow and even, as if he’d been trying to calm a wild animal. “Leave us alone, wolf.”
Connor looked over at me, and then blanched. He took a step backward. “Oh. Oh, shit. Sara, are you okay?”
“Just a nightmare,” I said, then raised a hand to shoo him . . . and noticed my fingers were tipped with thick claws. In horror, I stared down at them. My arms were thick with gray fur, and my muscles vibrated with the need to change. Ramsey’s forearms bled in four long furrows—I’d attacked him in my dream.
“Sara,” Ramsey said in a low voice, ignoring Connor. “Listen to me. Think of me.” He moved over me, his gaze trapping mine. “Connor is going to leave us alone now.”
I looked over at the wolf, who was staring at me with something akin to horror. After a moment, Connor nodded and slung the bat back over his shoulder, mumbled something about seeing us in the morning, and shut the door behind him again.
I turned wild eyes to Ramsey. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry—”
“Shhh.” His fingers gently touched the sides of my face again, stroked my hair, completely ignoring the fact that I’d carved his arms up or that Connor had attacked him. It must have hurt, but he showed no reaction, his gaze focused intensely on me. “Concentrate on my voice. On my breathing. My pulse. Follow me. Focus on me. Understand?”
Oh, jeez, it must have been worse than I imagined. I thought of Connor’s look of horror as he’d come in the room. He’d looked revolted at the sight of me. “My face is half changed, isn’t it?”
“That’s not important,” Ramsey said, large fingers continuing to stroke the sides of my face. “Listen to my breathing, and match yours to mine. Breathe with me.”
I did, inhaling slowly and breathing in the musk of his bear-scent. He didn’t smell like wolf, and the heavy feel of him over me didn’t feel like it was trapping me; it felt like it was protecting me. It took several minutes before my heart calmed to a steady pace again, in tandem with Ramsey’s slow, even beats.
After several minutes, he nodded and then sat up. “Better.”
I stole a peek at my hands—normal again. My fingers went to my face, and I touched my nose. Normal, except for a nosebleed. Thank God. One time I’d been stuck with a half-monster snarl for eight hours and had been terrified I’d never change back. The nosebleed was distressing, though. It reminded me of Levi’s words—that I was going to kill myself with my shifting. “Um. Got Kleenex up here?”
He stripped his shirt off and handed it to me. I took the shirt and wadded it up, holding it to my nose. It smelled like Ramsey and sweat, an oddly pleasant combination. “Thank you.”
“Who is Roy?”
I blushed in the darkness. “The asshole who changed me.”
“You were screaming for him not to hurt you.” Not an accusation, a statement.
How embarrassing. “I don’t want to talk about this, please,” I said in a small voice. I expected Ramsey to push the issue, but he remained silent, his gaze watchful on me. I reached out a hand to his big arm. “Is your shoulder okay?”
“It’ll be fine by morning.” He stood and crossed over to the far side of the room, made sure the door was locked, and then returned to the bed.
I watched his body as he moved. I couldn’t help it. My entire body was tense with nerves. The last time I’d been in a room with a half-naked man, he’d usually beaten the crap out of me and told me I deserved it, so I was wary when it came to intimate relationships. Ramsey was massive, too. A lot of shifters were in great shape, thanks to the animal inside that loved to run and play, and most were corded with muscle, rippling with six-packs. Ramsey was just . . . mammoth. He was six and a half feet of pure, solid muscle on a massive frame. Thick and solid like a boxer. Suddenly I doubted very much that the bat had hurt him, and a quiver of fear shot through me when he sat on the other side of the bed and then lay down next to me. I clutched the shirt to my nose, waiting.
He simply closed his eyes as if I hadn’t been there.
“So about this,” I said, feeling the need to make excuses for my behavior. “I should have said something. It happens more often than I’d like. I’m sorry.”
He looked over at me at that. “Every night?”
“Not the nosebleeds,” I joked. “That’s special for tonight.”
He stared at me, his jaw clenched. “If you are frightened of me—”
“Oh, no, that’s not it,” I said hastily, surprised. He thought that was why I was having nightmares? How totally awkward. I mean, I was scared of him, but that wasn’t causing me to turn in my sleep. “I have these all the time. Roy, I was scared of. You? You’re just . . . big.”
He snorted.
“It’s true,” I said, deciding to tease him a little more to defuse the situation. “It’s like you’re Paul Bunyan. Or since you’re a shifter, maybe more like his ox.”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “Bear.”
“Okay, then. I’m Goldilocks, and I got stuck with the biggest bear instead of the one that’s just right.”
Silence again. Then he turned toward me, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “I am big, Sara. I’m big and I don’t talk much, but I would never hurt you. You understand that?”
Damn. I seemed to always say the wrong thing. I nodded. “I know. My head knows it, but my body takes a little longer to remember it.”
He regarded me for a moment more, then touched my cheek again. “Sleep.”
“I should probably stay up for a bit,” I said, testing my nose. Good. It had stopped bleeding. “Make sure I don’t shift again or attack anyone. I’ll probably be a little twitchy for the next hour or two.”
His hand cupped the side of my head. “Sleep. I’ll watch over you.”
“All right,” I said softly, unsure how to take that. It was . . . sweet of him to offer, but did I trust him to have my back? He stared back at me, unflinching and solemn. I realized that if this was going to work, we needed to be a team.
And I needed to trust him.
So I lay back on the bed and tried to relax, not anticipating being able to sleep at all. Ramsey’s dark eyes gleamed in the moonlight, and I knew he was watching me.
Despite my nerves and the anxiety of sharing an unfamiliar bed, for some reason I fell right back to sleep. This time my dreams were peaceful and quiet, and filled with the sounds of Ramsey’s soothing voice.
The next morning I awoke warm and cozy. I blinked a few times, wondering why I felt so delicious and safe. The scent of something unfamiliar brushed my nostrils, but my sleep-drugged brain didn’t seem to grasp it.
A hand slid down my back and pulled me closer, and I realized the heavy rumble in my ear was a snore.
Blinking, I focused on the very broad, very bare chest I was curled up against. My cheek was laid against one blazingly hot pectoral, my fingers curled in blond chest hair. A massive hand rested on my back, pulling me close, and my legs were tucked close against his.
My breathing quickened and I watched his chest move up and down for a minute, trying to think of how to extricate myself from his grasp. My clothes were still on, which was a good thing. Ramsey was shirtless and, under the blankets, possibly naked. I sure hoped not.
The heavy, even breathing continued, but the snoring had stopped. Maybe I could sneak out before he was totally awake . . .
“I will not bite you,” his deep voice said in my ear.
I jerked my fingers away when I realized they were still entwined in his chest hair. “Oh. Of course. I know that. I was just figuring out how to get out of bed without waking you up.”
As his large hand moved off my back, I rolled away and got to my feet, straightening my clothes. My hair felt like a stiff mess and my eyes felt puffy, but the rest of me felt . . . pretty good, oddly enough. I stretched, testing my muscles. Who would have known I’d have slept so well next to a giant? Except for one small thing, of course. “I know we have this fake marriage thing going, but in the future can you not grab me when I’m sleeping?”
Ramsey swung his legs over the side of the bed, and I was relieved to see that he had slept in his jeans. He scratched his chest and my gaze was drawn to that big hand, the hard, rippling layer of muscles over his big chest . . . he was enormous. Gorgeous, but enormous.
“It was you.”
“Huh?”
“You grabbed me,” he said. “You had bad dreams and trembled in your sleep. Then you rolled over and grabbed me, and slept quietly. I left you there.” His level gaze seemed to add, Because I’m a nice guy.
“Oh. Thanks. I think.” Jeez, I was pretty sure I was blushing. Had I clung to him while I’d slept? My sleeping self was either a total coward or a cuddler. Neither one was optimal. I adjusted the knots on my shirt, which had held up overnight but looked ready to go. “Where did you put my bag?”
“First we will talk about this ‘Roy’ person.”
I moved toward the door. “No, we’re not talking about him.”
Lightning fast, Ramsey’s big form blocked my way. “We’ll talk now.”
Memories flashed through my mind, and I immediately began to tremble all over at the sight of the blocked exit, panic looming in my mind. “Please . . . please move.”
Remorse flickered across Ramsey’s face, and he immediately moved to the side and held the door open. “Not trying to frighten you.”
“It’s okay,” I said, blinking to clear my mind of foul memories. “Just reminded me of . . . bad things. Can we talk about stuff later? I’m hungry.”
He nodded silently, and I fled down the stairs.
A cursory search of the house showed me that my bag had been left in the foyer. I rummaged through it, looking for my favorite pink T-shirt. I took it to the bathroom and yanked it over my head, tossing the other. The bathrooms were cleaner than the rest of the house, thank goodness. This one had peeling wallpaper and a broken mirror, but the tub, toilet, and sink were intact. I frowned at my reflection. Dried blood had run into my hairline on one side of my face, the black makeup had landed underneath my eyelids, and my hair stuck out in all directions. Charming. I turned on one of the faucets, and the entire wall groaned as if in pain. I quickly shut it off again and took a step backward. “Do you have water, Ramsey?” I yelled up the stairs.
“Sometimes.”
“Great,” I muttered. Using a clean sock from my bag, I spit-cleaned my face as best I could. At least I could use the sink at work. My wild blue hair was tamed with a shoelace headband, and I was ready to face the day. Day one as Mrs. Ramsey Bjorn. Yikes.
The kitchen proved as empty and broken down as the rest of the house, and I opened the fridge and quickly shut it again, waving a hand in front of my face to clear the smell. “Did something die in your fridge?”
“No,” Ramsey said, turning the corner and entering the room to the side of me.
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. His shaggy blond hair was wet and slicked away from his face, curling around the dark blue collar of his security T-shirt tucked into his pants. It emphasized the breadth of his body, and I found myself oddly fascinated as those hands slipped underneath his belt, adjusting the shirt. “Where’d you get the water?” I asked.
“Well. It’s outside.”
That sounded . . . rustic. I frowned and gestured at the fridge. “Your cupboard’s bare, dude.”
“I don’t eat here.”
I raised my eyebrows. It shouldn’t have surprised me, given that the house was falling down around our ears. But still. “But we’re mated. We need a real kitchen, and a fridge if we’re going to live here. Where do you normally eat?”
“With the Russells.”
That didn’t help much. I looked back at the ancient fridge, not daring to open it again. “That fridge croaked long ago. Do you ever stay here?”
“Rarely.”
“Then why own such a dump?”
He gave me a quelling look, as if horribly insulted. “Needed a home.”
“Judging by the look of this place, you still need one. I can’t believe we’re going to stay here for the unforeseeable future.”
“It’s your fault.”
I stared at him. “My fault?”
“Your plan, wasn’t it?”
He had me there. “The next time I have a brilliant plan, tell me to shut up.”
Ramsey snorted. It sounded like agreement.
Chapter Six
The guesthouse turned out to be a cute little mother-in-law-type cottage on the other side of the murky pond behind the trees. It had a running air conditioner, power, and running water. And a roof, which automatically made it better than the main house. I supposed that was where Ramsey normally stayed when he had to crash here.
I knocked on Connor’s door. When he opened it, I gave him my cheeriest look. “You about ready to head in to work with me, shadow?”
He gave me a wary look. “You okay this morning?”
“Of course,” I said, pretending last night’s embarrassing transformation hadn’t occurred. “It was just a fluke accident. Never happened before.” Much.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you want to talk about it?”
That was the last thing I wanted. I already had Ramsey crawling all over me; I wasn’t about to start confessing all my dirty werewolf secrets to Connor. “I’m going to be late to work if we don’t get moving soon,” I said, turning and leaving because that was the only way I could think to get him out of the guesthouse. “So we’d better get going, or Ramsey’s going to be cranky.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” Connor muttered, but I heard it anyhow.
It was decided that we’d grab breakfast on the way in. I knew Connor would be shadowing me, but I hadn’t realized that Ramsey would be sticking to my side as well. I couldn’t act like I didn’t want Ramsey protecting me, though. That was his job in this charade. I did my best to look delighted at the thought of Ramsey at my side all day, but I’m not sure I succeeded.
The ride into town was uncomfortable. Ramsey didn’t talk to me, and Connor was still giving me that skeptical look, and I knew he was thinking about my messy, involuntary shift last night. To distract him, I fired question after question about his family and the pack.
He answered them all with a lazy, casual drawl. His uncle was Levi, and the others were his cousins. His aunt Maybelle had been the mother to the Anderson pack, before she died a few years back. His parents lived in Arkansas. No, they didn’t like Texas. No, he didn’t miss them much. The pack kept him busy. His cousins filled out the rest of the wolf pack—Maynard, Owen, Wyatt, Buck, and Tony. The youngest was the only girl in the pack, his cousin Gracie. She was newly eighteen and a little wild, he admitted. The other wolf packs had started to sniff around her, since she was getting to about that age.
All this talk about other wolf packs and sniffing around made me highly uncomfortable, and I just shrugged when the men ordered from the McDonald’s drive-thru, my appetite suddenly gone.
A coffee was shoved into my hand and a bag of food passed to me. Ramsey glared down at me. “Eat.”
“I’m really not hungry,” I said. Just the thought of all those wolves made my stomach lurch uncomfortably.
“To learn to be a proper shifter,” Connor said as he scarfed down a breakfast sandwich in two bites, “you need fuel and a mentor, and I’m here to help you with the second part.”
I could almost feel Ramsey’s glare in Connor’s direction. The cab of the truck suddenly felt very small, and I clutched the coffee closer. “Just a small breakfast sandwich, I guess.”
Connor made a noise of approval between bites of his sandwich. “One of the first things you’re going to figure out is that the wolf in you demands food—lots of it. Especially meat, the rawer the better. It’s best to pay attention to what your wolf wants, or else ignoring it could have nasty side effects.”
“Got it,” I said in a confident voice, though I didn’t feel confident. I’d been a shifter for six years now. I knew that I liked raw meat, but I avoided it for that very reason. I thought maybe if I could control my wolf urges, I could control my wolf. It seemed like everything I thought was backward. “I feel like there’s so much I don’t understand.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Connor said confidently.
Ramsey’s hands clenched the steering wheel a little tighter.
“You want to encourage your wolf, Sara,” Connor continued. “It’s an important part of you now. The better you can handle the wolf, the easier you’ll fit in with the wolf pack.”
And there went my appetite again. I sucked in a breath, trying to calm my stomach.
Ramsey looked over at Connor with an almost violent expression. “Fuck the wolf pack. She doesn’t want to fit in.”
“It’s not about what she wants anymore, I’m afraid,” Connor said evenly. “It’s not my decision, you know. I’m just here to supervise and help out where I can. It’s all Levi. And because he’s the alpha, I can’t contradict him.”
