“How, exactly, was I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know. Here’s an idea, though. How about stick around until I get back and then say, ‘thanks, appreciate it, but I’m out now!’”
“Thanks for what? Attempting to bury me alive?” he asked.
“I was not burying you alive! If I wanted to bury you alive, I could have and there wouldn’t have been a damn thing you could have done about it.”
“Seems I remember waking up in a hole, with dirt being thrown on top of me.”
“Only until I realized you were still alive. Then I dragged you out of the hole and nursed your unappreciative ass back to health. For weeks.”
“It was not weeks.”
“Yes, my ungrateful friend. It was.” As Hellen spoke, she’d been squirting shampoo in her hand and applying it to her hair, then working up a good lather. When she finished speaking, she glared at him, then stepped under the shower again to rinse the shampoo from her hair.
When she finished rinsing her hair, she opened her eyes and squinted through the water running down her face and into her eyes to try to see him, but he was gone. “Asshole,” she muttered.
“That is completely uncalled for,” he said from right outside the shower.
“Jesus Christ!” she shouted, falling against the shower wall furthest from him, her hands pressed to her chest. “Could you not do that?!” she demanded, still half-shouting at him.
“Do what?”
“Move from one place to another without letting me know you’re doing it!”
“You’re far too jumpy to be a Wolf. You’re supposed to be more calm than that.”
“And you’re not supposed to let yourself into a woman’s house without her permission!”
“You all but invited me. You even put the key back so I could use it.”
“I did not. I put the key back so my family could use it if they wanted to.”
“While daring me not to.”
Hellen glared at him.
He glared back.
“You don’t enter people’s houses without their permission.”
“Don’t dare me.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“Fine. Whatever you say, just leave.”
He continued his staring contest for only a few more moments, then turned and walked toward the door. He paused there, then turned to look at her. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He nodded, then seemed like he was going to say something else, before changing his mind and walking out of the bathroom.
“Hey!” Hellen called out. “I don’t even know your name!”
There was no answer for a few seconds, almost as though he was considering it. Then she heard his deep, gravely voice as he gifted her his first inclination of trust. “Lucien.”
